What is a Classical Education?
Memoria Press’ educational philosophy can be best described as classical Christian education. Classical Christian education is the cultivation of wisdom and virtue through meditation on the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. This is accomplished in two ways: first, through training in the liberal arts; and secondly, through a familiarity with the great books and the great thinkers of the Western tradition.
The liberal arts are the general linguistic and mathematical skills that enable a person to excel in every academic area—as well as in the practical activities of life. In classical and medieval times, there were thought to be seven of these arts or skills: grammar, logic, and rhetoric (the “trivium”), as well as arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music (the “quadrivium”). The first three were linguistic arts, and the last four were mathematical. We would probably say today that there are more than just the four mathematics skills worthy of mastery, but the liberal arts remain the greatest summary of the skills a person should be expected to know in order to be accounted an educated person.
Through the study of the greatest that has been thought and said by Western writers and thinkers, we pass our cultural heritage on to our children. Western civilization is made up of three elements: the Greeks, the Romans, and the Hebrews—and the coalescing of these three cultures into what later became known as Christendom, the Christian civilization that remained the dominant cultural force in the West until the early twentieth century. A familiarity with the Greeks, the Romans, and, most importantly, the Christian Bible is essential to understanding our culture.
The liberal arts are the “how” of education, and the study of Western culture is the “what.” A mastery of both of these is the best way to prepare a child, not only for college, but for life.
Memoria Press Products
Memoria Press products are characterized by three things:
- Simplicity
- Quality
- Affordability
They are designed to be accessible to homeschool families who have no familiarity with the subject being taught. This makes them not only ideal for homeschool parents and their children, who may be getting their first introduction to a subject, but also for experienced teachers in the classroom who appreciate the ease of use and comprehensiveness of their presentation. Many homeschoolers have a tendency to buy more programs than they actually use, or try a program and get frustrated with it. (We all have more of these on our shelves at home than we would like to admit.) Memoria Press, however, takes pride in the fact that the vast majority of people who buy our programs use them—and finish them.
While our products are readily accessible to amateurs, they are also designed with the highest academic standards in mind. Latin, logic, and rhetoric are difficult subjects that few people are qualified to teach anymore. While no one can promise you won’t have to work hard to learn them, what we do promise is that our programs always avoid needless complexity and bring a clarity of presentation to every subject.
In addition to simplicity and quality, Memoria Press programs are also designed with the budget of a homeschool family in mind. We invite a comparison of the price of our programs with those of any other programs currently available. In some cases, our programs are a quarter of the cost of similar programs on the same subject. We want to help you educate your child, not drain your bank account.
In order to equip teachers in publicly-funded settings, we have released a line of curriculum for them. Further information can be found here.