Classical Education

 I recently began reading a book titled, "An Experiment in Liberty" by George Grant. This book speaks in great length and detail about America's path to independence. As the author goes about the rich work of setting the stage for the Revolutionary War he spends time on several important figures in our Nation's history. Men such as Cotton Mather, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, John Quincy Adams, George Washington, General Wolfe (who disembarked 3,500 British regulars from naval ships into row boats and with muffled oars snuck past the watch over the St. Lawrence river to arrive in the rear of the city of Quebec, attacking it at daylight. Today, in our ever-more capable military, you cannot even conduct small boat training unless every marine has passed an advanced swim qualification and received a certificate that has been uploaded into a computer database. The handicaps on our employment and capabilities are self-made and severe. At the center of it lies risk adverse commanders and political leaders who fabricate requirements not for the lethality of our men but to save themselves from blame should something go wrong. But I have long sense digressed!), and many others. As you read about these men it becomes very clear that they were educated in a much different manner than we are today. As we see religion flee from our schools and our education we also see a gradual breakdown in the fabric of our 'experiment in liberty'. John Adams is quoted saying, "Statesmen may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand". Where did these men go? Where are our nation's leaders who think like Adams? The answer is we don't educate men to think like Adams as we used to.

G.K. Chesterton said, "The great intellectual tradition that comes down to us from the past was never interrupted or lost through such trifles as the sack of Rome, the triumph of Attila, or all the barbarian invasions of the Dark Ages. It was lost after... the coming of the marvels of technology, the establishment of universal education, and all the enlightenment of the modern world. And thus was lost-or impatiently snapped-the long thin delicate thread that had descended from distant antiquity; the thread of that unusual human hobby: the habit of thinking."

George Grant notes that the type of education in the time of these men was not merely pointed at the object of the accumulation of knowledge - as much is today (if you could even call it that). Instead it was aimed at equipping an entire generation of leaders with 'the necessary tools to exercise discernment, discretion, and discipline in their lives and over their callings.'

In other words we are taught today 'what to think' while generations of men in our past were taught 'how to think'.