The riddle of existence is the college curriculum that was laid before the Pharaohs, that was taught in the groves by Plato, that formed the trivium and quadrivium, and is to-day laid before the freedmen’s sons by Atlanta University.
W.E.B. Du Bois: “The riddle of existence is the college curriculum that was laid before the Pharaohs, that was taught in the groves by…”
Editor's note · Context
Du Bois asserts that the fundamental questions addressed by a college curriculum are timeless, connecting ancient philosophical traditions to the education offered at Atlanta University.
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Our song, our toil, our cheer, and warning have been given to this nation in blood-brotherhood.
The silently growing assumption of this age is that the probation of races is past, and that the backward races of to-day are of proven inefficiency and not worth the saving.
If somewhere in this whirl and chaos of things there dwells Eternal Good, pitiful yet masterful, then anon in His good time America shall rend the Veil and the prisoned shall go free.
Hear my cry, O God the Reader; vouchsafe that this my book fall not still-born into the world wilderness.