Category Archives: Virtue

Letter from the Editor Late Summer 2021: After Virtue

After Virtue

In 1981, a book was published by a well-regarded, but-until-then-not-terribly-famous philosopher. The book was called After Virtue; the author was Alasdair MacIntyre. The book sent shock waves throughout the academic community—shock waves that resonate even today. Some consider it the most influential book of philosophy published in the last fifty years. In the succeeding years […]

The Blessed Boon Of Sleep

I had five children in seven years. Hungry babies, teething toddlers, and preschoolers with vivid dreams left me intensely sleep-deprived for about a decade. All parents know this season. It is a time of sacrifice and love that we expect and accept. But even so, the pain of exhaustion is real. My mom likes to […]

How To Have Biblically Literate Children

Too often we relegate religious instruction in our private and homeschools to a kind of secondary academic status. We teach it, but in a way that seems to communicate a lack of seriousness about it. We do this by failing to treat it like we would treat any other academic subject. But what I will […]

Becoming Fully Human

Many years ago the English writer G. K. Chesterton claimed that the “coming peril” facing civilization was “standardization by a low standard.” Today, almost a century later, Chesterton’s words have something of the mark of prophecy about them. This “dumbing down” is exemplified in America’s woefully beleaguered education system. Standards of literacy and numeracy, to […]

Protagoras’ Dilemma

Using a structure built from several different types of argumentation, the dilemma corners your opponent by presenting him or her with a difficult choice between two unacceptable alternatives. The most sophisticated and yet elegant argument form is the dilemma. If you know how to use the dilemma you have achieved the logical equivalent of a […]

“First In. Last Out. Laughing Loudest.”

First In Last Out

In The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis summarizes the heart of classical education: “Augustine defines virtue as ordo amoris, the ordinate condition of the affections in which every object is accorded that kind and degree of love which is appropriate to it. Aristotle says that the aim of education is to make the pupil like […]

Traditional vs. Progressive Education

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 […]

Teaching Classical Literature Classically

By Andrew Kern The classical purpose for teaching literature is the same as the classical purpose for teaching anything: to cultivate wisdom and virtue so that the student is better able to know and enjoy God. Classical literature exposes the student to models of virtue. It also places demands on his intellect, thus developing his […]

Man & Men

man

There is a passage in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings in which Aragorn asks for some leaves of athelas, a healing herb brought by the Men of the West into Middle Earth, and which is now called “kingsfoil.” Minas Tirith, the chief city of Gondor, is celebrating its successful defense against the […]

Skip to content