Tag Archives: Greek

What Should We Lose by Our Ignorance?

Imagine for a moment that we had never heard the names of Greece and Rome. What should we lose by our ignorance? Those of us who read poetry would find much that was unintelligible in English authors, in all English poets, I think, without exception, from Chaucer to Rupert Brooke. We should not know in […]

Greek Ruins

Greek Ruins Columns

The following is an essay featured in Tracy Lee Simmons’ On Being Civilized from Memoria College Press. Once a common possession of the well educated,classical knowledge now bobs like flotsam amid the wreckage wrought by a century of educational scuttling. And with the passing of Greek and Latin we have lost part of the soul […]

Humanism Is Not the Problem

Humanism statue

What precisely is Western culture? In a nutshell, it is the civilization that derives from the cultures of Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem, that was conquered and transformed by Christianity, and which has been handed down through the centuries by an education system which in more recent times has been referred to as “classical education.” These […]

Shadow & Substance

Why Read Shakespeare

The contrast between shadow and substance singularly interested Shakespeare, as did the very nature of things themselves. He even makes use of profound concepts in logic, such as difference, property, and essence. In rhetoric, these are the topics of invention, for they concern the act of defining. So, then, let us define why we should […]

Book Review – Climbing Parnassus: A New Apologia for Greek and Latin

Parnassus

Mt. Parnassus was considered by the ancients to be the dwelling place of the Greek god Apollo and the nine muses. They were the inspiration for almost all knowledge and expression: science, philosophy, art, music, etc. The ancients constantly looked towards Parnassus as a symbol of “poetic inspiration and perfection.”  These last words are author […]

Book Review: From Achilles to Christ by Louis Markos

book

A common question asked of classical Christian educators is why we should read the pagans. If you had to buy one book to help you answer this question, this is it. Markos, one of the most exciting Christian writers today, explains how Homer, Hesiod, the Greek dramatists, and Virgil foreshadowed the Christian revelation. Markos joins […]

Is Hebrew Better Than Greek?

It is, according to one common objection to classical education. But is it really? One of the most common criticisms of classical education is that it imports into Christian education ideas that conflict with the Biblical world view. According to this criticism, classical education tries to incorporate both Biblical/Hebraic thought and Greek thought, and in […]

Why Should Christians Read the Pagan Classics? – Reason 6: Government

Why should christians read the pagan classics?

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, […]

Me & Mr. Jones

Jones

Several years ago, a prominent homeschool personality, let’s call him “Mr. Jones” (The names have been changed to protect the mistaken), wrote a broadside in a popular magazine against classical education, leveling a number of charges against it. These arguments were representative of the criticisms you sometimes hear from those who have a misapprehension of […]

Greek to You… Is Classical Education Really Dead?

Greek

  Kathryn Jean Lopez: When you write about classical education, you mean more than learning enough Latin to help with the SATs. What is a classical education? Tracy Lee Simmons: This was the Humanist’s education, in the sense in which Erasmus and Thomas More were Humanists. A classical education used to mean simply a curriculum based upon […]

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