I have never been a fan of so-called “success” books. You know the kind I mean: They have titles like The Road to Riches, The Eleven Laws of Leadership, Seven Secret Strategies for Success. The titles promise to reveal some secret to you, the knowledge of which could change the course of your life. The titles above are made up, […]
Category Archives: Subjects
The National Latin Exam, sponsored by the American Classical League and National Junior Classical League, is an international competition for middle and high school Latin students. Each exam consists of forty multiple choice questions over Latin grammar, vocabulary, translation, English derivatives, and the history, geography, and culture of Greece and Rome. There is an Intro. Exam for middle school students and Exams I-IV that generally correspond […]
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 […]
Both “A” and “not A” cannot be true at the same time and in the same respect. Napoleon was the emperor of France or he was not; water is made of two hydrogen molecules and an oxygen molecule or it is not—in each case, both things cannot be true at the same time in the […]
The Liberal Arts The liberal arts denote the seven branches of knowledge that initiate the young into a life of learning. The concept is classical, but the term liberal arts and the division of the arts into the trivium and the quadrivium date from the Middle Ages. The Trivium and the Quadrivium The trivium (1) includes those […]
In this day of computers, and the triumph of science and technology, when there is so much to learn and so little time, why study a dead language? Why not study something practical and useful? Like Spanish, for instance. While we agree the study of Spanish is a very good thing, what I propose to […]
The Old Testament is replete with examples of God’s people conquering their enemies. They never fled, except as a ruse. When we discuss the issue of how Christians should deal with the writings of the pagans, that is an important thing to remember. Culturally speaking, Christianity conquered Greece and Rome. And when you conquer something, you can do two things with […]
Very often we call something modern because we do not know what is ancient. Many so-called “modern” ideas are really old errors with new labels. We owe a greater debt to the past than is generally recognized. The waters of ancient cultures are constantly washing our shores. One of the greatest epic poets who […]
From earliest times, Christians have argued about the role of pagan learning in Christian education. The debate has never gone away, but generally speaking, the church has preferred rather to use the learning of the pagans than to repudiate it. An essential part of the classical Christian education that held sway in schools from the […]
I once got an e-mail from a friend who took me to task for something in my Traditional Logic text. I had said that angels are not rational. He thought this was a sort of insult to angels. Angels are indeed rational, he said, and to argue otherwise was to argue a non-Christian position. Is this true? […]