Apologists for Greek and Latin have lately dwindled. Yet in the past several years there have been some notable attempts to save classical education from utter extinction—one of which is Tracy Lee Simmons’ “Climbing Parnassus.” Climbing Parnassus: A New Apologia for Greek and Latin, by Tracy Lee Simmons (290 pages, Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2007) As [...]
Ultimately, the two catecheses—of our Faith and our civilization—should go hand-in-hand. That’s the way it’s always been: the West informed our Faith, and our Faith has indelibly formed the West. If we want both to survive, and perhaps flourish in America, our children will need the intellectual and cultural tools and imagination that a true [...]
Teaching at a time when civilization is in such obvious disarray and such marked decline imposes even more stringent and pressing obligations on the teacher. I have reached the conclusion that what American teachers must do is really very basic: Teach young men and women how to read and write, how to imagine beyond themselves, [...]
Following the Way of Goodness and living in the Life that is true Beauty is absolutely essential. The deepest contemplation of great truths and even the Truth Himself is ultimately worth nothing if it does not issue in action and love. Congratulations, Trinity class of 2022! You are finishing something extraordinary. And when I say [...]
In this time of renewed world strife, it might seem counter-intuitive or even irresponsible to argue that, more than ever, we need genuine old-fashioned liberal education whose ends are wisdom and virtue. Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine last week stunned the world, but perhaps what ought to be truly stunning is that almost everyone, across [...]
This is the beginning of an extraordinary adventure, one that will bond the freshmen to each other for life and form the way that they experience the world of the mind and the tradition of the West, which is their home and birthright. I mean the West, of course, in the broad cultural sense, but [...]
In our contemporary world of ubiquitous mirage, the skills of discernment are not only important, they are of vital benefit. "Likely stories" are a bedrock of classical education, and classical educators should endeavor to have students read them not because they believe students must be virtuous in order to go to battle against societal disintegration [...]
Wicked foolishness continues apace on the higher academic earth. The flood is sweeping away institution after institution. Yet at least one righteous man is gathering together verbal creatures of every kind—masculine, feminine, and neuter— into an ark and waiting for the flood waters to recede. First, the wicked foolishness. Almost a year ago, my fellow [...]
Paying attention to the guidance of the heart is no guarantee of prudent action, as Mark Antony and Cleopatra demonstrate with grand style, but there is something nobler in giving the heart its whole due than in bypassing its counsel and resorting to mere calculation. According to the 17th century mathematician and Catholic apologist Blaise [...]
The demise of imitation has been devastating for personal growth. It used to be a commonplace that successful people need to have extraordinary “heroes” whom they admire and try to emulate. But the historical disciplines in the twentieth century waged something of a war against the very idea of the hero. Imitation, like so many [...]
Latin, as the primary historical language of erudition and learning in the West, is the sole gateway into the halls of Western thought and humanistic learning. Without the use of this language, we can hardly know ourselves, and certainly not the road that brought us to the modern day. As the old year ends and [...]
Young people need to come into the presence of music. Without live orchestras and available concerts the real heart of music will cease to beat, and young people will be deprived of one of the most enriching experiences that I know. I grew up in post-war Britain, at a time when people were beginning to [...]
Classical education is in a unique position to acknowledge in humility that every person is a sinner, and that some people and institutions in the West have been monstrously evil. Yet the Western heritage includes that which can never itself be complicit in evil: the true and the good, those inexhaustible resources that set us [...]
According to Dorothy Sayers, classical education is not as much an orthodox literary corpus as it is a mindset and a methodology. It is not merely the content of the Great Books, but the tools used in learning any book, which modern education has lost and needs to recover. In the ideal classical form, the [...]