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Classical Education
...Catholic education has suffered no less – perhaps even
more – than secular education from the decline of classical studies
and the loss of the old humanist culture. This was the keystone
of the whole educational structure, and when it was removed the higher
studies of theology and philosophy became separated from the world
of specialist and vocational studies which inevitably absorb the greater
part of the time and money and personnel of the modern university.
(Christopher
Dawson, Crisis of Western Education)
Today’s Catholic educators have two thousand years of experience to draw upon as they try to form their schools. Knowing what was done in the past is crucial for making good decisions today.
“Classical Education”, as the term is commonly used, refers to the kind of education that was developed during the Renaissance by Christian humanists. It differed in important ways from the medieval education that preceded it and the scientific/vocational education that followed it.
Marks of Classical Education
- A Liberal Education
- Reverence for Greco-Roman Civilization
- Adaptive
- Liberal Arts
- Preparing for the Next Stage
A Liberal Education
The
goal of Classical education was not to produce good doctors, engineers
or accountants, but to form good men, men who were prepared to live the
best kind of life humanly possible. So it was a Liberal Education,
that is, an education ordered to a life that is worth living for its
own sake. Students learned to seek the best. They
were prepared to become leaders in their societies, men of understanding
who could inspire others through word and action.
Reverence for Greco-Roman Civilization
Classical
Education assumed that, if we are going to learn today, we have to begin
with yesterday. Greco-Roman Civilization, received and developed
in Christian Europe, is a rich tradition of thought, art, governance,
and reflection. To flourish in life, students learned to read deeply
and carefully, imbibing this culture, becoming a part of it themselves. The
cultural ideals learned in school gave them a foundation for their adult
life.
Adaptive
The
culture of the past was never the end of classical education. The
Beautiful, the True and the Good inspired the great authors and their
works. Students appropriated what they received by facing the questions
and challenges of their own times. Classical education in its best
form encouraged students to raise difficult questions, and to develop
their understanding through discussion and debate.
Liberal Arts
The
day-to-day work of a classical school consisted of training in the trivial
and quadrivial arts. Through Grammar, Logic and Rhetoric, students
became masters of language and thought. They learned to be able
to account for every word used by the great Roman and Greek authors,
explaining its grammatical structure, role in argument and connotative
impact. Through imitative exercises, they became articulate, persuasive
and inspiring in speech and writing. Through Geometry, Arithmetic,
Astronomy and Music, students mastered complex and beautiful truths about
an ideal world that opened the door to the study of the divine at work
in nature and the soul.
Preparing for Higher Education
Classical
education was ordered to the higher studies of philosophy and theology. The
encounter with Truth in cultural studies, the introduction to the life
of the mind through the Liberal Arts naturally leads to a longing for
Wisdom.
[Classical studies] provide the ordinary student who is going out in the world to earn his living in professional life with a glimpse of the intellectual and spiritual riches to which he is heir and to which he can return in later years for light and refreshment. If the [school] can only inspire its students with a sense of its value and a desire to know more about it, it will have taken the first and most essential step.
