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Archaic On Purpose: A Defense Of The King James Bible

Archaic on Purpose

It is an interesting irony that, at a time when so many Christians have abandoned the King James Bible, a prominent atheist should come forth to praise it. In celebration of the four hundredth anniversary of the King James Bible in 2011, the famed unbeliever Christopher Hitchens paid it gushing homage in Vanity Fair magazine, […]

Latin Is Not Optional

When you ask a fellow teacher or homeschool parent what classical education is, you’re likely to get a different answer every time. To one person it is the study of history chronologically, to another it is simply a challenging academic curriculum. To many, particularly in recent decades, classical education is seen as the application of […]

Should People Get What They Deserve

Every year, the people of ancient Athens would gather to write down the answer to one question: does the safety of the state require that we send anyone into exile? But only once did a man write down his own name. Today we’re talking about Justice in the story of Aristides the Just. Aristides was […]

How To Be Happy With Nothing

How to be happy with nothing

Most everyone knows that George Washington resigned from the US presidency after only two terms. Some might remember Cincinnatus, the Roman general who gave up power once he liberated his people and  returned to his farm in peace. And you might not know that Alfred the Great ended a dominant campaign in England and sought […]

Civility and Civilization

Civility and Civilization

As classical educators, we recognize that we seek for our students (and ourselves) not simply knowledge, but wisdom. Our goal is to master not simply our content, but our character. Refinement in both thought and deed is the ultimate reward of education. Of course, we can never fully know what the head or heart of […]

The Story We’re In

The Story We're In

Walker Percy once speculated about a world in which the problem of death had been resolved, the eventual result of which was that everyone killed himself out of misery. For most people the quantity of life seems secondary to its quality. Mere survival may be adequate for beasts, but it is not so for rational […]

Welcome Home

Welcome Home

Classic works of children’s literature might be greater than the Great Books. Few of us can tackle Rabelais or Rousseau, but most of us can appreciate Heidi and Homer Price. Classic children’s stories welcome us to partake with wonder and wisdom. This is not to say that those of us who can read the Great […]

Narratives Through Music: Peter and the Wolf

Stories travel from a writer’s mind to the heart and imagination of a reader. In the Western tradition, the written or spoken word serves as the primary vehicle for conveying stories. Yet the visual and performing arts excel at telling stories too, and a combination of the two often makes a story more expressive and […]

The Metaphysics of Amazement

I don’t remember the time or the day I heard it. I have no recollection of the person who read it to me or the place in which it was read. I assume it to have been my mother, but I don’t know that. It is one of the many things whose mental origins are […]

Reading for Wisdom

Reading for Wisdom

Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. — Proverbs 4:7 Ancient cultures had a special wisdom literature, such as Proverbs or Ecclesiastes in the Bible, a literature which gives direct, sage counsel. To a great extent, however, all of ancient and medieval literature counts as wisdom literature. […]

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