By E. D. Hirsch Jr. The Disney Corporation’s Celebration School sounded like yet another fairytale from the creators of The Little Mermaid and The Lion King. It was supposed to be the ideal school, set in Disney’s newly created Florida community, Celebration. According to The New York Times, the school was to follow the “most advanced” progressive educational methods. […]
G.K. Chesterton once said that superstitions are most prevalent in rationalistic ages like our own. One of these superstitions is evident in the answer you often hear to the question, “What is the difference between fiction and nonfiction?” When asked to distinguish between the two, some people say that, while nonfiction is true, fiction is […]
We all know that memorization is a keystone of classical education. Yet somehow this is an area where we sometimes lose our discipline. Maybe it’s because we feel silly reciting out loud or we get more gratification from completing a tangible worksheet. Maybe we relegate memory work to the last item on the agenda because […]
By Russell Kirk Our term “liberal education” is far older than the use of the word “liberal” as a term of politics. What we now call “liberal studies” go back to classical times, while political liberalism commences only in the first decade of the nineteenth century. By “liberal education” we mean an ordering and integrating […]
By Andrew Campbell The ancients did not press practical arguments too far. As Aristotle said, “To seek utility everywhere is most unsuitable to lofty and free natures.” Yet the pragmatic benefits of classical education are the ones our modern society is likely to look for first. Fortunately, they are abundantly available to answer some of […]
One might ask, “Why formal logic?” even if he or she is familiar with classical education. One might also find themselves asking the question, “Why online logic?” if they were to run across the online classical academy at Memoria Press. Having spent a great deal of time the last few years in graduate school studying […]
By Peter Kreeft Of all the questions the human mind can ask, three are of ultimate importance: What can I know? What should I do? What may I hope? The three questions correspond to the three “theological virtues” of faith, charity, and hope. Faith in God’s word is the Christian answer to “What can I […]
What if your mind is hungry, but not particularly literate? “Acquaint yourself with your own ignorance,” Isaac Watts advised his readers in his self-education treatise Improvement of the Mind (published in 1741). “Impress your mind with a deep and painful sense of the low and imperfect degrees of your present knowledge.” Today, as in Watts’ time, intelligent […]
Over the last few years, I have spoken at numerous homeschool conventions around the country, and talked to thousands of homeschool parents. On the basis of the many conversations I have had with these parents, I have developed a theory. My theory is this: most homeschool parents are looking for a Latin program. My theory […]
Have you ever wished you had a good answer for those people who ask why you would spend your valuable education time studying Latin when you could be spending it on something more “practical”? There are three reasons Latin has long been considered the one master subject before which all others must bow. First, Latin […]