Traditional Catholic liberal arts education faces two major challenges right now: 1) the massive redirection of higher education per se away from any serious consideration of God; and 2) the corruption in the Church. The former challenge has been with us for a long time, with some recent twists, and so has the latter—but it’s [...]
There is a sickness, traditionally called melancholy, which is particularly at home in communities of learning such as ours. Its visible form can be seen in the engraving by Duerer called Melencolia Prima. Amidst the signs and symbols of the liberal arts, especially geometry, sits heavily a winged woman. Her eyes are fixed intently on visions [...]
When we learn math, we are using our mind alone, not our senses. Socrates calls it a study that “by nature leads to intellection.” It is a common occurrence: A math teacher stands at the front of the classroom, struggling to keep the student’s attention. One student is on the phone. Another stares straight ahead [...]
A result of the fact-or-opinion training is that two categories are created in the mind of the student: things that are true, and things that are neither true nor false. Essentially, the fact-or-opinion curriculum is first-rate training for thinking relativistically… “That’s just your opinion.” My students and my children have given vent to this phrase [...]
The work of editors and commentators is not only an interesting historical curiosity. Though the task of liberating important texts—whether from the dustbin of history, the barricade of a foreign language, or both—goes on behind the scenes and is often thankless, it is indispensable. For without it, there is no tradition at all... In 1915, [...]
What enabled men like Athanasius, Augustine, and Aquinas to discover their “why” in ages past can still transform young men and women today. Over the years, I have discovered that nearly every time I come across an especially pithy, insightful, beautifully-expressed quotation, it seems to be attributable either to Winston Churchill or Mark Twain. Recently, [...]
Though J.R.R. Tolkien arrived at Exeter College as a Classics (Great Books) scholar, he found his real passion resided in Germanic and Northern language and myth… Tolkien at Exeter College: How An Oxford Undergraduate Created Middle-earth by John Garth (66 pages, Exeter College, 2015) Never judge a book by its size. This little book is only [...]
Up in the heights of the tradition, protected in grandeur and difficulty, are life-giving waters that descend with surprising force into a world thirsty for courage. Yesterday morning, after reading Murder in the Cathedral in preparation for the last sessions at this year’s Wyoming School of Catholic Thought, I took a long walk up Squaw Creek Road [...]
God is the Best. We can only get better by becoming more like the Best, knowing that we can never be the Best. This is the way of virtue which transcends relative trivialities such as virtuosity… What is the primary purpose of education? Is it to enable our children to be successful in a worldly [...]
Leo Tolstoy shows us the character of Napoleon and shows us the hope of near-repentance, and the devastatingly fearful return to a world of artificial phantoms. I recently wrote an essay about Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Here, I discuss another Russian novel, published at the exact same time, in the exact same periodical: Leo [...]
Here is an array of poetry that just might fit your needs as you consider presents for any type of graduate… I have a privileged position. I really do. The graduating class at our small high school has only sixteen seniors this year. Most years we have fewer than thirty. Last year, I chose to [...]
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 use the word “ideology” neutrally, as though it meant any fairly comprehensive set of ideas. Not [...]
Time will never be truly ordinary, and everydayness will never dominate as long as we have recourse to silence and prayer… There is a kind of harmony between the aftermath of Pentecost and the weeks after graduation. The great feasts are over, and the intensity of activity has abated. The world enters what the Church [...]
If we want to live in a world where there are only means to other means with no end in sight, where only the kitsch consumerist monuments of selfish human will and desire exist, where all knowledge is ordered to use, then we must say goodbye to liberal education. It is necessary for the perfection [...]