A Benedictine Education

By |2024-03-22T17:46:46-05:00March 22nd, 2024|Categories: Books, Catholicism, Christianity, Classical Learning, Education, Sainthood, St. Benedict|

Education follows the same law as the physical universe, which is sustained and carried on in dependence on certain centres of power and laws of operation. Education has its history in Christianity, and its doctors or masters in that history. A Benedictine Education, by John Henry Newman (160 pages, Cluny Media) As the physical universe [...]

A Worthy Chase: Pursuing an Ideal Education

By |2024-02-09T22:57:23-06:00February 9th, 2024|Categories: Books, Classical Learning, Education, Eva Brann, Liberal Learning, St. John's College, Timeless Essays|

Eva Brann’s latest book, “Pursuits of Happiness,” is a collection of essays which range from Aeschylus to Austen, with topics spanning the nature of time itself to Sacred Scripture. Interspersed here are two parts constituting the whole of an ideal education. Pursuits of Happiness: On Being Interested by Eva Brann (640 pages, Paul Dry Books, [...]

Love to Learn, Learn to Love

By |2023-12-18T11:41:39-06:00December 17th, 2023|Categories: Beauty, Catholicism, Classical Education, Classical Learning, Classics, Education, Great Books, Liberal Learning, Truth|

To get the most out of your time here, I have some advice: Love to learn, ignore your grades, and learn to love — and then I promise that Thomas Aquinas College will radically change your life. Before I arrived here on campus for the first time 23 years ago, my high school classmates had [...]

There Is Only One Great Book: The Bible

By |2023-10-08T19:26:52-05:00July 29th, 2023|Categories: Bible, Catholicism, Christianity, Classical Education, Classical Learning, History, Literature|

Medieval civilization proved the Bible’s power to incorporate all the tales of the pagans. It was never the goal of Augustine, Jerome, and their successors to save classical literature, although that resulted from their efforts. What they wanted to know was Christ in the Scriptures. Despite the current enthusiasm over classical education, there is little [...]

Greek to Us: The Death of Classical Education & Its Consequences

By |2023-07-26T15:39:37-05:00July 26th, 2023|Categories: Christian Kopff, Classical Education, Classical Learning, Classics, Humanities, Liberal Learning, Timeless Essays|Tags: |

Classical Education as practiced in the United States over the past 30 years is the most up-to-date, cutting edge development in K-12 education. It is also the oldest, most tried-and-true alternative on today’s educational scene. America needs the Classical Tradition. In 1999 the A&E cable network broadcast a list of “The 100 Most Influential People [...]

Old and New

By |2023-06-03T15:52:18-05:00June 3rd, 2023|Categories: Catholicism, Classical Education, Classical Learning, Glenn Arbery, Senior Contributors, Wyoming Catholic College|

Classical schools honor the old. Reading and discussing a great work in high school give the mind a preparatory receptivity until greater experience can broaden and deepen the field of reference, at which time studying the same work in college can be an experience formative for life. These past two weeks, I have had occasion [...]

The Source of Creativity & the Wellspring of Culture

By |2023-05-19T11:01:46-05:00May 19th, 2023|Categories: Catholicism, Classical Education, Classical Learning, Glenn Arbery, Liberal Learning, Senior Contributors, Wyoming Catholic College|

In classical education, we are not talking about tradition as the acquisition of monuments, but as a permanence gathered from moments of participation capable of being lived and lived again and then passed on to be taken up yet again by generations yet to come, with our own additions and our own achievements of greatness. [...]

Classical Studies & Modern Science

By |2023-04-11T19:32:49-05:00April 11th, 2023|Categories: Classical Education, Classical Learning, Liberal Learning, Science|

There is perhaps nothing more old-fashioned and tradition-minded than classical studies, which focus upon the dead languages, fables, and philosophies of bygone civilizations. So what could the classics have to do with cutting-edge science and technology? Quite a lot, according to Werner Heisenberg, who testified that “the sciences cannot but benefit from classical studies.” In [...]

The Suffered Past

By |2022-11-14T07:59:20-06:00November 13th, 2022|Categories: Classical Learning, Glenn Arbery, History, Liberal Learning, Literature, Senior Contributors, Wyoming Catholic College|

“How is this relevant?” someone might ask about some venerable work from the tradition, such as the Aeneid or King Lear or Aristotle's De Anima. The one doing the asking might seem to be in possession of a burning truth about the uniqueness of the present moment, but the more we commit the past to [...]

Tyranny and Humane Understanding

By |2022-03-18T14:07:56-05:00March 4th, 2022|Categories: Classical Education, Classical Learning, Glenn Arbery, Liberal Learning, Senior Contributors, Wyoming Catholic College|

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 [...]

Likely Stories: A Bedrock of Classical Education

By |2021-08-14T13:40:52-05:00July 21st, 2021|Categories: Books, C.S. Lewis, Classical Education, Classical Learning, Philosophy, Plato, St. John's College|

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 [...]

Heart and Mind

By |2021-07-02T14:31:06-05:00June 12th, 2021|Categories: Classical Education, Classical Learning, Glenn Arbery, Graduation, Humanities, Liberal Arts, Love, Wyoming Catholic College|

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 Heart of Music

By |2021-08-03T17:34:08-05:00November 18th, 2020|Categories: Classical Education, Classical Learning, Featured, Music, Roger Scruton, Timeless Essays|

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 [...]

Does Classical Education Promote Diversity?

By |2020-08-24T16:47:29-05:00August 24th, 2020|Categories: Classical Education, Classical Learning, Classics, Education, Liberal Learning|

Today we are not inclined to ask who said something, but to ask to which identity group the person who said it belongs. This is profoundly opposed to the spirit of inquiry that classical education proposes to students—a spirit that seeks truth, beauty, and goodness. Though classical learning is gaining steam again in many parts [...]

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