Category: Subjects

One of the things a logic student learns is that, of the 64 possible kinds of arguments (also called syllogisms), only 19 of them are valid. Let’s take the most common argument form of all: PREMISE #1: All flowers are plants (A) PREMISE #2: All roses are flowers (A) CONCLUSION: Therefore, all roses are plants …

Discovering and internalizing the Central One Idea in a great work is vital for proper reading and for cultivating wisdom and virtue.1 There are four stages of acquisition and expression that can be used to lead the student (and teacher) to this Central One Idea. The four-stage sequence is rooted in the trivium—grammar, logic, and …

In his Autobiography, G. K. Chesterton tells the story of having only recently come to public attention as a result of a running debate on the pages of The Clarion with that newspaper’s editor, Robert Blatchford. Blatchford was a proud and voluble atheist who had issued an open challenge to readers to respond to his …

What is the hardest thing about the different challenges you face in your life? The hardest challenges of my life are not being able to do what I dream about in my life, such as marry, drive a sky-blue bug that is a convertible, act well, sing, dance ballet professionally (Giselle in Swan Lake, Clara …

Why study literature? This question is often asked by indignant parents, who want to know why their children, destined for business, learn fancy subjects instead of things serviceable to them in life. An open and alert mind—which understands human nature and its possibilities, which can judge and sympathise, which, because of its wide survey and …

We all do it, don’t we? We carefully defend the bold choice we’ve made to educate our children seriously and rigorously. Friends or relatives may assert that we are choosing outdated traditions, irrelevant in our techno-saturated world. Latin in elementary school? Whatever for? The Great Books? Aren’t they terribly boring? Handwriting and memory work? We …

The question as to the educational worth of any study must always be a pertinent one. If Latin is not of fundamental importance in the high-school curriculum, then large numbers of students are making a prodigious error in pursuing the subject, and the sooner we understand this, the better for our civilization. If, on the …

In his new book, Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture, Anthony Esolen contrasts what Western culture was and what it is now by asking us to imagine a library in an old manor house. The lower half of this library would be stocked with books from modern Europe—”novels, collections of poetry, histories, biographies, travelogues, …

One of the questions I most often hear about classical education is how it relates to Christianity. The question comes in various forms, usually something like, “What is Christian about classical Christian education?” Or, “How can I reconcile classical education with Christianity?” In fact, when you don’t say “classical Christian education” and explicity state that …

In his famous essay on fairy stories, J. R. R. Tolkien asserted that one of the most important facets of fairytales is that they hold up a “Mirror of scorn and pity towards Man.” The fairy story, Tolkien wrote, “may be used as a Mirour de l’Omme” (mirror of man), as something that shows us …