What AI Can’t Replace: Why Great Books Still Matter | Walter DuPre

What can artificial intelligence never replace?

In this episode of The Liberty Show, Matthew Kirby sits down with investor, lifelong reader, and Atlanta Classical Academy supporter Walter DuPre to discuss the enduring value of great books, liberal arts education, and lifelong learning.

Walter shares how reading transformed his own life, why he believes classical education prepares students not just for careers but for life, and why great literature remains essential in an age increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence.

The conversation explores virtue, writing, critical thinking, parenting, and the habits that help students become wise, thoughtful, and capable of self-government.

Topics include:

• Why great books still matter
• Reading in the age of AI
• Aristotle, virtue, and character formation
• Why writing clarifies thinking
• Raising children who love learning
• The purpose of education
• Liberal arts and lifelong learning
• What makes classical education different
• Why Atlanta Classical Academy gives him hope

Whether you’re a parent, educator, student, or lifelong learner, this conversation offers a thoughtful perspective on what education is truly for.

🎙️ About the Guest

Walter DuPre serves as a Portfolio Manager at Buckhead Capital Management and has spent decades studying great books, mentoring young people, leading reading groups, and supporting classical education. He is a longtime supporter of Atlanta Classical Academy and currently leads a Great Books discussion group for parents and teachers.

📚 Learn more about Liberty Classical Schools:
https://libertyclassicalschools.org

Subscribe for more conversations on classical education, character formation, virtue, and lifelong learning.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to the Liberty Show, where we talk about American classical education and invite you to join our work of improving the moral and intellectual character of the next generation. I'm Matthew Kirby. I am your host and I'm the CEO of Liberty Classical Schools, where our mission is to launch and support K-12 American Classical Charter Schools that emphasize virtuous living, traditional learning, and civic responsibility. You can read more about us at Liberty Classical Schools.org. Today, my special guest is a good friend of mine named Walter Dupree. Let me tell you a little bit about Walter. He serves as a portfolio manager at Buckhead Capital, where he leads the firm's diversified value, high net worth, and value equity investment teams. Prior to joining Buckhead Capital, he was a managing director of the Southeastern region of the Portfolio Capital Group, which was responsible for managing a portfolio of $2.5 billion in private debt and equity securities. Walter received a BA in English and American Literature from Brown University and an MBA from Columbia University. He holds both the certified financial advisor title, and he's a member of the CFA Institute and CFA Society of Atlanta. He served as the chairman of Prevent Blindness Georgia as an elder of First Presbyterian Church, and most recently on the leadership team of Kairos Church. Walter is married, has two daughters, and five grandchildren. Walter is a longtime supporter of Atlanta Classical Academy. He volunteers his time and efforts and gives lectures to students. He supports our fundraising efforts and leads our book club. And most recently he served as a substitute teacher in Mr. Andrews' Upper School Literature class, and I'm sure that he may have been one of the most overprepared substitute teachers in the history of our school. And I mean that affectionately. I know that that was uh something Walter had been looking forward to doing for a very long time. Walter's here today on the show because he is an excellent father. He's an excellent grandfather to several students at Atlanta Classical Academy, and most of all because he's a good friend who's been a great mentor to me. And I think he has a lot to share of the importance and the benefits of classical education and a love of great books. So I know you're gonna enjoy my conversation with Mr. Walter Dupree. Um well, let's start with the news that you shared with me as you walked in the door. You're gonna be doing some substitute teaching at Atlanta Class School.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

I am for the first time. I've never taught um anyone younger than adults. So I'm gonna start with seniors in high school in their second semester.

SPEAKER_02 2:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:40

Um, substituting for Josh Andrew, the headmaster. He teaches a class on the Brothers Karamatsoff every spring, and he has to travel for other responsibilities. And so he's asked me, he asked me if I would substitute, so I crash, I told him, I said, well, I read the book in my late twenties. Let me reread it. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 3:02

And the book is Brothers King.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

The Brothers Karamatsoff by Dostoevsky. It's about 850 pages. So I cra I crash-read it in December in three weeks.

SPEAKER_02 3:13

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

And now I've sat in on two of his classes this week. And anyway, I've got a lot to learn. He's taught it for 10 years.

SPEAKER_02 3:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

So anyway. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 3:24

That book has a massive impact on those kids in their spring of their senior year.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

Yeah, it's huge.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

And I think he is a masterful teacher of it. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 3:32

He is. I invited my daughter, Charlotte Marie, whose oldest son is in sixth grade at ACA to come this morning.

SPEAKER_02 3:41

How was the discussion?

SPEAKER_00 3:43

It wa I mean it's great. The students are so mature. But I I'd been to my first encounter with Atlanta Classical was attending a ninth grade literature class taught by um Aaron Sheps. And that I was that just blew me away. Trevor Burrus, Jr. That's been some years ago. That was right at the beginning.

SPEAKER_02 4:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Yeah, right after I met you. You invited me to come visit the school.

SPEAKER_02 4:07

And uh yeah, that was quite a long time ago. You um you've you've been interested in books and you've been interested in teaching, and even, as you've said, mostly to adults.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

I've done a lot of Sunday school teaching to adults, some other stuff, non-scriptural books. Um and I'm I mean I'm jumping around here, but I've I've led a I I'm leading a book group for parents of ACA students that I started we started, see, we're in our fourth semester. So we started in the fall of 23. Yeah. 23, 24, 24, 25. And I hope that before 24. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:53

And um I hope that becomes a model for all our schools. I think that's a really cool opportunity to bring adults together to read many of the books that we're reading in the school. Having attended a few of those, not as many as I would like. Um, I know that um we get a good blend of teachers and also parents.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

It was it's it is fun. I mean, we we just did probably the hardest book we'll ever do, I hope. Yeah. Um Aristotle's Nicomacheon Ethics. Yep. Um luckily Dr. Roth was there with his knowledge of Greek. It was helpful. But we also had a a member who had spent an entire semester studying the work, and that was very helpful.

SPEAKER_02 5:34

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

So in college. So that was that was very helpful.

SPEAKER_02 5:38

That is a tough one, but that's pretty foundational.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

It's huge.

SPEAKER_02 5:41

Yeah. Yeah. What are like, what do you think of the are there any any major points that you that sort of stick with you in that from that book?

SPEAKER_00 5:48

From that book? Yeah. There's a lot. Um there's a lot. But but the whole idea that uh you know you develop virtue um by creating habits. Yeah. So I kept thinking about exercise, and that the whole idea is to get to the point where you don't have to push yourself to do this, but you actually delight in doing it.

unknown 6:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:09

So the virtuous person is the one who doesn't it's it just feels completely natural to do the right thing.

SPEAKER_02 6:17

It's like more about yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

And it's not just doing the right thing, it's the right thing in the right way to the right person at the right time. It's very conditional in that sense.

SPEAKER_02 6:27

And maybe a little more about love than duty. You know?

SPEAKER_00 6:30

It's like it's not just a rule that you follow to be virtuous.

SPEAKER_02 6:35

Yeah. I mean, our schools really hinge on Aristotelian virtue in in many respects. You know, we're operating in the public sphere. You know, we're certainly influenced by the Western Judeo-Christian ethic. Right. But in many respects, I think we kind of point back to Aristotle in identifying our school virtues and you know, trying to help students develop habits of excellence, as I think Aristotle would say.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:00

Um, that's great. Well, so maybe backing up a little bit of history about you. So you've always have you always been a lover of books? Have you always been interested in teaching, or sort of how how did that come about in your life?

SPEAKER_00 7:13

Not always interested in teaching, but always a lover of books. Yeah. So books were uh a refuge during a difficult time in my childhood. Um I have a funny story about reading in general. Um I went to a Catholic school, Christ the King, um, first starting in first grade, and apparently the nuns told my mother at the end of the first grade that I was behind in my reading. And so my mother, who was a pretty strong person, had me read a book out loud to her every day that summer before I could go out to play. And I fought her for the first, you know, week, two weeks, three weeks, however long, but she was not letting me go out the door. And that was just that was like prison. So I finally started doing it. And by the end of the summer, not only had I learned to read, but I love to read. So that just sort of that was what tough love was. Aaron Ross Powell Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:10

I mean, you you like the study of it. You like what you derive from the book. You also kind of enjoy, I mean, my observation of you is that you you just like being with the crowd, too. You enjoy the people and the conversation and the social element.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

Trevor Burrus, Jr. There's nothing like having to just sort of be in that position to get you to really dig in on a book. It's very different being a Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:32

As I'm sure you will do uh in substitute teaching for Brothers K. You you there is a chance you will overprepare for that.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

Well, luckily luckily Josh is giving me detailed notes. He's already emailed them to me. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 8:43

That is awesome that you're doing that. Yeah so well, I mean I just think you're you're you're an awesome model for me and for so many people, and I love the fact that you've you know taken a passion for great books and for teaching, and you've done something with it. You've stepped in and gotten involved with our students. Um I should mention, I'll probably mention this in the intro that we'll record later, but um I think you're a great father and you're a great Atlanta classical grandfather. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 9:10

I'm a great grandfather. I'm not I'm a grandfather, not a great grandfather.

SPEAKER_02 9:14

Yeah, well, you know, you know what I mean. You're a you're a you're a you're a you're an excellent grandfather, I would say. What do you um I want to try to connect the dots between, you know, if you if you kind of think about your grandkids that I know you love very much, you know, and you have hopes for them, presumably like any man would have for his grandchildren. Sort of how do you how does what happens at Atlanta Classical align with what you you hope um hope for in the lives of your grandkids? Is there an intersection there?

SPEAKER_00 9:46

Well, I I I hope that they'll come away from their schooling, their formal schooling, with a love of learning that doesn't stop. Because obviously one of the things you notice, I mean, you if you look at the books that are read at Atlanta Classical, it's a great collection of books, but it is by no means the end.

SPEAKER_02 10:08

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

And there's a lot left. And I hope that they come out with which I think they will come out with the ability to read well, but I hope they come out with a love of reading well.

SPEAKER_02 10:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

How do you think I think that's missing? I think there are a lot of schools and students who come out of those schools who are very well educated, but they don't love to learn.

SPEAKER_02 10:34

Yeah. I mean, I've had the privilege of talking to some people right here on this podcast who are at or have been at some of America's top universities, including Princeton, who would say there's a large number, large percentage of students that arrive having never actually read an entire book. Wow. That that's that's possible. And um, man, what a miss, right? I mean, what a missed opportunity.

SPEAKER_00 10:58

Yeah, that's a change, I think, from when I was in high school.

SPEAKER_02 11:02

Definitely.

SPEAKER_00 11:03

Because even going to what I would say was not a great high school academically, I mean, it wasn't that challenging. Um we read whole books.

SPEAKER_02 11:15

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:16

No, that's great.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

In fact, even I had an American history teacher who was one of my favorite teachers, one of the toughest. That's an interesting thing in itself. My my favorite teachers were the toughest teachers. They were the most demanding. They set the bar the highest. Um and this guy had us when we were reading, studying the uh founding documents, the test was he would give us a copy of the Declaration of Independence and later the Constitution, and there were just blanks. So you didn't have to memorize it in the in the sense that I could recite it, but you had to know it well enough that you knew the words to put in the blanks.

SPEAKER_01 11:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

Which is an interesting I've always thought that was a very interesting way to learn a document.

SPEAKER_02 12:00

Trevor Burrus, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

Without forcing you to sit there and memorize it. Or thought more about it. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 12:05

Yeah, and presumably he um may have excluded some important terms, you know? Yeah. Right. That sort of forced you to think about what it was what it was saying. Um so who would you want to name them? What what what was a teacher in your life that really had a profound impact on you?

SPEAKER_00 12:25

Aaron Ross Powell His name was Jim Sigley. He had a big Was that high school? High school.

unknown 12:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:30

Yeah. History or civics or something.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

It was American history.

SPEAKER_02 12:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

Um then I had an American history teacher in eighth grade at Westminster, namely Emmet Wright. I don't know. He was probably long gone by the time I grew here. But again, it was another American history teacher. Um then I had some I had some English teachers in high school that were influential.

SPEAKER_02 12:54

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

My senior year, um I told uh Josh Andrew this story, but my senior year, the second half of the senior year, our teacher was sort of a hippie, and we he said to us, he said, What would you like to read for the second half of the year? So we basically as a group picked the books, but we picked things like Notes from Underground by Dostoyevsky. We picked a book called Resurrection by Tolstoy. I mean, we picked, you know, existentialist readings, um, Sart. I mean, it was it was great.

SPEAKER_02 13:26

Do you think about the utility or the um yeah, I guess that's the best word. Do you think of the utility of reading these great books for your grandkids and sort of what the future holds for them?

SPEAKER_00 13:40

Aaron Ross Powell with AI?

SPEAKER_02 13:41

Aaron Ross Powell Yeah, and and all the rest. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

Who needs all this?

SPEAKER_02 13:44

Right. I mean, how do you how do you process all that I'm trying to still process all that.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

I mean, I'm I'm trying to, you know, I'm getting acquainted with different AI models myself. Um actually yesterday for the first time I logged into Claude Anthropics thing. Anyway, yeah. Um I think the value is that you learn about people, especially through literature, but also history. History and literature. Um you're gonna learn about people. And AI is not well, it may replace people's work, but it's not replacing people.

SPEAKER_02 14:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

So dealing whether it's dealing with your family or your colleagues, your classmates, um, whatever it is, you're still gonna go through life and need to deal with people. And I don't I think you just learn a tremendous amount about that from great literature. Yeah. Um and then study of history. And then writing. And then writing. Have you done a lot of writing? For work.

SPEAKER_02 14:44

Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I just was curious if you, you know, if you had done any kind of um anything outside of work, any, you know, a novel or a short story or a fiction. Memoir or anything like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

No fiction. I uh I wrote biographies of my grandparents based on documents that uh I inherited. My parents died when I was nine, and my both my last grandparent, two of them were died before I was born, and the last of the surviving two died when I was around thirteen. So I I was the oldest of five. I inherited boxes of papers and photographs, and it's a long story, but I've basically di um preserved all that digitally.

SPEAKER_02 15:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Hiring some high school students to help me. To get some help to do that. Yeah. A lot of scanning, a lot of retyping of letters. But I took that material and wrote um doc biographies, short biographies. I mean 25 pages probably, with a lot of photographs. So but that's not really writing. But that was the only thing that's well kind of it is.

SPEAKER_02 15:54

I mean, I would say that it is. It is.

SPEAKER_00 15:55

It's telling a story.

SPEAKER_02 15:56

Yeah. It's telling a story. Uh how long ago did you do that?

SPEAKER_00 16:01

Eight years ago.

SPEAKER_02 16:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:03

Nine years ago. I gave I had I had them I printed them all and gave copies to all of my um nieces and nephews. I have thirteen I have two children and then they have eleven um is that right? Two, five, yes. Um they have eleven uh cousins.

SPEAKER_02 16:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:22

So they're thirteen in that next generation. So I gave copies to all of them, as well as my siblings.

SPEAKER_02 16:28

Yeah. That's pretty neat. I think that's a great exercise. Well, I would consider that some significant writing. Well, I just think about you know, back to that question of the utility of all this uh literature and and and humanities and the study of history and so forth. And then you know, at our schools we do we do encourage and you know force our students to do a lot of writing. Right. Which we think about as ordered thinking.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 16:52

You know, and a child that can write well is one that can think well if you're if you're struggling to hold those thoughts in some kind of order, it's pretty difficult to get it in the page in any kind of orderly way.

SPEAKER_00 17:03

And you don't know what you think until you have to write it.

SPEAKER_02 17:05

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 17:06

Until you have to express yourself.

SPEAKER_02 17:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

Um it's the same thing about you really don't know the book until you have to teach it or lead the discussion in it.

SPEAKER_02 17:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

I mean, I feel like that forces you into that deeper understanding.

SPEAKER_02 17:21

Aaron Powell Yeah, for sure. So you've had a you've had a successful career, and um I'm curious, you know, uh so what's been most rewarding about your work? You've been in the wealth management business primarily. Aaron Powell Investment management.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

Trevor Burrus The distinction is just that we're picking individual securities, so doing research on individual companies and then constructing portfolios. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 17:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

Um more of a value bias. So we're looking for pretty quantitative. Fairly quantitative. But you know, people always I mean, I was not a lover of math all through grade school, high school in particular. I was not a lover of math, so it's sort of very odd that I would have gotten a degree, a graduate degree in accounting and finance, but I always tell people I mean, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, you don't really need to.

SPEAKER_02 18:11

Get you a long way.

SPEAKER_00 18:12

Get you a long way.

SPEAKER_02 18:14

Don't tell our kids studying calculus that.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

Trevor Burrus, Jr. Right, exactly. But I I took pre-calculus, I never took calculus. So I took pre-calculus.

SPEAKER_02 18:21

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: What have you enjoyed the most about your career? I mean, what elements of it?

SPEAKER_00 18:25

Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.: I've enjoyed you know, I enjoy it's there's always more to learn in that, and that's sort of always something that um keeps me going. There's more to learn about companies and businesses and industries. At earlier point in my career, I was doing direct investing for an insurance company in companies, both private and public. So the opportunity would come up in the course of doing due diligence on those investments to tour factories. Yeah. You know, to see to see a modular home being built in the factory, or to see I've been through a steel mill. I mean, it that stuff that's fun. Yeah. Um that's enjoyable. In this latter part, the last 25 years or so, it's been this investment management and working with clients. The other piece of it is working with people.

unknown 19:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

So getting to know the people and helping people.

SPEAKER_02 19:14

Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. That's great. Um did you have you were you really um proactive or assertive in giving your own children career advice, or how how did you think about that?

SPEAKER_00 19:28

Probably too much. Really? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like, you know, I helped um I helped my oldest daughter find get a summer job, and that sort of led her into a into an industry I'm not sure is the best, was the best thing, but that's sort of For her or just for her. For her, yeah. Well, anyway. Um I don't think she'd complain. Yeah. Yeah. We'll see. Um but yeah, I've uh you know I've tried to. Um my younger daughter is uh I told her um she graduated in 2008 in the depths of the recession, the big recession, and she was a religion major. Right? So she's reading Carl Bart, and that qualifies you to get no job. Um but she wanted to go to grad school, and I said, no, you've got to get a job and work a couple of years, and then we can talk about grad school, but not just go straight straight into it. Well, she started knocking on doors, and um I said, well, first of all, I said to her, she was up in she went to Davidson, so she was up in the Davidson area, Charlotte, and her boyfriend now husband was up there at the time. And she goes, uh I said, well, what kind of what kind of work are you thinking of looking for? It's the second semester, senior year, 2008. And she goes, I don't know. I think real estate would be interesting. Pretty tough time to do that. I said, oh but but you know, there's the well anyway.

SPEAKER_02 20:59

Maybe there's value in starting in the trough. You never know.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Aaron Powell I was smart enough at least, or wise enough not to argue and just said, well, what kind of real estate? And she goes, I don't know. I think development would be fun. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Well she ended up knocking on doors for, you know, several months and then getting a temporary job, and then ended up long story short, she ended up as a lobbyist for a healthcare company, for a hospital chip. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Working for the chief lobbyist. So from that, she sort of developed a career in lobbying and now in sales, software sales. So you never know where things will go. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 21:34

You never know. Well, back to the value of a really solid liberal arts education, which I have a feeling she received at Davidson Excellence School.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

She had a religion major. She's just reading John Calvin and Carl Bart. And again, her first that first job as a lobbyist, she walks in, she calls me the first day at work, and she says, Dad, guess what? I said what? She goes, I've got an office. I said, Really? She goes, with the TV. I said, Duncan. You dare watch Law and Order? And I was like, well, what are you going to do? She goes, Well, they've just given me the I forget the official name of it, but what's known as Obamacare. That bill had just passed. So she's working for a hospital chain. She said, I'm supposed to go through it and find everything in it that applies to the hospital. Oh, goodness. That's perfect.

SPEAKER_02 22:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

What have you been doing? Reading really complicated stuff and trying to pull out of it what's most important. And here you are. There's your job.

SPEAKER_02 22:30

Well, I mean, what a great story that sort of exemplifies this education.

SPEAKER_00 22:35

I'm a big believer in the liberal arts. I mean, actually, both of my children went to small liberal arts colleges. I went to two colleges, and the first one was a small liberal arts college. The second one was a larger, not large, um but much larger university. And I thought I got a much better education at the first. Although it still left me with a lot of gaps, which is why I came back and started reading the great books in 2008.

SPEAKER_02 23:07

Yeah. So well, I think most of us, if we're honest, um and if we sort of re-engage with the canon uh or just evaluate what we've read versus what's out there, we are aware of massive gaps. Right. I mean, that was no small part of my own motivation in kind of getting this initiative started so many years ago was reviewing these lists of great books and sort of diving in a little bit and realizing, like you, I mean, I had a reasonably good liberal arts education, but man, missed a lot. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

It wasn't an engineering education? So the Naval Academy?

SPEAKER_02 23:41

Aaron Powell It was. I mean, I did have an you know, I'm sort of counting Westminster to start with, where we had a fairly um traditional liberal arts education. Read some read some great books and had some great literature and history teachers and so forth. And um certainly at the Naval Academy, I had a in it, I received an engineering degree. Everybody up there receives a Bachelor of Science, even if you do receive an English degree or history degree or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 24:06

So that's possible. I didn't even know that was possible. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 24:08

Just means we all took electrical engineering, we all took a lot of math and and and sciences, but then you know, also others in our major. Um but there's just a lot. There's a lot to know. And if you're inquisitive and you know you sort of feel that loss of like, man, there's things I that that that sort of shape the world I'm in that I haven't had the chance to dive into yet. It's it's it's both humbling but also encouraging. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 24:33

So there's a podcaster I've discovered, a guy named Eric Rostad, and he works at a let's see, I think he does websites for people as sort of a business, but he also is business manager of a bookstore in Franklin, Tennessee. And he has embarked two years ago, I think, on reading the great books.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

From the beginning. He's probably, I think he's in his mid-40s. He started off thinking it would be a three-year project.

SPEAKER_02 25:01

Oh, gosh.

SPEAKER_00 25:02

He's now decided it's going to be a 20-plus-year project.

SPEAKER_02 25:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

Because he is reading this year. His goal is to read, finish reading all the dialogues of Plato and then move through Aristotle. I think he's gonna, my prediction is by the end of the year, he will be reading Aristotle next year. I mean, Aristotle is Does he talk about them?

SPEAKER_02 25:24

He does. He does podcasts.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

Every book as he reads it, he does a he does a podcast.

SPEAKER_02 25:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

Um he's you know autodidact. I mean, it's it's it's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 25:35

Yeah. Well, that appeals to me. That's that's an interesting um and I do think, I mean, kind of back to your book club idea. And I mean, I think this is uh an activity that we do in our schools as well. But I mean, it's it's certainly great to read a book in isolation and just enjoy it for yourself, and that's a wonderful, good, noble thing. But there's something different about sort of sharing what you're learning with other people. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

Totally different.

SPEAKER_02 25:57

I mean, that's a and uh yeah, that that that appeals to me a lot. Yeah, there's also different theories.

SPEAKER_00 26:03

Come back to the book correctly. Yeah, I really need to.

SPEAKER_02 26:07

No, I I love uh I do love it, you know, like everybody else. I think we're just sort of fighting for time, you know, and it's just like um I do feel blessed to have a lot of great options, you know, in terms of time, and it's tough. But um Well, let's I I'm curious, do you have a particular reading habit that really works for you in terms of getting the quality and the quantity of reading you want done? Do you read early in the morning, late at night, like carry a book in the day? What are your habits that that that are good for you? Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

It's funny. The guy I was just talking about, he has a whole podcast on that. Okay. You know, how to read. And uh he carries a book with him everywhere. He's cut out television. He's got I've I don't watch much television. I don't watch a lot of movies. I'm sort of deficient on the popular culture. Like if I'm if we have a trivial pursuit, trivial a trivia contest team, don't put me in the pop culture. I'm I'm a failure. Yeah, probably.

SPEAKER_02 27:04

I'm okay on history and literature, but not on the phone.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 27:07

You know who you do want on your team? Dr. Kevin Roth. That's who you do want on your team. He wins that thing every year at the at the uh conferences we attend, but anyway. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 27:18

Anyway. Um in terms of reading habits, I started, I mentioned 2008. So I I somewhere in college, um I went to Middlebury and Brown. Um and somewhere, I think it was the middleway, I discovered a book called How to Read a Book. And at the back of that book, there's a list of great books. Um Mortimer Adler Adler was one of the authors of that book. I remember the habit. Created created the great books list at the University of Chicago. And I so that was always that was something that sort of in my mind, I should read these books. I read a lot of them. You know, I read a number of them in college, some in high school. Um but it was not systematic and there was a lot missing. And I it was always at the back of my mind, I'd like to I'd like to read these books. I'd like to read these books. Well, you know that old joke about the circle with the letters T-U-I-T in it?

SPEAKER_02 28:11

I don't know that one.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

You haven't heard about when I get around to it?

SPEAKER_02 28:14

Trevor Burrus, Jr. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 28:15

Around to it, that's the I finally got around to it in 2008. I started um I just started reading great books. I said, I'm going to read what I haven't read. So I started with Plato, I then read some Aristotle. I'd read a little bit in college, both of them, and then sort of moved. I've looked at, I can't I've kept track of everything I've read. So then for some reason I jumped forward to uh I read The Divine Comedy. I think I spent an entire year reading that. To answer your question, most of my reading is probably done on the weekends because I'm just I'm sort of tired at night um and I'm busy during the day and quite often do we're doing things at night, especially now. Trevor Burrus, Jr. And you're up early working out a lot, I know that. I'm up early working out. Yeah. So that isn't, you know, once that's over, it's time to go to work. And um so mostly a lot on the weekends. But when I but when I started, I actually would come home from work and there was a caribou coffee shop there at West Paceshire and uh Northside Parkway. Right. And I would stop in there, and this did not bother me. I would have a cup of coffee at you know, six o'clock, and I'd read till six or six, I'd read from six to seven or six, whatever. Yeah. On the way home. Basically, call my wife and say, I'm coming. On the way. On the way, sort of. Yeah. Um yeah, but that's where I was reading. That's a good practice, yeah. Plato, Aristotle. So that was a good time.

SPEAKER_02 29:45

I know I have a friend in town who's a very successful businessman. I won't name him, but um brilliant guy. And he he he drives around with a book in his lap and you know, reads it stoplights? Yep, reads it stoplights, and you know, and he is one of these guys that's devoured everything and is is brilliant, probably gets honked at a lot in town. But I'm not saying that's the safest approach, but you know, we do have choices with how we use our time, and it we are in this world of mass distraction here, and totally we're gonna be distracted by something.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

Yeah, and that's uh that's probably one of the you know things that concerns me most about you talked about grandchildren earlier. Um the distractions are everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 30:30

Yeah. So they're tough. Um so you've been very generous to Atlanta Classical, and I'm curious as as a donor, and for that I'm incredibly grateful. What what motivates you uh to give of your hard-earned resources to that cause?

SPEAKER_00 30:50

Well, I'd like to see it. Um I think what's I think it's what we see happening at what Charlotte, my wife and I see happening at the school. Um it's just it's incredibly beautiful. Um that's probably the best way to describe it. Um and we'd like to see it flourish. I mean, we were, you know, as you n as you know, I got interested in the school long before we had grandchildren who attended there. Um I was introduced to you by a mutual acquaintance, and then took that tour, sat in on that class where Aaron Chefs is discussing, it was his last class of the second semester of freshman year literature, and they're discussing Virgil's Aeneid. And I remember they're sitting in a in a square or rectangle, and he's in the middle, and it's a very sort of uh tell me, um, you know, Matthew, what do you think of Dido, you know, this such and such an incident in this? And you would give an answer, and he would turn to this other student and say, Well, Bobby, what do you think of his answer? And you know, it's just like I was just I was like, this is like a college seminar.

SPEAKER_02 32:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

And the quality of the responses was incredibly high.

SPEAKER_02 32:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:05

And they're reading Virgil.

SPEAKER_02 32:07

Which is particularly impressive because those students hadn't been there all that long. Right. You know, that's true. That was probably maybe our second year of the Trevor Burrus.

SPEAKER_00 32:17

2012, 2013. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:19

Something like that. Um Yeah. You know, these days it's um enjoyable to give tours of the school and to stop at a number of grades along the spectrum. So kindergarten and third, and fifth, and eighth, and then get into the high school. And in a short period of time, you can really see how the students develop, you know, and you can see how the conversation, even the way the conversation unfolds in a senior literature class like you're going to teach in here in a few weeks, it's markedly different than even what happens in the middle school. I mean, obviously the kids are just a different age, a different stage of development. That's perhaps obvious, but there's a method to the madness there, and those kids get trained carefully and methodically, intentionally, to have those kind of conversations, you know, where they're and the thing that one of the things that always inspires and impresses me the most is that they learn not to just share their opinion about things, oh, I think and I feel, but they're making arguments straight from the text from the text. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: From the text. And they're kind of referring to, you know, paragraph two on page such and such, you know, the author says this or the character says that. And it's um, you know, when we talk about trying to raise a generation of people who can think critically, you know, I think that's what we mean. I mean, we mean that they can read something hard and make sense of it and then, you know, make an argument one way or another about it, as opposed to kind of just having an emotional response that's uninformed.

SPEAKER_00 33:44

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Mr. Andrews made a great observation. I've heard him say it a couple of different times, that one of the problems with our politics today is that people have not read the same texts. And so they're just talking past each other. Yeah. They're not actually grounded, if you will. Um, they're not grounded in the anyway. So they're not I was going to say the other thing you asked what the motivation to give. Um it was that class, that Virgil class, was my you know, the first thing that just sort of knocked me the wow.

SPEAKER_02 34:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:15

Um the second thing was going to sit in on some of the several of the senior thesis presentations. I was even on a panel for one of them. You know, I had to read the paper in advance and ask questions and have questions to ask. But those are incredibly impressive demonstrations. I mean, the student has to spend really the entire senior year working on the senior thesis paper. And then at the end of the year, they stand up and present it to a classroom, to a panel of three adults, usually now I think all teachers, but also a classroom of whoever wants to come walk in, their peers. Um, and just and to see these - to see these 17, 18-year-olds stand up there and present, first of all, present the key argument that they make in their paper, and then defend it in response to the questions. I mean, this is something I only thought PhD students had to do. Right. And here they are, seniors in high school. And the other one of those that I attended was also striking that at the end, towards the end, one of the three panelists, the teachers, will turn to the audience and say, does anyone have any questions? And I watched this one session where several students raise their hands with questions, and I'm thinking, oh, they're going to try and get them, right? This is going to be a teenage thing, see if I can embarrass, you know, my friend Jimmy or whatever. No, they were very thoughtful questions, respectful and thoughtful. Yeah. And I think that and I've also seen students who are struggling, who struggle with that, who are maybe not as academically gifted as other students. And I've seen the care with which they are treated by the adults, by those three panelists. You know, there's a real that was something I was going to mention a minute ago, just the caring nature of the teaching that goes on in this environment.

SPEAKER_02 36:12

Aaron Powell There's a respect there that develops over time. Yeah. You know, I think the students can be enamored with and maybe even a bit, I hate to use the word afraid, but a little bit intimidated is probably the better word. But over time, you know, they they they start to relate to each other more as colleagues, especially as the students develop more knowledge and more capacity to make an argument and kind of engage with the material. There's a real respect there that develops. And I think that's what you're referring to. That sort of comes through in those question and answers.

unknown 36:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:44

And it's it's really, I like to think that it's a shared pursuit of goodness and truth and beauty. You know, we're we're kind of in this together trying to trying to find and identify and orient ourselves towards things that are worth our affections and worth our attention.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:59

I like to think, well, maybe more generally, I can I give you an opportunity to talk about and maybe if you want to, brag about the the people at Atlanta Class School. I mean, is there you know, I I think the we like to think that their care for students means something and that it really contributes to the education. I would just wonder if you're if you're if you could speak for your uh your kids or your grandkids. Do you feel like it's a place where um where the teachers care for them and are are good-hearted human beings? I mean, how is that manifested for you all?

SPEAKER_00 37:32

Uh I'm not sure I'm close enough to their day-to-day experience to really to really comment on that. Um I mean, they just had they just had parent-teacher conferences. So I was hearing about our seven-year-old grandson. We have three grandchildren there, um, fifth grade, fourth grade, can't first grade. And the first grader was telling my daughter and her husband how how kind he was and how he always said he hoped she had a good weekend on Friday. Great. I don't know. They're just little things that that kind of feedback is appreciated.

SPEAKER_02 38:10

Yeah. Well, good. Okay. That's good. What about um in a minute here we'll shift to kind of some short answers and then we'll we'll wrap things up. Okay. Um but I wanted to ask you, does you and I both have experience in private schools in our youth. Does the um what's the importance to you or uh that Atlanta Classical is a public school? Do you think that does that carry any meaning for you, or how how do you think that it does.

SPEAKER_00 38:38

Um I think that's actually one of the things that makes it really remarkable, and and it is important to me that this education is available to everyone, not just those who can pay for it. Um it's incredibly, I mean, you know, you went you went to Westminster, um, my girls, my two children went there for high school, well, junior high high school, and they would talk about diversity, and I would say, your your class is not diverse. Yes, I mean there's so and so and so and so and so and so. And I said, Let me tell you, you all are in the top five percent of intelligence in this country. In the world, probably. And most certainly in the country. And that's not that's not diverse. So you have a wide range of abilities at Atlanta Classical, and I think that better represents the world the world. Um and yet, you know, the idea is that this kind of education isn't just for the most gifted, it's for everyone.

SPEAKER_02 39:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:38

Because it teaches you how to live.

SPEAKER_02 39:40

That's right. So that's good. Um All right. I'm gonna run you through just a series, not not one-word answers, but maybe a little bit shorter answers. We've already touched on a few of these, so let me skip through. Do you have uh outside of work and outside of reading in your intellectual uh life, do you have any other hobbies that you enjoy?

SPEAKER_00 40:03

Exercise.

SPEAKER_02 40:04

Okay. All right. That's a good one. And I'm uh always impressed with your consistency on that front. So that's pretty awesome. Good for you.

SPEAKER_00 40:11

I would say I have an interest in golf, but I don't play enough to really for that statement to be really be true.

SPEAKER_02 40:16

Yeah. Yeah. Well, okay. That's good. That's a good one too. Yeah. Um Travel. Okay, good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:24

I can't leave that out.

SPEAKER_02 40:25

I think that's one of my questions on here. What is a place in the world that you haven't been that you really want where you really want to go?

SPEAKER_00 40:32

That's a long list.

SPEAKER_02 40:33

Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:35

I've never been to Israel. Okay. I've never been to Turkey. I've never been to Egypt. Those are three that are all over there together. Um we're talking about going to Japan in the fall. Great. So I have never been to Japan.

SPEAKER_02 40:48

I'd really like to go.

SPEAKER_00 40:48

I think that would be I think that's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 40:50

Yeah. Okay. Good. All right. Well, those are awesome. Um awesome hobbies or interests. Um a classical or historical figure that is uh that is meaningful to you. Or someone from literature for that matter. Or an author.

SPEAKER_00 41:08

Let me come back to that. Okay. Let me just I just want to think about that. Well, I wonder one that goes back to a childhood hero of mine was Francis Marion. Okay. Okay. Say more about that. A uh a guerrilla fighter, the Swamp Fox. This was probably influenced by there was a Disney, there was a Disney program on him, but um fascinating me. So entrepreneurial in a sense.

SPEAKER_02 41:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:36

Um also, you know. Okay. Not not playing conventionally.

SPEAKER_02 41:41

Yeah.

unknown 41:41

Right.

SPEAKER_00 41:42

There you go.

SPEAKER_02 41:43

So we touched on this a little bit, but we we do live in this age of distraction. You said you don't watch a lot of television. Are you susceptible to this uh all the social media and all this kind of all these digital messages that are flying in our faces? And how are you how do you manage that?

SPEAKER_00 41:59

Yeah. I mean, how do you avoid it? I'm not a social media guy. I have accounts, but you know, every time I go to Facebook or Instagram, I get sucked in and go, what the heck happened with the last 30 minutes? So I I I don't do much of that and try and try to avoid it. Um I don't know how you avoid. I mean, I text, you know, the phone just explodes with text messages constantly.

SPEAKER_02 42:25

Yeah. So it's it's kind of it's kind of everybody's battle these days.

SPEAKER_00 42:30

It's everybody's battle, I think.

SPEAKER_02 42:32

Fair point. Um okay. Uh would you share some advice to parents? I do think you're an awesome father, just because I um I have seen you in action. What what advice would you give to parents that are raising, you know, kind of kids in that K-12 range these days?

SPEAKER_00 42:52

Um I mean this is, you know, this is nothing new. I mean, I think having dinner together is important. I think spending time with your children is important. I was not very good at playing Barbies. I have two girls. I was not very good at playing Barbies. I had I had very low tolerance for that. So I kind of failed. But when the I think everybody has their strength. I I when they got to an age where I could have a conversation, which is, you know, six years old.

SPEAKER_02 43:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:20

Um I was more engaged, right? And we we took them on trips. We never I don't think we ever took a vacation without them. And the people's, you know, it was kind of crazy. We went to France when they were seven. We spent two weeks in Loire Valley in a rented house when they were seven and eight, six and eight. And you know, we just never thought about not going places with them. So as a family, we have a lot of memories of trips.

SPEAKER_02 43:50

Yeah. So more b back to travel.

SPEAKER_00 43:52

Yeah. Back to travel.

SPEAKER_02 43:53

Yeah, and then time together, really like.

SPEAKER_00 43:55

Time together.

SPEAKER_02 43:56

Yeah, that dinner hour is is is a is a great one to hold on to. Okay. Well maybe to just close out, what what in in life or in the country, um what are you most hopeful about right now? Anything got you this school. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:13

I mean, I will I mean tell you, I've I've told Josh, Andrew this. I said this I mean, watching what's going on at the school, watching what these teachers are doing, it gives me hope for the future. And that's, you know, that's a lot of why, I mean, you talked about why are you why were we willing to invest. I mean, it's an investment, not just in this school, but in this in this model, in this in the future. Because I think if you can I mean Thomas Jefferson said, you know, and Thomas Jefferson basically believed that if you didn't have an educated population, the government that they had created would not work. Um, the Benjamin Franklin's famous saying, what kind of government have you given us the some woman asks him and he says a republic if you can keep it. And it can only be you know, and if you look at the history I mean anyway, I just think that uh it's essential to the country that people be educated and then they can be uh informed participants in the system.

SPEAKER_02 45:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:13

Because uninformed participants in the system are dangerous.

SPEAKER_02 45:18

That is very well said. Very well said, Walter. Well, thanks for doing this talk with me. I do want to just uh celebrate our friendship. I want to tell you what it means to me. I want to I want to you know thank you for your your generosity to our organizations and for being a great parent and grandparent of the kids and grandkids that are in our school. And and man, to step in there and be a a teacher for us. I I've been so eager for you to have that opportunity, and I'm thrilled. I just think our our kids are gonna win by having you involved. So I'm thrilled that that's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00 45:49

I did just think of one other character, one person in history. It's an odd one that comes to mind. There's a guy named Dog Homershold, who was the second Secretary General of the U.N. Yeah. And he was a civil servant and died in a plane crash in the Congo trying to mediate um a civil war that was going on in the Congo. And after his death, his uh he kept a diary, a spiritual diary that was published called Markings.

SPEAKER_02 46:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 46:15

And anyway, his his life his was a life of service.

SPEAKER_02 46:19

Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 46:20

It's uh anyway, but quiet service.

SPEAKER_02 46:22

Aaron Powell You know, I uh at at uh at the risk of going too long here, um I did want to ask you, and maybe this is something you could come back and talk to us about again in more depth, but you've given a talk to the school recently. Um maybe just a few words about that. What was sort of the thesis there?

SPEAKER_00 46:41

It was for Veterans Day, and it was about my mother had my mother was one of six children, um, and she had four older brothers. All four of them served in the military during World War II, and two of them were killed and are buried in Belgium together, next to each other. This this was a talk about one of them who was fatally wounded in Normandy about a month after D-Day, evacuated to England and died of his wounds there. But a month or so after he died, my grandmother, my grandparents received a letter from an American nurse who had nursed him in that hospital describing uh a this is a page plus single-space typewritten letter.

SPEAKER_02 47:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:28

And it turns out she was from Atlanta.

SPEAKER_02 47:31

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_00 47:32

She had gone to nursing school at Piedmont. She was actually from somewhere out towards Madison. And she had gone to so anyway, just coincidentally. So anyway, but she described the things he said to her to tell his mother. And this so we have that, and we have letters from the chaplains that were written to her, and we have also the troop movement. This was all part of that family history stuff. Yeah. So we have the troop movements that the day-by-day within Normandy, and before that, the his units, movements around the U.S. bases, and then in England. So the talk was basically about his life.

unknown 48:07

Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 48:07

Yeah. Great. Thank you for doing that. I would love to hear a lot more about that. Maybe we'll get you to come back on if you're willing and share that with uh with our uh with our explosively large audience that's listening uh to these things.

SPEAKER_00 48:20

You need a power, you need a there are a lot of PowerPoint slots.

SPEAKER_02 48:23

Okay, you got some visual visual stuff. Okay. Well, we might have to work on the technology to figure that out. But um well again, Walter, I mean you just sort of exemplify a lot of the things that we're trying to do around here. Great family man, great father, you know, interested in great books and history, see the connection between all those things and and then in and also in cultivating hopefully lives that are full of happiness and meaning and purpose as we are trying to do for your grandkids and and for so many others.

SPEAKER_00 48:49

The thing I always say to people, I said, if you could if you could study the greatest thinking that had ever happened in the world, why wouldn't you? There you go. It's like why not?

SPEAKER_02 48:58

That's it. That's it. Thank you. All right, thank you again, Walter. I'm I'm Matthew Kirby. This has been The Liberty Show. Would love for you to read more about us at Liberty Classical Schools.org. And we'll see you next time. Thank you.