Our mission
Many adults living full professional and working lives recognise a lack in their education: not technical skill, but sustained engagement with the humanities. Declining literacy and cultural confidence, combined with a widespread search for meaning and purpose, call for a renewed seriousness about education. A return to the foundational texts that have shaped the intellectual and moral traditions of the West is a necessary first step.
Inspired by the education reformer John Ruskin, the Ruskin Centre is founded on three principles:
To be accessible to people without much former education, in the tradition of some of the greatest educators throughout history;
To offer a high-quality, intellectually-rigorous humanities education for its own sake;
To prioritise synthesis over a disjointed single-disciplinary intellectual study, bringing together the intellectual, cultural, and personal into an integrated whole.
In a world of competing ideologies, discrimination between good and bad, better and worse, becomes imperative. Reconnecting to the history of philosophical, political, and literary discourse will restore to us a common ground on which to judge current affairs. That’s why the ‘great books’ seminar is at the core of our mission.
Who we are
Alexander Norris
Course Coordinator
Alexander Norris teaches Latin at an inner-London state school. He holds a degree in Literae Humaniores from the University of Oxford, and is the founding Managing Editor of Bedrock Magazine.
Jack Thomson
Acting Director
Jack Thomson is an independent researcher and seminar leader in the history of ideas and political thought, holding degrees in Music (BA) and Philosophy by Research (MA). His interest in Socratic pedagogy and intellectual formation led him to found the Thomas More Foundation for teachers.