This is the third posting treating Cory’s habits and arts of an educated person, which are a shared responsibility of teachers and students. They are the foundation for a liberal education and necessary for the exercise of public intellectualism. There are things we ought to be thinking about and doing to ensure that Cory’s habits and arts are meaningful parts of university life.

William Cory’s habits of an educated person are the preconditions for being able to effectively engage in the arts of expression, which in turn require a level of self-knowledge.

In 1861 William Johnson Cory presented an essay titled Eton Reform in which he defends the curriculum of Eton College. Cory had prepared a defense of the Etonian system (curriculum) in reply to the criticisms of Matthew James Higgins and Sir J.T. Coleridge. At the time the headmaster was addressing allegations that Eton College was teaching its students nothing useful that may lead to a job.