It is not an exaggeration to say that the Greeks invented education as we know it: To them, schooling was a means to pass on their culture. For the Greeks, the primary instrument for this purpose was one book in particular: Homer’s Iliad. It was their national textbook. From it they learned who they were […]
Author Archives: Martin Cothran
There are two ways to go wrong when it comes to education. The first is to emphasize the intellect over the affections; the second is to emphasize the affections over the intellect. The first we might call the “Rationalistic Fallacy”; the second we might call the “Romantic Fallacy.” These two fallacies plague all modern intellectual […]
Several years ago, a prominent homeschool personality, let’s call him “Mr. Jones” (The names have been changed to protect the mistaken), wrote a broadside in a popular magazine against classical education, leveling a number of charges against it. These arguments were representative of the criticisms you sometimes hear from those who have a misapprehension of […]
I was recently asked to speak to a Chamber of Commerce meeting about classical education. The initial reason for the invitation was to talk about one of our Highlands Latin School campuses in the area. The group was founded as part of an effort by the local Chamber to create a partnership effort between businesses […]
In 1990, the Kentucky Legislature passed the most sweeping school reform legislation ever attempted by a state. Along with a massive tax increase (don’t you just love those?), the measure promised to shake up the state’s education system and, presumably, improve it. Several years into the reform effort, there was no question about things being […]
The REAL Reason Our Educational Elites Don’t Like Grammar In Leo Tolstoy’s great Christian novel Anna Karenina, an after-dinner conversation turns to the subject of which European nation is more civilized—the English, the French, or the German. Karnenin, Anna’s husband, asserts that that civilization is most influential which is the most “truly educated.” […]
Why a Knowledge of Grammar Is Indispensable for an Understanding of Logic I meet a lot of homeschool mothers at conventions all over the country and one of the most common questions I get is this: “What do you do for a critical thinking skills program before we do your logic program in the seventh grade?” […]
My daughter and I recently went out on a date. After missing the movie we wanted to see, we ended up watching The Book of Eli, a movie I had not heard anything about. The movie opens in the future, after some sort of apocalypse. There is little vegetation, water is scarce, the roads are littered […]
Recently, Rush Limbaugh tied his whole brain, not just half of it, behind his back. In the process he ended up sounding a whole lot like the cultural barbarians he claims to be fighting. Limbaugh, channeling his inner Gradgrind (see Hard Times by Charles Dickens), launched a tirade today against classical education, saying that a […]
There were strange signs and ominous portents. Forget about the world burning up in a fit of global warming, or being destroyed by spreading popular revolutions or earthquakes, or being engulfed by tsunamis. No. We are faced with a far more anomalous and alarming phenomenon: atheists saying good things about the Bible. I recently saw a debate […]