This month, interns from the Acton Institute gathered at the Russell Kirk Center to learn about “Edmund Burke, Samuel Johnson, and the Birth of Conscious Conservatism.” Dr. Ian Crowe of Belmont Abbey College discussed Burke and his foundational role in the birth of conservatism. Dr. Matthew Davis of the University of Virginia introduced the students to Samuel Johnson, one of the most influential eighteenth-century writers and Burke's contemporary. 

Burke’s political principles have shaped conservative thought since his time, but, as Dr. Davis noted, Samuel Johnson also can lay claim to the mantle of being the first modern conservative. Russell Kirk’s role in promoting both Burke and Johnson was also addressed and students enjoyed discussing contemporary applications of this tradition. The conference offered the participants a lively and intellectually stimulating look into the eighteenth-century origin story of modern conservatism.

Some comments from the student participants included: 

• “This seminar was really helpful in providing biographical information and contextualizing it historically to its relevance for me as a young conservative in a way I was previously unfamiliar. It was a super engaging experience.”

• “Dr. Crowe’s talk made me think about Burke’s distinction between natural society and artificial society in relation to Hayek and Bastiat.”
   
• “It was a wonderful experience, great explanation of the Center, and of the thought of Russell Kirk."

• “It was a really helpful seminar and I would 100% recommend this to any potential participants.”

Kirk Center Co-sponsors CiRCE's National Conference
 

The Kirk Center was honored to be a major sponsor of the CiRCE Institute’s annual summer conference for 300 classical school teachers on July 17-20. The conference topic was Prudence and Russell Kirk’s approach to political prudence was a topic of conversation among many other applications. The award for national best classical teacher of the year is named the Russell Kirk Paideia Prize, and Jeff and Cecilia Nelson were on hand to help recognize the winner this year, Mrs. Debbie Harris of Minneapolis. 

CiRCE founder and president, Andrew Kern, counts Kirk among his chief intellectual heroes, and holds him to be an important forefather of the classical education movement. Author and popular speaker Tracy Lee Simmons recently echoed that sentiment when he commented:

Russell Kirk has been a lodestar for devotees to classical education for generations, not simply because he was a proponent of classical learning—many good men and women have shared that commitment—but because he was an embodiment, and the very embodiment, of classical ideals. He showed everybody, whether graced with a classical training or not in youth, how to think with a classical mind—which is to say, with a mind and heart conformed to the best that has been passed on to us by our betters.