“People hate being made to think,” the educator and classical scholar Edith Hamilton (1867–1963) once said. Laziness of mind is indeed easy to find, even more so today than in her time. It shows up in vapid social media posts, flippant political rhetoric, superficial media coverage, knee-jerk but sanctimonious opinions, and the widespread absence of critical thinking skills. It’s everywhere. People who don’t think are vulnerable to those who do, especially to those who think constantly about how to use others for nefarious purposes. Dictators and demagogues strongly prefer compliant, sycophantic subjects over thoughtful, independent, free-spirited types. Laziness of mind rarely if ever made an appearance in the long life and remarkable work of Hamilton. She celebrated the mind. She thought it was shameful to let one go to waste. In her view, “mind and spirit together make up that which separates us from the rest of the animal world, that which enables a man to know the truth, …