The Core Purpose of Great Hearts

Many organizations have a mission statement on the wall or in their employee handbook.  When we talk about the mission at Great Hearts, we refer instead to our core purpose statement.  The words of this statement animate our work and human purpose at a far deeper level—from the inside out.  Our purpose matters more to us than just words on a wall.

At Great Hearts, we exist to cultivate the minds and hearts of students through the pursuit of Truth (verum), Goodness (bonum), and Beauty (pulchrum).  We believe human beings were created to discover Truth, to practice Goodness, and respond to Beauty.

Great Hearts Co-founder and Academies Officer Dr. Daniel Scoggin believes the core purpose statement of Great Hearts has a greater reach beyond our own organization.  “The institution of Great Hearts was built to serve the bedrock institution of our culture: the family.  We believe mothers and fathers are the first and most lasting teachers of their children,” said Scoggin.  “Great Hearts teachers and leaders thus understand their joyful and sacred obligation to support the commission of the family in offering a classical education grounded in intellectual and moral virtue.”

Everything that we do at Great Hearts brings us back to our mission of pursuing what is real, what is right, and what is lasting:

Truth
We believe that Truth exists, and we must seek it relentlessly by disciplined study and good-willed conversation. Truth is never just “my truth” and “your truth”; truth itself is not subject to historical or personal conditioning or circumstances, though individuals and cultures are.

Goodness
In an article, Great Hearts Anthem Headmaster Zack Withers claims that Classical Education is a moral education.  “Gleaning insight from Aristotle who said virtue is a habit, teachers in classical schools require their students to practice the intellectual and moral habits necessary for a thoughtful life. In an age that throws around subjective terms such as “self-expression” and “self-realization,” a virtuous education gives students something objective by which they can judge their own character and that of others,” said Withers.  “It gives students the opportunity to ask not just if something is good but to ask what is the highest good of all. This has been called the summum bonum (the highest good).”

Liberal education consists of cognitive, emotional, and moral education—thinking deeply, loving noble things, and living well together. We believe, with Plato, that the highest goal of education is to become good, intellectually, and morally.

Beauty
We believe that beauty is not merely in the eye of the beholder, and that the classic forms and works of Western music, drama, and visual art should play the central role in forming aesthetic judgment.

The pursuit of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty is not limited to our scholars.  We believe the continued journey of this pursuit continues for all our faculty, support staff, administration, and families of Great Hearts.  Verum, Pulchrum, Bonum.

Do you have a story or know of a story that you would like to see featured at Great Hearts?  Please contact jmoore@greatheartsamerica.org.