It did my heart good to see that the Great Books program is still going strong.

When we lived in Pittsfield, Mass., in the 1960s, Mom got involved with Great Books, attending evening group discussions about the volumes that had helped shape the Western World.

According to the Great Books Foundation website: The Foundation’s stated objective is to provide the means of a genuine liberal education for all adults. By the end of the year (1949), an estimated 50,000 people in thousands of book discussion groups are meeting regularly in public libraries, homes, churches, and synagogues nationwide.

Since we were already investing in a set of Encyclopedia Britannica, I’m guessing any plan to purchase a set of Great Books was delayed. Maybe that was part of the reason for the series of Folio Society books they started collecting when Dad retired.

Meanwhile, a Junior Great Books program was added in 1962. Mom was still involved with the program a decade later, after we’d moved to Fairfield, Conn. She volunteered to help teach Junior Great Books at the school Bill, her youngest, attended.

Here’s a poem she wrote when the class “graduated”:

Legacy

Nice to have known you, to have learned
from you as you have learned from us.
You have a precious tool for living now;
put it to use and lean into the winds
of life. Be brave and grow. Be gluttons
in your search for knowledge. Listen,
listen, listen to yourself and those
around you. And ask your questions freely;
there are answers always. Find them.

~ Joan Vayo, Commemorating the Awarding of Certificates to the Sixth Grade Junior Great Books Discussion Group of North Stratfield School on February 16, 1972.

“Be gluttons in your search for knowledge.” In her memory, let’s all take an extra helping each and every day.

---

“Legacy” © 1972 Joan Vayo. All rights reserved.

Please subscribe! Simply drop your email address in the box, below, and we’ll send you an email with each new blog post.