“If I had been taught literature the way most students are today, I wouldn’t want to read it either.”
Northwestern Professor Gary Saul Morson speaks to a full house October 9th, 2025. See highlights below!
Professor Gary Saul Morson of Northwestern University spoke to a crowd of New Trier Neighbors last week about how to teach – and how not to teach – great literature.
But first, he made the case for naming and teaching “great” literature to begin with:
Why is great literature important?
Morson said, “Great literature teaches us what it means to be human. When it comes to understanding the human heart,” he said, “Shakespeare, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky still know more than we do.” And when students finally encounter great books taught with the esteem and the context of the author they deserve, something awakens. “They start to ask for more,” he said. “They want to know what to read next. That’s the spark you’re after.”
Yet many university students now take “literature” classes that assign social justice projects instead of novels. “You can get course credit,” Morson noted dryly, “for activism instead of reading.” Morson also expressed concern for today’s students, who often arrive at college with little exposure to history, literature, or even the Bible — the shared reference points that once connected generations within our civil society.
What are the mistakes in how it is too often taught today?
With humor and precision, he outlined the problematic ways literature is too often taught in today’s classrooms, including:
The Technique Trap – Students learn to hunt for symbols and motifs rather than meaning. “You can always find a water symbol,” he quipped. “Someone always drinks or washes their hands — and you’re in business.”
The Documentary Approach – Books are treated as historical evidence. “If you want to understand factory conditions,” he said, “a surveyor’s report would be more accurate than Dickens. That’s not what makes literature great.”
The Judgment Game – Students are trained to condemn great authors for not reflecting 2025’s values. “But if all you learn from Shakespeare is that he wasn’t progressive enough,” Morson warned, “then you’ve missed the chance to learn anything from him — and in ten years, your own views will be outdated, too.”
Rekindling the Classical Spirit
For Morson, the goal of education is simple: to spark a lifelong love of learning and truth seeking, which is precisely the spirit New Trier Neighbors hopes to kindle in our community.
As we continue to engage with local districts and parents in our township, we see a growing appetite for a path of study at New Trier High School rooted in timeless texts, civil discourse, and the pursuit of truth rather than ideology.
Rather than nostalgic, such a path would be revolutionary. And it would equip the next generation not just to navigate the world, but to understand it, to question it with humility, and to shape it with wisdom.
That’s the promise of great literature — and of great education. It’s the promise New Trier Neighbors is determined to rekindle, one conversation at a time.
The classics are books that people still remember and read long after they came out. Now we read books that in 20 years, nobody will remember or care about.