Developing a Love for Learning Part 3

Highly selective colleges want to admit young scholars to their student ranks. A love for learning and intellectual curiosity characterize such scholars. These attributes flow naturally from some learners, but need to be cultivated in others. In today’s podcast, Dr. Riley (from collegeapp101.com) discusses these topics with special reference to the importance of March 15 in history. Indeed, today, Sunday, March 15, 2026 is the anniversary of a significant world event. Join Dr. Riley on a journey into the ancient world, as he explains March 15’s significance and, hopefully, inspires a love for learning.

Transcript

By the year 44 of the pre-Christian era, Julius Caesar had reached the apex of power. Having crossed the Rubicon in the year 49 of that same era, his peers compared him to a Colossus, who bestrides the narrow world. But, as fate would have it, a conspiracy would undermine that power, a conspiracy, whose tremors are still felt today.

An excerpt of William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene 2. Caesar’s procession is addressed by a soothsayer.

Soothsayer: Caesar

Soothsayer: Caesar

Girls: Caesar

Caesar: Ha! Who calls? 

Caesar: Ha! Who calls? 

Boys: Ha! Who calls? 

Casca: Bid every noise be still.  Peace, yet again!

Caesar: Who…calls on me?

I hear a tongue shriller than all the music. 

Cry “Caesar.” Speak. Caesar is turned to hear.

Soothsayer: Beware the ides of March.

Soothsayer: Beware the ides of March.

Girls: Beware the ides of March.

Caesar: What…is that? 

Caesar: What…is that? 

Boys: What…is that? 

Brutus: A soothsayer bids you beware the ides of March.

Caesar: Set her before me. Let me see her face.

Cassius: Come from the throng. Look upon Caesar.

Caesar: What sayst thou to me now? 

Girls: Beware the ides of March.

Boys: He is a dreamer. Let us…Pass.

Act III, Scene 1. Caesar addresses the soothsayer just before the conspiracy rises and Caesar is murdered.

Caesar: The ides of March are come.

Caesar: The ides of March are come.

Boys: The ides of March are come.

Soothsayer: Ay, Caesar, but not gone.

Soothsayer: Ay, Caesar, but not gone.

Girls: Ay, Caesar, but not gone.

[PAUSE]

Decius: Great Caesar–

Decius: Great Caesar–

Company: Great Caesar–

Caesar: Doth not Brutus bootless kneel? 

Casca: Speak, hands, for me!

Casca: Speak, hands, for me!

Company: Speak, hands, for me!

Company: Kill him! Kill Caesar!

Caesar: Et tu, Brute?–Then fall, Caesar.

Company: Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead!

Act III, Scene 2. The crowd is addressed by a conspirator, Brutus, who according to the Renaissance poet Dante, is in the lowest level of hell. 

Brutus: Romans, countryman, and lovers, hear me for my cause, and be silent that you may hear.

If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar’s, to him I say that Brutus’ love to Caesar was no less than his.

If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer: 

Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.

Act III, Scene 2. Against the conspirators’ better judgment, Mark Antony, Caesar’s friend, eulogizes Caesar. 

Mark Antony: Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

The evil that men do lives after them;

The good is oft interred with their bones;

So let it be with Caesar. 

The noble Brutus Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:

If it were so, it was a grievous fault,

And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it.

Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest—

Company: For Brutus is an honorable man;

So are they all, all honorable men—

Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.

He was my friend, faithful and just to me:

But Brutus says he was ambitious;

Company: And Brutus is an honorable man.

He hath brought many captives home to Rome

Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:

Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?

When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;

Company: And Brutus is an honorable man.

You all did see that on the Lupercal

I thrice presented him a kingly crown,

Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;

Company: And, sure, he is an honorable man.

I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,

But here I am to speak what I do know.

You all did love him once, not without cause:

What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?

O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,

And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;

My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,

And I must pause till it come back to me.

Company: Brutus...is an honorable...man.

Caesar: The ides of March are come.

Soothsayer: Ay, but not gone.

Caesar: The ides of March are come.

Soothsayer: Ay, but not gone.

Caesar: The ides of March are come.

Soothsayer: Ay, but not gone.

Caesar: The ides of March are come.

Soothsayer: Ay, but not gone.

Boys: The ides of March are come.

Company: Ay! But not…gone!