Right-wingers, much like H.P Lovecraft are afraid of Non-Euclidean shapes.
I’m pretty sure Thomas “It is not theft, properly speaking, to take secretly and use another’s property in a case of extreme need: Because that which he takes for the support of his life becomes his own property by reason of that need.” Aquinas would’ve probably taken his work to his grave if he saw what people repping his name were doing.
I believe it’s called a classical education and its focus is on sort of self improvement through thought and thinking about thinking. An education in learning kind of idea.
Any small liberal arts college I can think of has the same basic educational philosophy. My own was Congregationalist founded which varies in that the idea was self driven education wherein we’d study what we thought was worthwhile not a pre-set list. But even then fundamentally it was an education to build a learning foundation.
With that in mind all of these texts are clearly aimed at that goal. I get that seeing St. Augustine on the science list with “a literal meaning of genesis” is jarring, but Augustine didn’t mean literal the way we do and he actually spends twelve books not reading genesis literally. In a catholic school it would be used to get students to not read the bible literally while reconciling it with their faith.