In a 1930 article, Eleanor Roosevelt asked a crucial question: “What is the purpose of education?” Going beyond the conventional answer focusing on the acquisition of knowledge and the learning of facts, she stressed that the true goals of education were twofold. First, the creation of ‘informed and intelligent citizens,’ and second, “the realization that we are all responsible for the trend of thought and the action of our times.”
Education is central to the purpose of the RIAS. The Institute is a small-scale graduate school for PhD candidates in the field of modern US history. Its staff organize courses and lecture regularly at universities around the Netherlands at both the BA and MA levels. Assistance is also provided for the history programs at local high schools in Zeeland.
