There’s no shortage of lenses through which to examine this week’s Capitol riots: politics, history, race, gender, economics, media studies and more. Perhaps the through line in all these perspectives is education, and the liberal arts in particular. And many scholars say that education is at the heart of what went wrong in Washington -- as well as the tunnel through which the U.S. can exit a dark place.

“If we needed a reminder of the fragility of our democracy, we got one,” said Andrew Delbanco, president of the Teagle Foundation, which promotes liberal arts education, and Alexander Hamilton Professor of American Studies at Columbia University. “In the long run, the only force that can save democracy is an educated citizenry -- citizens, that is, who know enough to resist the kind of lies and incitements spewed out by the current president and his enablers.”

Quoting President Madison, who told the U.S. Congress some 200 years ago that “a well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people,” Delbanco said the idea is truer than ever.