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 will [...]
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 personal [...]
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 [...]
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 in [...]
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 one. [...]
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 one [...]
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 Beatles, [...]
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 1923 [...]
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,” [...]
I like to read other people’s mail. Don’t worry, I only read the mail of dead people. Mainly dead people whose books I’ve read. Let me explain. I like to read published letters of my favorite authors. I’m currently dipping into two volumes of selected letters: Willa Cather’s to virtually everyone with whom she corresponded [...]
While much has been made of the “Ten Commandments” in recent history, men for centuries have accepted these commandments as deeply rooted in the order of the universe and of creation—as an overt expression of the Natural Law. They are one of the ways God has continued to maintain His love for His people. With [...]
A school offering a good and true education will answer the question “What is truth?” in the words that Christ gave to His disciples when He told them that He is “the way, the truth, and the life.” An education that sidelines Christ or ignores Him, or which treats Christianity as only one of several [...]
As a graduate of a “Great Books” college that uses a seminar method of instruction, I have always looked for ways to incorporate discussion into my high school courses. One year, when I was teaching “Classical Literature,” I was able to run the classes primarily in this way. The burden of the discussion was on [...]
Learning another language helps me to not only understand, but to better experience first-hand how another person thinks, feels, and interacts with the world; this creates the possibility for empathy, fellow-feeling, and ultimately, charity. Having taught high-school Spanish for the first time last fall, I have been wondering why it is that we teach foreign [...]