Category: Classical Studies

Everyone agrees that education is a good thing. Unfortunately, the agreement pretty much  ends there. Although almost everyone agrees that education is good, there is wide disagreement on what education is. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, there has been a sometimes heated debate, not only about what schools should do, but what they should be. Generally speaking, there are …

Imagine an arrow shot into the air, and high in flight, it bursts into flame. How cool would that be?! If you saw this spectacle, you would probably deem it a wonder, or perhaps a symbol or sign. This is how Aeneas and the Trojan remnant (traveling with him after the fall of Troy) responded …

Reason #10: Literature What is literature, and what is it for anyway? Have you ever wondered that? It’s not practical like science and math, so what is its purpose? Why do we include literature in our curriculum, how do we choose it, and what do we hope to achieve by reading literature? These are some …

Reason #9: Human Condition When it comes to the human condition, we may think that Scripture is all we need. After all, Scripture does show us our true human condition in a way that the Greeks did not and could not: our relationship to God, that we are sinners, that we are a fallen race in …

REASON #8: Philosophy Philosophy is a deep subject that can be quite intimidating. Modern philosophy is so esoteric that few can understand or relate to it, but classical philosophy is different. As with so many things, if you go back to the beginning and learn first principles, you can develop a deep and satisfying understanding …

American government and political science will come alive when you read the Greeks and Romans, the same way that words come alive when you study Latin and Greek. There were many influences on the Founding Fathers, and certainly the modern philosophers—Locke and Hume—were important along with the tradition of English liberty. But separation of powers, …

REASON #8: Natural Law What did the first Continental Congress mean when it appealed to “the immutable laws of nature,” or Thomas Jefferson when he referred to the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God and the unalienable rights of man”? Natural law. The principle of natural law is embedded in Western civilization, the Declaration of …

REASON #4: Education A classical education focuses on the study of the classical languages, Latin and Greek, and on the study of the classical civilization of Greece and Rome.  But why is the word classical reserved only for the languages of the Greeks and Romans and only for their civilization?  What really is so special …

Reason #2: Virtue In the last article, we learned that the Greeks established the first principles of architecture by studying nature. The proportions that are most pleasing to the human eye are those of nature’s greatest work of art—the human body.  We learned that God gave man reason and the desire to know, but he …

Reason #1: Architecture The power of the word classic cannot be underestimated, communicating as it does the idea of excellence, truth, order, discipline, and beauty. The word “classic” brings to mind something that has withstood the test of time, and by virtue of this fact, participates in some way in the timeless and the eternal. And …