Several years ago, I was asked by a lady who was starting a classical school if I would come give a speech to an education group in her community. I had planned my usual talk in which I discuss the advantages of a classical Christian education, but on the way there found out that this […]
In 1704, Jonathan Swift wrote a tongue-in-cheek story about the battle between ancient and modern books— between the proponents of a broad education that includes literature and history on one side, and the proponents of what would be the equivalent today of an education focusing on science and math and engineering and technology. The quarrel […]
What is the classical view of literature? In his great book on literature, The Mirror and the Lamp, M. H. Abrams observes that there are four elements to consider when discussing the different ways of viewing any kind of art, including literature. First, and most obviously, there is the artistic work itself; second, there is […]
A number of years ago, a pastor friend of mine told me that he only read nonfiction and did not read fiction at all. I told him I was considering doing something similar. “What’s that?” he asked. “I am thinking of breathing with only one lung.” It took him a few seconds, but he got […]
Not long after George Lucas’ Star Wars movies came out, it became widely known that he had used the classic myths as a grounding for the stories in his films. Lucas later acknowledged that he had been influenced by the writings of Joseph Campbell, an American professor whose most famous work, The Hero With a […]
In 1965, on the small island of Tonga in the South Pacific, six schoolboys, ranging in age from thirteen to sixteen, “borrowed” a local fisherman’s boat and took it on a joyride that lasted over fourteen months. They were bored, and so they decided to sail for Fiji, another South Pacific island five hundred miles […]
As a Christian holy day, Christmas is about one great Christian doctrine: the Incarnation. The first thing to say about this is that the word means what it says. “Incarnation” is a Latinate word that means, literally, “enfleshment”—the act of being made flesh. And the doctrine of the Incarnation—the idea that Jesus was God come […]
Some of the most interesting things to study when it comes to logic are the arguments for the existence of God. They come in all shapes and sizes. There is the Ontological Argument, which argues from the very idea of God to His real existence. There is the Cosmological Argument, which argues from the fact […]
Can you discuss progressive, pragmatic, and classical education and why classical education is a valuable option? Each of these sees the purpose of education differently. Progressivism is the idea that education is a means to accomplish the end of changing a culture. Pragmatism does not want to change culture by using students, like progressivism; rather, […]
One of the many benefits of knowing Latin is that it gives you the ability to know what English words mean even when you have never seen them before. But just as important is the ability it gives you to better understand a word you have seen a thousand times. I was walking through the […]