The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent

The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent (1914), by John Erskine, is an essay first presented to the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Amherst College, where Erskine taught before working as a professor of English at Columbia University. Originally, “The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent” was published in the quarterly magazine The Hibbert Journal, in 1914, and a year later was published in the essay collection The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent, and Other Essays (1915).

Moreover, during his twenty-eight-year tenure (1909–1937) at Columbia University, Erskine formulated the General Honors Course. In the early 1920s he taught a great books course at Columbia, which later founded the influential Great Books movement.

History
In 1963, “The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent” was published in the Gateway to the Great Books,  Volume 10: Philosophical Essays, a ten-volume book series published by Encyclopædia Britannica Inc..

In the 21st century, Erskine’s essay was the titular essay of the book The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent: Selected Essays (2000), edited by the literary critic Lionel Trilling, of the Columbia University faculty, and featured an introduction by the literary critic Leon Wieseltier. Trilling had been a student of Erskine’s, and later taught the "Great Books" course; Trilling chose Erskine’s essay as the thematic basis and title for the book The Moral Obligation to Be Intelligent: Selected Essays.