Located in the foothills of Wyoming's spectacular wind river range, Wyoming Catholic College,

an accredited four-year Great Books Institution is built on the ancient Western tradition of the liberal arts and the freedom of the American West.

The college offers its students an immersion in the primary sources of the classical tradition, the grandeur of the mountain wilderness, and the spiritual heritage of the Catholic Church.

Students experience the illumination of imagination and intellect through the great books and traditional disciplines,

literature and philosophy, mathematics and theology, science and Latin, and an outdoor program second to none.

The college celebrated an in-person graduation with its seniors last year

and welcomed its largest freshman class ever this year.

Learn more about the college's unique space in the world of American higher education

at Wyoming Catholic.edu.

We have with us today Jonathan Marks.

He is Professor of Politics at Ersinus College. He's the

author of Perfection and Disholmony in the Thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and he blogs for

Commentary Magazine. He has a new book out called Let's Be Reasonable, a conservative case for

liberal education. Welcome, Professor Marks. Thank you for having me, Mark.

Thanks for plugging my Rousseau book.

Sure, sure. Always happy to plug Jean-Jacques, so for all the damage he's done, actually.

But first question, why is it necessary at the present time to make a conservative case

for liberal education?

I think one reason and maybe the main reason at the moment is that the conservative mood

never that friendly to higher education has darkened toward it.

And I think there are reasons for that.

Some of them have to do with the internals of the conservative movement.

...