The Gravity of Gravity: Astronomy and Its Relevance

By |2022-08-10T15:57:14-05:00January 27th, 2020|Categories: Andrew Seeley, Culture, Education, Great Books, History, Liberal Learning|

When a fascinating chaos has been observed enough to reveal patterns that allow prediction, the human mind is ready to ask, “Why?” So it is with the cosmos. Tracing the answers to this question throughout history allows us to understand the development of cosmology and its effects on moral imagination. Like most of the Quadrivium, [...]

Joseph Priestly, School Lessons, and Liberty in Grammar

By |2020-01-18T11:12:13-06:00January 17th, 2020|Categories: Culture, Education, Language, Western Civilization, Writing|

I did not become an English professor because of my early public education—but despite it. The standards advocated in the public schools pose a danger to our English-speaking world, and losing our language, or our ability to remake it, is indistinguishable from the diminishment of our Western civilization. Like most American children who attended public [...]

Can We Save Our Dying English Departments?

By |2020-01-17T15:07:00-06:00January 16th, 2020|Categories: David Deavel, Education, Humanities, Literature, Senior Contributors|

We’ve been dumping Shakespeare, Milton, and Eliot in favor of the latest, trendy lesbian poet or controversial rapper. And then we wonder why fewer and fewer college students are majoring in English. What can be done to renew and revive our English departments in this age of political correctness? Q. What’s the difference between a [...]

Of What Value Is a Dead Language?

By |2020-01-09T14:58:16-06:00January 8th, 2020|Categories: Books, Culture, Education, Michael De Sapio, Senior Contributors, Western Civilization, Western Tradition|

The prestige of studying classical languages like Latin and Greek is greatly eroded today. This is no mystery; but how did we get to this point? Linguist Nicholas Ostler, in his book Ad Infinitum: A Biography of Latin, chronicles how Latin remained the one constant during the growth of Western culture. The claims he makes [...]

Remembering the Virtues

By |2019-12-30T10:47:46-06:00January 1st, 2020|Categories: Bradley J. Birzer, Culture, Education, Ethics, Senior Contributors, Virtue|

The virtues are rooted in nature, in creation, and in God’s will for us. They can be forgotten, mocked, or distorted, but, being real and true and beautiful, they can never be conquered. It was once true, unfortunately, that history was written by the victors. Now, it seems, we’ve gone terribly far in the other [...]

Some Advice to Fellow Lovers of Liberal Learning

By |2023-05-21T11:29:10-05:00December 26th, 2019|Categories: E.B., Education, Eva Brann, In Honor of Eva Brann at 90 Series, Liberal Arts, Liberal Learning, Senior Contributors, St. John's College|

A preliminary function of a liberal education must be to serve as a purgative, a cleansing, of those who wish to be free. By its means we can cleanse ourselves of our undigested and unconscious prejudices. When it first came home to me that I would not be a tutor at the Graduate Institute in [...]

Why America Is in Decline… and What to Do About It

By |2019-12-15T20:40:41-06:00December 15th, 2019|Categories: American Republic, Community, Education, Journalism, Western Civilization|

A nation-state as old, and as large in territory, as the United States will experience in its old-age problems we associate with the elderly: loss of memory, preference for the past, reliance on creaky institutions that no longer work, limited income, and questions about the future. Our Constitution has logged 230 years since it was [...]

Classical Education & Friendship

By |2020-09-28T15:52:58-05:00December 13th, 2019|Categories: Classical Education, Education, Friendship, Liberal Learning, Virtue|

A classical education has a particular view of the human as rational and free, capable of the truth, open to and longing for the beautiful, and able to choose and act toward the good. It is also the root of many virtuous friendships, encouraging students to see in one another the shared truth, freedom, and [...]

Choosing a Patron Philosopher of Debate: A Fable

By |2019-12-03T13:59:51-06:00December 3rd, 2019|Categories: Education, Philosophy, Rhetoric, Socrates|

I’ve been coaching debate for five years now, and as I’ve taught students how to play the game, the benefits of debate become obvious. At the same time, a danger lurks. Could debate inherently be an activity devoted to sophistry? Back from summer break, the varsity debate team gathers to determine an important part of [...]

Jacob Klein: European Scholar and American Teacher

By |2023-05-21T11:29:13-05:00December 2nd, 2019|Categories: E.B., Education, Eva Brann, In Honor of Eva Brann at 90 Series, Jacob Klein, Meno, Plato, Senior Contributors, St. John's College|

Jacob Klein presents the model of teaching best fitting a stable community of liberal learning. He was a master of the somewhat mysterious art of leading from behind—by solicitous listening, by intimating questions, even by expectant silence. The subtitle of my talk might be “Liberal Education: Program and/or Pedagogy?” The reason is that I think of Jacob [...]

The Grace of Owing

By |2019-11-28T00:46:38-06:00November 27th, 2019|Categories: Classical Education, Education, Glenn Arbery, Liberal Arts, Senior Contributors, Thanksgiving, Wyoming Catholic College|

To be truly grateful means that one holds oneself in the grace of owing. It means alert and noble attention to the good intended by the giver. Giving thanks is such a beautifully natural gesture that it seems almost perverse to admire someone for not making it. But Dr. Samuel Johnson earns such admiration in [...]

Memory and Its Discontents

By |2019-11-26T21:54:21-06:00November 24th, 2019|Categories: Classical Education, Education, Glenn Arbery, Senior Contributors, Wyoming Catholic College|

The whole thrust of the modern world is toward a slighting of memory. These days, most of us worry more about how much memory our computers have than about developing this profound faculty in ourselves. At Wyoming Catholic College, our students continue a practice of great antiquity—they memorize poetry. Although people have never stopped doing [...]

Tools for Writing: The Keyboard

By |2019-11-12T21:47:27-06:00November 12th, 2019|Categories: Bradley J. Birzer, Culture, Senior Contributors, Writing|

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 rare. [...]

Why Pop Music Is So Bad These Days

By |2021-04-14T09:59:02-05:00November 7th, 2019|Categories: Education, Music|

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, [...]

Go to Top