Classical Education

Why “The Great Music” Is as Important as “The Great Books”

Ignorance of the great works of music is as bad, for someone who seeks to be educated in Western culture, as ignorance of Dante and Shakespeare in literature, and Plato and Aristotle in philosophy... Today’s offering in our Timeless...

A New Standard, Timeless Truths

Some might wonder, is it a bad thing if liberal arts are on their way out? Are they worth reviving or even discussing? In November 2018, The University of Wisconsin at Stevens Point announced its plan to...

Ode to an Insightingale

No collection of great books, nor even the most wisely designed curriculum, which is but a recipe, can equal or even approach the importance of the faculty, whose members bring the program to life year after year. Eva Brann knows all this, and preaches it eloquently...

With Gratitude to a Sentinel of Classical Learning

From time to time, there is the need for sentinels of classical learning, individuals who, if one is fortunate to be around them, beckon the meandering intellect back to the pursuit of the truth, the discovery of the good, and the conservation of the beautiful. In the...

The Classics and Christianity

Christians invented the classical curriculum; it is as much part of the broader Western inheritance as it is specifically part of the Christian inheritance... Why study old books? How do dusty old books written by dead men...

An Education to Restore Wonder

We’ve reached a time when fewer and fewer on the outside know what the liberal arts are, or the value of them to the individual person, an organization, and the marketplace of ideas. In an age when people are so focused on science and technology via “STEM”...

A Classical Educational Creed

Classical educators agree on the ends of liberal education, namely, the possession of the true, good, and beautiful, wisdom, and the development of the intellectual and imaginative powers that enable their attainment. But the pedagogical means to these...

Liberty and Liberal Education

Free citizens are necessarily invited to follow the Delphic injunction, “know thyself,” that is addressed to all mankind; and their success or failure in responding to this invitation is crucial for the preservation or loss of their liberty...

Four Sides of a Cube: The Way of Great Books

We turn to the Great Books so that the encounter with them might do for us what they did for past generations. We turn to them as world makers, that they might aide us in understanding the world they were instrumental in bringing about, our world...

The Cave and the Consumer

Whether the wisest should rule has always been a vexed question, largely because the wisest are least likely to seek (or be granted) the power and prominence that accompany the highest position. But even being educated—simply...

Have We Misjudged Machiavelli?

Machiavelli can enter public debate not merely as a wicked man concerned only with power and political maneuvering, but as a philosopher with myriad insights to offer modern politics, politicians, and even apolitical members of the public... Be Like...

Ideology and the Humanities

Ideologies are mind-traps: They are constructed in such a way that they prejudge the motive of opposition to their systems. The great aim of liberal education is to liberate students from mere unexamined opinion into genuine thought... Some people...

The Liberal Arts vs. Progressive Education

Search the web and you will find any number of lofty “purposes of education:” Education enables us to develop to the fullest. Education cultivates the human mind with values and principles. Education teaches us to think and...

The New Barbarism? Learning in Twenty-First Century Schools

We are racing through the twenty-first century with our schools following the culture, rather than education molding the culture through our youth... Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords our readers the opportunity to join Tony Williams as he discusses how our school system has...