ASHLAND, Ohio–An audience that filled the Hugo Young Theatre was reminded Monday night that Dr. Peter Schramm is a friend, a mentor, and an inspiration. Schramm once wrote, “In this unique country–this novus ordo seclorum–citizens have to be made because it is not enough that they be born.”
Though no one quoted that statement at the event, some of the remarks reflected it.
The occasion was the re-dedication of Ashland University’s Ashbrook Center Library, which is being renamed by the Ashbrook board for Schramm. But it was also more than that. The Ashbrook Center hosted the evening honoring Schramm, the event honored him and was a celebration for him. Schramm is battling an aggressive cancer.
“He is a teacher, a mentor, and a friend to so many of us in this room,” Roger Beckett, the Ashbrook Center executive director, said. “And he has devoted his life to studying and teaching about America. His love for our country has instructed and strengthened all of ours. He has always been reminding ‘you Americans about why this country is the world’s cradle of liberty and the last best hope for mankind.”
“We are all here tonight because of the great regard we have for Peter,” Beckett continued. ”The bad news, of course, is because of his struggle with cancer and that’s what brings us together. The good news is that we have a chance to honor him, to thank him, to give him the opportunity to be his Hungarian-self once more in criticizing us for the way we’re going to go about this.”
Beckett explained the event was done Schramm-style: first with the jazz music he loves, then with food and drink, and then to have conversation. The Kinfolk Brass Band from New Orleans, LA performed before and after the program.
“In a sense, all of Peter’s institution building and teaching has been aimed at preserving and enriching American conversation. That seemed to be the best way to honor Peter was to bring some of his friends together to talk, as he has talked with all of us.”
To that end, Beckett held the “conversation” with the president of Hillsdale College, Larry Arnn, who is also Schramm’s brother-in-law; professor of political science at Ashland University Jeff Sikkenga; senior editor of National Review magazine Jonah Goldberg; professor of of Ethics and Politics at Washington and Lee University Lucas Morel; editor of the Weekly Standard magazine Bill Kristol; and Senior Fellow at the Ashbrook Center David Tucker.
Beckett said many friends wanted to attend the evening’s event but couldn’t. “One of them,” he said, “the governor of our good state is planning to run for president and couldn’t make it to Ashland.” However, Gov. John Kasich sent a video message. The governor also sent a proclamation.
At the beginning of the night’s conversation, each participant described how they met Schramm and shared laughs with each other and the audience.
Tucker, for example, said he was at Clairmonte Institute, where Schramm is a senior fellow and former president, and was asked to attend a lecture to some military officers.
“This was at a time when the volunteer army was still relatively new and a subject of that discussion, and in the course of that discussion,” Tucker said. A student in the lecture announced that he could never join the military because he could never see any reason to defend his country. And suddenly there was an explosion of sound; a chair went one way and a desk went another, and a big guy got up and gave this impassioned speech about the goodness of America and the necessity to defend it. It was a wonderful speech; I can’t even remember it because I was so amazed at the circumstances in which it was delivered. But a couple of weeks later I was playing basketball and I was introduced to Peter Schramm and I said [to myself], ‘Well, here he is.’
“It turns out Peter was a much better defender of America than he was a basketball player. So I can say I had my first lesson in civic education from Peter before I even knew who he was,” Tucker concluded, sharing a laugh. The evening was full of laughter and some tears.
Beckett said Schramm has worked to connect liberal arts and civic education so he asked Schramm’s six friends to discuss to what extent the civic component, “making citizens,” is alive in American universities.
After explaining the beginnings of the Clarimonte Institute, Arnn said, “The prospects for education are fantastic and the reason is liberal education concerns things that are beautiful; bureaucratic education contains things that are ugly. Sooner or later people are going to rally to the things that are good and beautiful.”
“Peter likes to refer to liberal arts as useless, and you have to wait for the other shoe to drop when he says something like that,” Morel added. “…He means they are not intended to be practical. Practical are the things you do by necessity, things you do because you have to….The great thing about the liberal arts, I learned this from Peter, is that the liberal arts are about teaching people how to use their time when they aren’t under the force of necessity.
“They’re for free people; they’re for people who get to choose how to spend their time.”
Goldberg had the audience laughing with many of his remarks, but on a nearly more serious note, he said, “I’m tempted to flip the safety on my rifle when I hear people say the liberal arts are useless.
“What I always try to tell kids is that liberal arts refers to the knowledge and skills and the way to think that is necessary to preserve a free society… My only point is the purpose of liberal arts is to teach kids one of the most useful things in the world which is to value their freedom and to understand that it’s not a cheap commodity that they simply get to have. It’s something that people fought and died for and those skills if not taught will be lost and we won’t be able to maintain our free society. ”
Before the audience returned to conversation and the food, chairman of the board of the Ashbrook Center Marvin Krinsky told there audience that the center’s library will be forever renamed for Schramm.
Tom Klingenstein, chairman of the board of the Claremont Institute, also spoke and said that a plubius fellowship will be named for Schramm.
But the night was rendered more meaningful after all of the conversation and honors when Beckett shared with the audience that Peter Schramm was listening at the rear of the stage. Schramm stepped out to the roar of applause and a standing ovation.
“If I think about my life and this country and my students and my family and my friends, I weep like a little boy. I am not only the luckiest guy in the world, but you ought to know, despite my medical condition, the happiest… I am grateful to all of you for allowing me to share what happiness I think I have and possess, and sometimes created with you and vice versa, of course,” Schramm said.
Schramm spoke of the relationships between students and teachers to learn. He added, with emotion, “Once human beings discovered the opportunity to think, partly as a result of printing and books, then they run with it. No people in the human race has taken it as far as you Americans have, and you are therefore God’s almost chosen people.”
“The reason I said I’d be here is because, the band: blues, jazz, especially New Orleans-style jazz is the perfect reflection of the American heart… And when we study the American mind, both in its origins, at its best, and its degeneration over the years, we also study the American heart…
“It’s impossible for me to convey my gratitude to all of you, to my friends, to my love,” Schramm added. “Your presence in my life has made me a much better human being than I would have been without that presence, and you will always be in my heart and mind to the extent that I can hang onto you…. I’m completely and utterly grateful, and I bow to you in my gratitude.”
Peter W. Schramm has served as a professor of political science and retired as executive director of the Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs in 2013. Prior to his work at Ashland, he served in the Reagan Administration as the director of the Center for International Education in the United States Department of Education.
Before entering government service, Schramm was the president of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy, in Claremont, California. He earned his Ph.D. in government from the Claremont Graduate School in 1980 and holds two Master of Arts degrees, one from Claremont in government and the other in international history from The London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London. He has received the Mentor Teaching Award seven times.
Schramm has edited, co-edited and contributed to a number of books, including Natural Right and Political Right, Lessons of the Bush Defeat, Consequences of the Clinton Victory, History of American Political Thought, The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, and a number of others.
“If I think about my life and this country and my students and my family and my friends, I weep like a little boy. I am not only the luckiest guy in the world, but you ought to know, despite my medical condition, the happiest,” said Dr. Peter Schramm.
