Welcome to the American Story. This is Chris Flannery with the Claremont Institute.

This story is one in a series about an immigrant boy who became my good friend

and holds a special place in the history of the

Claremont Institute. He was born American but in the wrong place. I call this one

the art of teaching. Some people seem to be great teachers by nature.

Peter was one of these and he perfected his natural gift with art. His gift for

teaching was inseparable from his gift for being a student and his gift for

friendship.

He was both a teacher and a student to all his friends.

Many of his students became his friends and even his teachers.

And together, gladly would they learn and gladly teach.

Generations of grateful students have left tributes to him, some in the form of poetry, the natural form of gratitude for the gift he gave to friends and students alike.

In these tributes, you see that the Totus porkus principle was the soul of his teaching too.

His friends and students saw in him unmistakably every day,

the truth that there are things in life worthy of the last full measure of devotion and

that a life dedicated to understanding such things and living up to them was the

life you wanted to live. That was a life that demanded the whole hog from you and you

wanted to give all the hog you had, to be in Totus Porcus and to be among friends

who were in Totus Porkus too.

It was the greatest imaginable gift to discover that.

It made you better immediately and would never cease to make you better.

It added magic to make you better.

...