I like to write. Let me restate that. I really, really, really like to write. Over the last 20 years, it has become almost second nature to me. Admittedly, there have been times—sometimes rather scary to me—in which my mind is blank and my keyboard dusty, but these times have been, praise God, relatively [...]
Today’s pop music is designed to sell, not inspire. Today’s pop artist is often more concerned with producing something familiar to mass audience, increasing the likelihood of commercial success. With less timbral variety, and the same combination of keyboard, drum machine, and computer software, and with only two songwriters writing much of what we hear, [...]
Though the approach to the mountain Weathertop is only one scene in “The Lord of the Rings,” it is a telling one. Through romance, imagery of light and color, the voluptuousness of his landscapes, and the holiness of song and poetry, J.R.R. Tolkien brilliantly reveals himself as a master of the English language and, [...]
Reading the great works allows one to grapple with the big questions of life vicariously. When one begins, one enters into a great conversation that has been ongoing for centuries. I might have come late to the party, but I’m at the party. Anyone, at any age, can become a lover of literature and [...]
Graduates sallying forth from the ivied halls need to be free men and women. That is the claim and purpose of the liberal arts. Having had a significant time to ponder and pursue and practice the virtues of freedom, these students can join the ongoing conversation of the ages and continue to refine the [...]
A puzzling phenomenon exists in the world of teaching children to write. In the two decades since I first entered the classroom as a writing teacher, I’ve seen it countless times: a widespread bias against one highly useful, little word. Although this word has done nothing wrong, it has been maligned and even banned [...]
In an age when we have come to expect things to happen for us instantaneously, letter-writing is a school for patience. Letter-writing also has the mysterious power to convey not just the words but the presence of the person. It has been the nourishment of romantic love for ages. In writing letters, we participate [...]
Europe would not be Europe without the current of tradition once inculcated by classical education. It is such an education we must seek to preserve. Though its immediate effects are not manifest, without it the culture would be ceded to those who wish to shape it for a radically secular agenda, perhaps even a posthuman [...]
Everybody agrees student loan debt is a large problem. In the United States approximately $1.5 trillion is currently owed by around 45 million people at an average of over $32,000 per borrower. While relatively few borrowers owe more than $75,000, that relatively few includes over 4 million people. Another 24 million borrowers owe more [...]
Modernity seems intent on forgetting the past or burying it. This being so, it might prove helpful to take a look at Homer’s Odysseus. What on earth has a fictional character, or, at any rate, a legendary character, to do with us? Surprisingly, he has a great deal to teach us, because he is [...]
The classical Christian educator and the progressive educator have radically different ideas of education. The two camps have virtually no real common ground concerning education’s means and ends—and the difference between the two is the difference between apples and arsenic. If we reminisce about the days when PBS aired the Anthology documentary on The [...]
College, as most know it, is Elbert Hubbard’s Scrapbook. Nobody reading this has heard of Elbert Hubbard, but he is education today. His “scrapbook” promised four thousand years of education in one slim volume with beautiful binding. How big was he? Luminaries judged your education if you did not have the Scrapbook on your end table. My [...]
Classical education to be sure offers much that is wonderful. But the most important discoveries come by effort that is often painful. A joyful tour of the “true, good, and beautiful” without pain is likely a superficial substitute for a real education. When I see T-shirts and bumper stickers that declare, “I survived Catholic schools,” [...]
No work of Christian theology has left such an impact on the world and biblical interpretation and understanding as St. Augustine’s “City of God.” We who read the Bible do so, often unknowingly, through the eyes of the bishop of Hippo. In 410 A.D., the city of Rome was sacked by the Visigoths. Rome [...]