“A Masterpiece of God”

Posted on July 30, 2013 by marklangley

Over there at that classy blog site  (which is devoted to the works and thought of the late American Artist Carl Schmitt) you will find an excellent article entitled “A masterpiece of God.”

Be sure to click on the green text which will take you to some excellent articles about Carl Schmitt by Donald Powell and the well-known author Padraic Colum (among the books of whom The Children’s Homer is a favorite among homeschooling families especially!)

I happen to be sitting within arm’s reach of The Children’s Homer right now… so I feel a special connection to this fellow!

Meanwhile I am still stewing over Donald Powell’s article which you may find here

His opening line:

I charge flatly and bluntly that his fellow Catholics are enemies of Schmitt, his family and what he stands for. Here is my case.

Take a look. Although written for The Catholic Worker, in December 1934 I think Powell’s indictment of Catholics with respect to their support for the “Catholic artist” still holds true. Very sad! The same incriminating argument could be made against Catholics in general for their less than enthusiastic support for Catholic classical education in America.

For example there really ought to be a Lyceum every 7 miles or so!

Meanwhile here is a lovely painting…

CSF21107

 

Posted in beauty, Carl Schmitt, Seven Fine Arts | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

“A masterpiece of God”

Posted on July 29, 2013 by marklangley

“A masterpiece of God”.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

What Should I Do With Myself?

Posted on July 28, 2013 by marklangley

That title is an attention grabber isn’t it?

But as you will see it is entirely relevant to our discussion concerning why the question “Does Nature Act For and End?” is a very interesting question. (See reason #2 below!)

So as promised here are the four reasons (although there are certainly many others)

  1. The Natural scientist and indeed everyone who would like to know something about the natural world needs to be interested in this question because as we all know, in everything we do, every enterprise we undertake, every game we play, trip we make, endeavor we make, we need to first consider what the point of it is. What is the goal? What is the point?

Well it turns out that Science is about knowing why things are the way they are. And that which explains “why something is the way it is” is obviously “the cause” or causes. When we know “the causes,” then we know “the why.”

So therefore the scientist who wishes to know why things are the way they are must consider whether nature, when it produces things, produces them for an end. He must ask whether nature has a reason for producing the things that it does, because if it does then this will be a cause and therefore a key in understanding things in nature.

Now, this might appear quite obvious. But consider this as well, Aristotle asserts that the “final cause” (i.e. that for the sake of which something is… or is done) is not just one of the four causes that he describes in his book on nature, but the final cause is the “causa causarum,” the cause of causes! What he means by this is that if one understands the end for which something is done, he will then be in a position to understand why the thing is composed out of what it is composed out of, he will understand why it is arranged the way it is arranged, and he will be able to understand the nature and character of the one who makes the thing.

2. The question “Does nature act for an end?” is very significant for the Ethicist and for everyone who is living? Why? Well simply because Ethics makes absolutely no sense if Nature does not act for an end!

Another way of putting it is this. Virtue and “virtuous living” means obtaining a habit and living life in accordance with our nature. But this assumes that nature acts for an end.

Do you see what I mean here?  If nature has produced our minds and our bodies (and it has…I mean, we were not produced by some artificial process were we?) then the question is did nature produce our minds and our bodies for some reason? If there is a reason like, for example, to gain knowledge or to possess health and fitness, then clearly a whole set of virtues or good habits arises-namely the habits that enable us to perform actions which help us to obtain these ends.

But if nature had no point in producing our minds and our bodies…then we are absolutely unconstrained to behave in any determinate way…we could act according to whim or fancy with impunity. Ethics disappears along with the norms of decent human behavior.

In other words each person needs to consider the question “does nature act for an end?” because otherwise he will simply not know what to do with himself! 

I think this is an excellent reason. If nature has produced man for some end, then a whole life of activity to reach that end results. One simply has to sit down and start thinking about the best way to proceed. What habits should I form that will enable me to live a life in accordance with my nature? Voila …Ethics!

So imagine asking some freshmen in college “does nature act for an end?” If he says “No” or “I don’t know” then it follows that he will simply have no idea what to do with himself?

And if I come along and say “well I think you would serve my interests very well as a door stop.” What would he respond except that perhaps he may not want to. But then it becomes simply a question of who is the stronger.

On the other hand, the one who thinks nature acts for an end, might have a very good chance at making the case that a human being is not meant to serve as a door stop but is rather suited for some other more elevated purpose.

Important question to ask and answer!

3. Does nature act for an end is a significant question for the artist or artisan…but most especially for the one who practices an art whose aim is to help nature.

The arts are divided into two sorts. One sort, we used to call the mechanical arts, are concerned with producing things that are useful for men, such things as chairs and tables or spoons and automobiles and many other things. The other kind of art has to do with those who are trying to find ways to help nature, for example doctors and farmers and midwives.

One does not ordinarily say that the ‘chair maker’ is trying to help the tree grow a chair. As far as I know a tree is not trying to make chairs (except of course for maybe the cherry tree!)

But the midwife and the framer are definitely attempting to aid nature in what it is already trying to do. These are special arts for this reason.

But consider, what if nature is not trying to do anything? What if nature is not acting for some purpose?

Well then, the doctor is then free to practice medicine, not in a way that aids and helps nature, but rather in any way that suits his interests or the interests of his employer or the state. Scary!

4. Well, you probably saw this one coming. The question “does nature act for an end?” is important for the Theologian.

It doesn’t take long to see that if nature acts for an end then it does so because of some intelligence. This is the principle sign of intelligence, namely ordered activity. That is what mind does. It orders. Reason loves order and making order.

But one who considers nature finally figures out that nature does not act for an end because it (i.e. nature) has a mind of its own.

Therefore one might consider that if nature acts for an end but not because it has a mind of its own, therefore it acts for end because of some other intelligence or mind.

And thus one sees that this whole consideration might lead the Theologian to a very powerful argument towards the existence of God.

So in short, to be brief, let me state, without undue repetition, that the question “does nature act for an end?”  is a very significant question!

Posted in classical education, education, Philosophy of Nature, Wisdom | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Four Reasons Why “Does Nature Act For An End?” Is A Very Good Question

Posted on July 26, 2013 by marklangley

Today I mean to simply to go straight to the point. There will be no interruptions and I won’t even be taking questions! I find that this is the only way to really get things done. Sometimes we like to defend the excellence of the Socratic method and the effectiveness of the seminar or discussion method in learning. But let’s face it. These methods are not really that effective when the object is merely to get things done. There is simply no greater obstacle to progressing through a text or a curriculum plan than allowing students to ask questions or examine one’s argument premise by premise. Well I suppose a tornado or an earthquake might cause significant interruptions, but these things are not half so threatening to a teacher’s sense of “getting things done” as eight or nine students who feel free to speak their minds when they please.

Photos: Tornadoes wreak havoc in Midwest | CNN

After rebuilding the school, I bet I could still get through more text, turn more pages and “cover more material” if we just jettisoned the discussion method! Sure maybe the discussion method is an effective way for a student to become actively engaged in his own education. Maybe allowing a student to speak and ask questions and make comments (relevant or even irrelevant) is an effective way to provoke his enthusiasm for knowledge and perhaps provoke deeper understanding and even real learning. Nonetheless, I still maintain that it is a very poor method for getting things done. And the terrible irony is this: After allowing students to speak freely and engage in discussion and intelligent “back and forth” and “two-way learning” (to use Adler’s expression) and Socratic-like debate, after provoking authentic interest in their minds for a subject by long examinations of even minor points and perhaps even trivial matters (of course “trivial matters” are arguably what an education in the Trivium and the liberal arts is all about!), after all this I say, students will be the first to point out at the end of the Fall semester,

“Hey… isn’t this a class on the Sacraments?… Well how are we supposed to get through all seven if we are still only half way through Baptism?

Isn’t this just the way of it? I almost blush to think how fast a student will “turn his back” on his poor teacher in pointing out the lack of progress-through-the-text simply because the teacher was suckered into the idea of provoking real learning! And is the student ashamed to draw attention to this “lack of progress” to his parents? No! How many students have carefully pointed out to their parents

Mom…Dad…the reason why our American History Class never made it past the North’s violent attempt to resupply Fort Sumter in 1861, was that we were really trying to understand step by step from a careful reading of the “Declaration” and the Constitution, and all relevant primary source material …of course all the time with spirited but amicable debate and discussion ….how the North could so brazenly betray the very principles of their own independence.”

No instead who gets crucified for what appears to be sheer incompetence in “making progress?” You guessed it. The poor teacher. Not that I am complaining or anything, I am simply pointing out the  fact that allowing students the intellectual liberty to speak at all is inimical to covering material! I have known some teachers who disagree. They say things like

“well one can have it both ways, in discussions, the teacher must be very vigilant in only allowing relevant points to advance. There must be a firm discipline in directing students to speak to the point succinctly etc… etc…”

Obviously this teacher knows nothing about real classroom discussions. “Relevant points”…”Succinct” … ha! or sometimes teachers will say

“I spend the first 35 minutes lecturing on important material that I want to cover and then I allow 5 minutes for a lively and spirited debate.”

Well that is just shameless. As if a discussion could happen in five minutes. In my experience it takes at least 30 minutes to simply make a question arise. To even make and issue seem discussable… worth discussing…interesting…arguable…this takes loads and loads of time.  The mind of the student, you must remember, is sort of like the mind of a bear in hibernation.

Study Shows How Bears Hibernate: What It Means for Science - TIME

And it certainly takes more than five minutes to provoke such a mind to vibrant discussion. But it is much easier to make progress when one is simply writing things down in a blog post such as this. The fact of the matter is that one gets to control the flow of the “discussion” more closely. As a result the flow of ideas, the thread of thought is easier to follow than in a real-time discussion, and, frankly, the ability to use images to advance a point can be a very powerful aid…like that bear for instance…isn’t “he” just like what you might imagine the mind of a student might look like, say, in the morning during those first period classes? About those four reasons… I would like to address this rather quickly, but now that I have considered it, I think it might be a mistake to attempt to present all four reasons simultaneously, and therefore I will attempt to only present maybe one or at most two reasons at a time.  But I will go ahead and mention that the reasons why “Does nature act for an end?” is an excellent question will be arranged as follows

  1. It is an extremely important question for the student of nature (i.e. the one who would like to know something about nature….maybe even the person that we call these days “the scientist!”
  2. It is an absolutely significant question for the Ethicist and for anyone who is living. (I suppose that would apply to all of us)
  3. It is a very good question for those who practice one of the arts that “aid nature” (e.g. doctors, midwives, logicians)
  4. It is an excellent question for the Theologian.

But this needs to be discussed at more length and certainly “wisely and slowly” as Friar Lawrence would advise.

Posted in classical education, discussion, education, Philosophy of Nature | Tagged , , , , , | 11 Comments

Does Nature Act For A Purpose?

Posted on July 21, 2013 by marklangley

The title of this post is “Does Nature Act For A Purpose?” And it is a post that I have been wanting to post for some weeks now, mainly because there are some ideas in my head that I have admittedly received from another (i.e. a very wise person) and like most of my ideas they seem to stay in my head for only about two weeks, if that, and then other ideas come in and crowd these ones out, no matter how important they seemed to me at the time.

I don’t exactly know why this happens unless ideas are really explained through some electrical/particle theory. I don’t know much about electricity, but one can understand a little why some people would listen to that crazy second-rate poet Percy Shelley

A second-rate adolescent poet!

when he uttered the nonsense “man is no more than electrified clay.”

This thought was, of course, not original to him but I could see why my ideas appear to get crowded out. There is a limit to how much electricity a thing can hold at one time!

But ideas are not simply electrical impulses, and the fact of the matter is that the ideas do not get “crowded out.” I just forget them for a while. That’s all. But let’s not discuss this minor point right now.

We are discussing whether Nature Acts for an end (or purpose)? But before we discuss this foundational  Aristotelian idea, we need to first discuss why it is an important idea for everybody!

One can’t just simply launch into ideas without a prior discussion about why the launch should be attempted…can one?

No, I think not.

And I will not be accused of spontaneous intellectual launches! We want to make the case that if we launch into an idea, SO SHOULD EVERYBODY! Our launchings should be everyone’s launchings.

And this question “Does Nature act for an end or purpose?” certainly qualifies as being in the realm of ideas that simply have to be asked by every last human being (or asked by his parents or legal guardian… or I suppose even his paid advisors).

Allow me to propose four reasons why this is an important question.

But “wait” you say, “what on earth does the question mean in the first place? The question makes no sense! Nature is not an animal or plant or human being … so nature does not, properly speaking, act at all! Are we doing poetry now or what?!?”

Well, that’s a fair question and I guess we need to talk about what the question means in the first place.

Maybe there is no question to ask and answer because “nature does not act” except in some kind of metaphorical way that we use in communication like when we say

“the winds ablowing up a real gale today.”

Or

“Like as the waves make toward the pebbled shore, so do our minutes hasten to their end”

as if the winds did blow and the waves did make toward the pebbled shore of their own will and accord.

To say that nature is acting when it is hot or cold outside seems like a mere custom of speech. The rain and snow, the heat and cold might all seem like random phenomena governed by the movement of inanimate particles and unintentional forces.

Or is nature acting for a purpose in all these cases?

What about  clouds for example? Do they act for an end or do they just sort of pass through the sky at random? I suspect that most of us look at them as if they are mere conglomerations of water particles being blown against their natural inclination by the wind…which itself is just another force produced by the convective force of heat and cold which is nothing other than molecules moving at various velocities (not speeds mind you!)

Of course as luck would have it, that second-rate-adolescent-poet Percy Shelley wrote a lovely little poem about clouds that starts like this:

         I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,From the seas and the streams;
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
         In their noonday dreams.
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
         The sweet buds every one,
When rocked to rest on their mother’s breast,
         As she dances about the sun.
I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
         And whiten the green plains under,
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
         And laugh as I pass in thunder.

 

Now maybe I need to give Mr. Shelley a second look because even despite his saying that “man is no more than electrified clay” this poem about clouds does in fact seem to imply that clouds are a bit more spiritual than a mere random event of particles.

So I don’t know what to say about him. He might be a little at odds with himself which is an understandable trait …especially in adolescents.

Now we all know from experience what it means to act for an end or purpose. We spend long years in school working for good grades so that we can all go to good colleges so that we can get good jobs so that we can all live comfortably and hopefully be very, very wealthy! Right?

Of course!

And just think of the myriad intermediate steps between where we are now and where we intend to be at the end…perhaps lounging in the library of our mansion in Rhode Island complete with coffered ceilings and perhaps a painting of a dolphin!

Or maybe indulging in some cold fresh-squeezed orange juice in the platinum paneled “Morning Room” decorated with images of the muses!

Ahhh…the dream! But it takes many, many intentional steps to arrive there… and then (oh cruel irony…or rather Infandum!) unfortunately only the liberally educated person would actually know how to use and enjoy the paneled library…the very last person likely to have the privilege of standing in it because he never  took those myriad steps to get there!

After all the inscription on the fireplace in this library reads,

“I laugh at great wealth, and never miss it;

nothing but

wisdom matters in the end.”

which is a sentiment that only a liberal education would allow one to understand – but a sentiment not very friendly towards the production of wealth!

And it is the liberally educated person that would know how to properly enjoy, day after day, the quiet gardens and scenic verandas.

And of course it is precisely not the liberally educated person that lives in that house. No it is probably only some nineteenth century industrialist that could afford a place like that!

Cornelius Vanderbilt Daguerrotype2.jpg

And why? Because he doggedly took very careful planned out intentional steps over many years to achieve the magnificent wealth that makes such a mansion possible. I mean imagine the kind of energy and careful planning it would take to build a steam boat and railroad empire. No… steam boat and railroad empires do not just come about by chance!…at least not ordinarily.

But does nature act like this? Does nature employ myriad steps in order to obtain some intended end…some rational planned out …even long-term goal?

Or do things in nature just sort of happen because of irrational forces and the properties of inanimate matter?

Mountains? What are they trying to do?

How about air? How about light? Do these act for an end?

What about man? Does he also have an end to which nature directs him? Evidently man is a product of nature, and the question here is “Does nature act for an end?

Hopefully the question makes some sense…. may I give four reasons why I think it is a good one?

“No” you say, “some other time…besides I am already convinced, why do we need four reasons why this is a good question?”

Well, because this question concerns all of us very deeply and the intellectual custom of the day is not very friendly to the concept.

“Why is that?” you ask.

Well we need to talk about the roots of our intellectual custom to settle that question… maybe some other time? I just want to get to my four reasons why “Does nature act for an end is a pivotal question.”

“Ok” you say “but later.”

Posted in ad libitum, Custom, Uncategorized, Wisdom | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Who Is The Wisest Person In The World?

Posted on July 14, 2013 by marklangley

I think I know who the wisest living person is in the world and as luck would have it, I happen to know him personally. (hint: besides Our Lord)

But I hesitate to tell you this and am even hesitant to share his name with you because:

  1. I don’t think you would really believe me.
  2. I don’t want to embarrass him.
  3. I don’t want to give away my sources!

But isn’t it strange that as large as the world is, and with as many people in it that there are, that even despite the gigantic odds of ever meeting this person, I would happen to have a very good relationship with him.

And what’s more, I have had the pleasure of listening to him for hours and hours and hours!

Now you might think that I am trying to make a case that I, who have had this privilege, am therefore wise.

But this is not at all what I am trying to do. No sir! Nor do I think I am particularly wiser than you (although I have a suspicion that I like Euclid more than you do.)

No…the point that I am attempting to bring out here may be summed up in the following statements:

  1. There are (as of today) 6.94 Billion people on the earth
  2. One of these is the wisest person.
  3. I happen to know this person!

Isn’t that extraordinary?

But of course you still disbelieve me and I think it is probably because you refuse to accept statement #2! And even if you did accept statement #2 you probably would still refuse to believe statement #3 because you would say something like

Sure there might be a wisest person, BUT how could one ever know who this was?!

So it turns out that YOU are sort of an agnostic with respect to the whole question.

Nonetheless your position really amounts to no more than because you do not know how to recognize who the wisest person is, you therefore deny the existence of the wisest person.

And that does not follow!

This reminds me of the great Heraclitus when he said,

“If you do not expect the unexpected you will never find it, for it is hard to find and inaccessible.”

In other words as with many things, if we do not have a fair idea or expectation of what the wisest person would “look like,” we would never recognize him even if we happened to live with him. (or her?)

And perhaps this is what we need to discuss. By what traits would we recognize who the wisest person is? How would we measure whether one person is wiser than another?

But I suppose you might be thinking “why bother?”

Well…it could be that your own wisdom depends on it.

Posted in ad libitum, Wisdom | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Patriotism the Classical Way

Posted on July 4, 2013 by marklangley

In the spirit of the day Jeffrey Mirus wrote an excellent article over there at “Catholic Culture” Patriotism, Tempered and Pure. His essay ends with these sage words (my comments in bold):

This Catholic awareness of a higher duty and a higher love makes Catholicism suspect in the eyes of those who place country at the apex of their hierarchy of being, (“hierarchy of being” is always a phrase that betrays the one who employs it as a classical thinker!) and above all in the eyes of those who deify the State. Such a response is merely a counterfeit of patriotism. Our love of country is a good and wholly natural response to the gift of a God who sustains and teaches us in time and place and culture, manifesting all the goods of nature and human industry in ways meant to lead us to that “something more” for which we all instinctively yearn. (through the visible we see the invisible!)

Country is part of the law of the gift, and we are right to cherish all of our gifts. But as with everything else, we love country for the sake of the Giver. We do not receive the gift and then push the Giver aside. It is this that tempers love of country and keeps it pure. It is this alone that properly orders patriotism. (excellent!)

Great Hierarchy Chart!

Liberal Education (AKA “Classical Education”) is all about knowing things and therefore knowing the order of things. After all order is in the definition of reason itself. There is no knowing apart from knowing the order of a thing. Where does the thing stand in the order – or hierarchy – of being? For example when we begin to know something we might ask questions like… is it caused or uncaused? Is it timeless or temporal? Is it mobile or changeless? is it spirit or matter? Is it a natural substance or something that belongs to substance? Is it animate or inanimate? Is it a quantity? Is it a relation? is it a time or place ?…and so on… although I think we might need to think more seriously about the order of these questions!

Naturally, as our knowledge becomes ordered so do our loves. Love follows upon our knowledge. When we know the right order of things this very knowledge enables us to love things properly; enables us to love things in the proper order!

As Dr. Mirus points out those who “deify the state” do so, because to them it appears to be at the “apex” of being. And this makes sense, to some extent, because the state certainly appears to be more known and closer to our senses than God.

But it is childish for a man to assert that the state is the highest authority. It is also the symptom of a mind that has never developed a habit of looking for causes, a mind that has never developed a habit of searching beyond what merely meets the senses. In fact it is the symptom of a mind that has never grown out of its infancy. Forgivable and charming when an infant thinks that no one is stronger than his own daddy- but shameful when an adult bows first to the state before God.

The liberally educated man, so habituated to order, is able to be authentically patriotic because his love is properly ordered. His love ascends like that of Pius Aeneas from parents to country to God. And those whose loves are not ordered are mere counterfeits.

Certainly it was Divine Providence that coupled the death of Thomas More on July 6, 1535 so closely with our own national day of Independence. He was the very embodiment of authentic Catholic patriotism and it was his liberal education that enabled him to say before his beheading

“I die the King’s good servant and God’s first.”

 

 

Posted in classical education | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Liberal Education Works

Posted on June 30, 2013 by marklangley

As a teacher at a prestigious Catholic classical high school,  I have been thinking a great deal about floor joists, plywood widths, cast iron pipe and tile.

 Why? Well…it’s summer, and this is just what classical teachers do in the summer!

 The classically trained mind thinks lofty spiritual matters, and about matter itself and the material world during those long winter school months…but in the summer it immerses itself with great zeal and energy into the very heart of the physical world. Mind confronts matter in its myriad and individual circumstances, its messy imperfections and raw primal state with an unflappable confidence saying “this is only matter after all. How hard can it be?”

Very hard indeed!

But do not confuse the classically trained mind with the “ivory tower intellectual!” The ivory tower intellectual gives a bad name to learning and philosophical pursuits. He lives aloof from the brazen realities of cast iron plumbing and horsehair plaster. He has never scorched his fingers with a propane flame torch when soldering copper pipes together. He has never melted lead off the end of a brass collar!

The ivory tower intellectual gets his practical work done by making phone calls.

But the classically educated mind does not hesitate to leap headlong into full-scale demolition work. He doesn’t have the snobbish contempt for matter (which is probably really a mask for his fear) that the “intellectual” has. The CLASSICALLY trained mind knows with religious conviction that mere matter – mere concrete, wood, bricks, cast iron or copper pipe is simply no match for the dynamic power that the mind has from chanting Latin forms. But this does not make him despise matter. No! It does however help him to appreciate the mind.

Take for example this photo of the classically trained mind wielding the thirty-five pound Hitachi Jack Hammer!

 

Two layers of tile over 3 inches of concrete. My sunglasses served just fine for eye protection.
Two layers of tile over 3 inches of concrete. My sunglasses served just fine for eye protection.

Taking out that floor was tough…but not nearly as challenging as learning the rules for the sequence of tenses in Latin! Even if they used to make tile floors in second story bathrooms on 3+ inches of concrete!

Or take this example!

IMG_7879

I had to laugh when I saw this semi hexagonal shape under the shower. I said to myself “Euclid would hardly consider this a regular polygon!” So I ripped it all out and am now ready to work with the “almost prime matter” underneath it all!

After hauling out 30 buckets of concrete and broken tile we have something we can work with!
After hauling out 30 buckets of concrete and broken tile we have something we can work with!

There is no problem in the material world, as far as I can see, that the classically trained mind can’t overcome with the aid of a heavy-duty Milwaukee Sawzall. I love this tool. I even cut through those old obsolete steel pipes – except for the wider one in the middle which I think services some of my radiators.

In general I think my house is breathing a sigh of relief now.  Wouldn’t you feel better if someone removed 1500 pounds of material from your life?

But I did wonder how the house could remain substantially the same house with all of those parts removed.

I had to "sister" some of the floor joists to provide a level substratum upon which to lay the 3/4" ply
I had to “sister” some of the floor joists to provide a level substratum upon which to lay the 3/4″ ply

Don’t worry about the broken orange level on the right, it still has the essential parts that I need to make this job level! I do wonder whether I should replace those ugly copper pipes at the top. They bend up from under the joists and then go behind the wall studs. Not quite up to classical standards.

 

 

Posted in liberal education works | Tagged , , , , | 11 Comments

Where And When Was Catholic Classical Education Revived?

Posted on June 25, 2013 by marklangley

The Lion and Ox did not make a mention in this recent article put out by the folks at CNN.

I think it is a pretty good report generally. It is about as good a description as one could expect from a secular standpoint. Especially since the article embraces both evangelical Protestants, Catholic and public charter school varieties of the classical school.

For example,

“Classical schools are less concerned about whether students can handle iPads than if they grasp Plato. They generally aim to cultivate wisdom and virtue through teaching students Latin, exposing them to great books of Western civilization and focusing on appreciation of “truth, goodness and beauty.”

and I thought this was pretty good as well

“Classical schools are committed – to some degree – to the importance of the classical languages,” said Brad Green, co-founder of Augustine School. “Students will take several years of Latin and possibly some Greek as these are the languages of Western Christendom.”

Overall the article portrays classical education in a positive light – good test scores- college acceptances.

The only thing that irked me was this passage,

“Four years ago in the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., officials were looking for ways to save St. Jerome, a failing school for students pre-kindergarten through eighth grade.  St. Jerome had to come up with a solution or be one of hundreds of parochial schools across the nation to be closed. Thus, a group of parents, parishioners, scholars and homeschoolers came up with the country’s first-ever Catholic version of the classical curriculum.”

Hello?….Helloooooo?? Salveeeeeeeh???….Hellooooooo????

 

The Lyceum Founded in 2003

The Lyceum Founded in 2003

 

Trivium School

The Lyceum was founded in 2003! (not to mention Trivium School which was founded in 1979!!!)

And over the years I have seen dozens of “future classical school founders” who have since founded schools of their own in various places like …just to name a few….New Jersey, Massachusetts, Arizona, Texas, New Hampshire, Maine, Michigan, Oklahoma and even ….Argentina!

So pleeeeeze… don’t tell me that “four years ago” some group in Washington, D.C. came up with the country’s first ever Catholic version of the classical curriculum.”

That is just not right.

The article should have read,

“It was the year nineteen hundred and seventy-eight when two Catholic visionary educators and their wives met in the sleepy town of Lancaster Massachusetts. In that unlikely place, thirty-five years ago Catholic classical secondary education was revived! …or perhaps even birthed for the first time in this country!”

Not that I care or anything… really doesn’t matter… doesn’t bother me much!

For all I know there might have been another Catholic classical curriculum in this country before 1978. I don’t know of one.

We at the Li0n and Ox, despite our assertion that history is not a science and that it holds a secondary place in a liberal education, do at least have enough respect for the subject to make some effort at correcting the historical record wherever possible!

Posted in classical education, education, History, Liberal Arts | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

The Lost Art of Education and The Lion and Ox

Posted on June 21, 2013 by marklangley

“The Lion and Ox” was very pleased to be quoted by Ken Connor who is a co-author of “Sinful Silence: When Christians Neglect Their Civic Duty.”  He is also Chairman of the Center for a Just Society.

Mr. Connor apparently enjoyed our post “Liberal Education… Why bother?” and quoted our description of liberal education when we said…

Liberal education is about reading and discussing the canon of authors to whom Western Civilization owes its origins. It is about immersing oneself in the very sources of civilization holding fast to its elements and principles, to time honored truths and traditions; to the vision of all those who contributed to civilization. . . .

The end of liberal education is not first ‘to think for oneself,’ but to know the truth. To know the truth that makes one free, this is the end of liberal education. Liber and libertas, in Latin, denote freedom, as opposed to servility and the servile. Liberal education is the education appropriate to free men and is a source of that freedom. Liberal education, this encounter with and conformity to the truth, frees man from enslavement to unruly passions, ignorance, current intellectual trends and public opinion. Once freed from these bonds, a man may choose to live a good life, hold to the truth, and delight in beauty – not to please others or gain some practical reward, but simply because these things are good, or true, or beautiful.

Mr. Connor then writes:

In rejecting the objective truth of the classical model in favor of a subjectively defined, instrumentally-oriented model, we’re undercutting our ability to flourish as a society. We no longer care for the answers to the big questions, heck, we no longer feel compelled to ask the big questions!

and further

Education is seen as merely a means to individual ends, whether those ends are monetary, ideological, political or otherwise. The idea that education should be more than a tool for individualistic self-actualization may sound blasphemous to the modern ear, but it’s an idea we’d better reacquaint ourselves with if we care about the future of our nation and the souls of our children and grandchildren.

A nation of pragmatic narcissists will not long endure, for when there is no thirst for truth and no one to guard and transmit the things that make us human, we’ll quickly give ourselves over to our baser impulses, social cohesion will unravel, and culture will crumble.

We are amazed at the power of internet propagation. Mr. Connor’s article-and therefore A link to The Lion and Ox may be found at the following websites.

Thanks Mr. Connor!

Anyone who enjoyed “The Lost Art of Education” will also enjoy perusing the website for The Lyceum. The art of education has been found! And I think it should be franchised immediately!!

 

 

Posted in education, Liberal Arts, truth for its own sake | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment