Fabulous cheese. Elegant and complicated watches. Excellent engineering. Unflappable punctuality. Discreet banking. Nobel Prize winning scientists and engineers. These are just a few of the things that the tiny country of Switzerland is recognized for around the world. I am compelled this morning to ask what produces excellence in so many fields? The educational system …
Tag: gregg hake
A Sustainable Legacy
To be a successful father, you must keep two thoughts in the forefront of your mind: 1) do all within your power to leave the world in better condition than you found it and 2) strive daily to leave to leave better children for the world. Both are necessary to leaving a sustainable legacy of …
The Ever-Threatening Slide
"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." - Winston Churchill I fear for the future of our great nation. We’ve gone a long way on the momentum generated by our forefathers, but we’ve made two mistakes in the field of education that I feel compromise our ability to maintain …
The Cancer of Tyranny
"Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty." - Plato The Greco-Roman tradition provided an educational algorithm that has never really been improved upon. In fact, every major movement of educational reform in the Western world began with a reassessment of the …
The Preservation of Liberty
"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty." - Thomas Jefferson The ancient Roman system of education called liberalia studia or "liberal studies" has been immensely influential on the modern world. In a nutshell, liberal studies are those which give a man …
Modern Problems, Ancient Solutions
The ancient Greeks and Romans had solutions for many of the problems that plague our country today. They recognized that human nature is a double-edged sword and that steps can be taken to mitigate the expression of its lesser qualities while magnifying its finer ones. They understood as well that liberty is not a given, …
We haven’t changed much
The remains of the past have long fascinated the thinking men and women of the present, for a very good reason. The period of cultural history known as the Renaissance, which began in Italy in roughly the 14th century and catalyzed fresh thoughts throughout the rest of Europe through the 17th century, largely took its …
Gregg Hake Launches New eBook: The Courage to Face Ingratitude
It is my pleasure to announce the release of my new eBook entitled "The Courage to Face Ingratitude", the first of hopefully many to come! Those of you have been following my daily blogs for some time will recognize the quotes I've excerpted from the remarkable work of Mr. William George Jordan, a writer and …
Continue reading Gregg Hake Launches New eBook: The Courage to Face Ingratitude
Deep and Broad
"The loftier the building, the deeper must the foundation be laid." - Thomas Kempis I heard the whistle of an interesting train of thought while listening to a podcast the other day about the life of Michael Page, an Olympic-medal winning American equestrian. The interviewer asked Page which horseman had influenced his riding career most …
Fair and Right
The notion that the right thing to do is always fair or that fairness is always right is utterly false. Right and fair occasionally align, but assuming that they do in all cases is an incredibly limiting perspective. The idea that anything right must also be fair is one of the many unfortunate by-products of …
Gregory Hake 