Hillsdale College is an independent, nonsectarian institution of higher learning founded in 1844 by men and women grateful to God for the blessings resulting from civil and religious liberty and believing that the diffusion of learning is essential to preserving those blessings. It pursues the founders' objective of furnishing all persons who wish, irrespective of nation, color, or sex, a literary and scientific education outstanding among American colleges, combined with moral and social instruction to develop the minds and improve the hearts of its pupils. The college considers itself a trustee of modern man's intellectual and spiritual inheritance from the Judeo-Christian faith and Greco-Roman culture, a heritage finding its clearest expression in the American experiment of self-government under law. By training the young in the liberal arts, encouraging the scholarship of its faculty, and publicly defending that legacy, Hillsdale College seeks to prepare worthy leaders, preserve that inheritance for future generations, and secure the conditions of its own survival and independence.