American philosopher-educator Mortimer J. Adler (1902-2001) raised a stir in public schools, colleges, and universities over the place of classic works in the curriculum. For more than sixty years, his writings exposed to public scrutiny radical ideas about how to enlighten and educate the well-rounded individual. Whether admired, ridiculed, or detested for encouraging self-directed reading, he encouraged a healthy debate on learning and values.

Born to teacher Clarissa Manheim and Ignatz Adler, a jewelry salesman, in New York City on December 28, 1902, Adler emerged from an unassuming background. In his early teens, he considered becoming a journalist and worked as copyboy and secretary to the editor of the New York Sun. After reading the autobiography of nineteenth-century English philosopher John Stuart Mill, Adler quit high school to direct his own education. He began by reading Plato. On scholarship, he earned an undergraduate degree in philosophy at Columbia University in...