Great article at Family Security Matters:
In the Medieval period the liberal arts consisted of a rigorous education scheme composed of the Trivium and the Quadrivium. The Trivium consisted of grammar, dialectics, and rhetoric. The idea was to attain proficiency in a language, to understand how it worked, its structure, the etymology of its vocabulary, etc; to come to an understanding of how to construct an argument, understand an opposing argument’s underlying assumptions, learn to define one’s terms, and understand how the opposition’s terms are defined and used; and to develop the ability to defend one’s views with clarity and poise under pressure and heckling. ...
The Quadrivium was a set of studies—arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy—to give citizens skills to understand the workings of the world around them, to endow citizens with a distinguished taste and a refined appreciation for the finer things of life. As Berkowitz writes, “The highest justification of liberal education is that by forming free and well-furnished minds it prepares students to fashion for themselves a good life.” With the ability to distinguish good music from bad music, good art from bad art, beauty in the cosmos from chaos in opposing philosophies, they would be able to gain and maintain awe for life and the world that comes from truly understanding."
Luke Sheahan, a young descendant of Irish immigrants, eloquently sets forth the case for a liberal education - "liberal" in its true, original sense, meaning "suitable for a free person". And being a citizen of a free and democratic nation is no small responsiblity - which perhaps is why so many American leftists are eager to shuck off the burden of that responsiblity by denigrating America and denying that it is a democratic, free state.
Let them. You and I, we have business to attend to. As Luke has explained for us, the first part of the traditional education was the Trivium - "grammar, dialectics, and rhetoric". Wouldn't it be nice if today's Institutions of Higher Learning all insisted on a rigorous course in argumentation - or logic - for every student? The whole matter of the search for truth, and proficiency in using legitimate arguments to overcome illegitimate ones, seems to have been lost. Rather than "the ability to defend one’s views with clarity and poise under pressure and heckling", I have begun to think some colleges are actually teaching courses in heckling.
The Trivium is by no means trivial. (That last word, by the way - according to my high school Latin teacher, Mrs. Mellen - arose from the custom of exchanging gossip at the crossroads, or "trivium", where three or more roads meet.) Neither is the Quadrivium, what we might now call (except for music) "the sciences". The unifying theme, though, is the quest for knowledge and truth. Let me go back to Sheahan:
The university has become little more than a vocational school with only a nominal pledge to coherence in the curriculum; we are set on training doctors, lawyers, businessmen, and engineers—not philosopher statesmen. In the ancient city states a learned class of free men would govern the rest; they would be educated in the skills of free men to be capable of such leadership.
In America, we are a society of free people who must be capable of self governance. All American citizens are called upon to govern, both in their private spheres as free citizens and in the public place as voting citizens. ...
I myself, when questioned about the purpose of my college studies ("But what are you going to
do with that?"), have found myself retorting, "I'm not going to college to learn a vocation. That's what trade schools are for."
In any case, here's GayPatriotWest:
... I’ve been reading Anthony Kronman’s Education’s End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life. (I learned about this book one day while perusing Instapundit.) As I began to read it, I learned that Mr. Kronman is a graduate of American’s finest liberal arts college. No wonder he can offer such important insights.
I expect to have more to say about Kronman’s book as a later date, particularly about what the abandonment of the study of the meaning of life means for gay people. So far, I have really enjoyed the first third of the book. The author, the former dean of Yale Law School, provides a good background on the conversation about life’s meaning and the history of colleges and university curricula in America. He may be a little repetitive at times, but that repetition does not detract from the book’s strengths.
It stuck me as interesting synchronicity that the same weekend my friend would offer his insight on the moments of true happiness that I’m reading a book about the meaning of life. It seems to me that it is in large part through the human relationships we establish that we discover life’s meaning. Perhaps thad reading has put me in a philosophic mood these past few days, hence the slow blogging.
The
ambiguous relationship between blogging and life will be left as an exercise for the reader. Meanwhile, go read
Luke Sheahan at FSM.
(Oh, and did you notice that in the third paragraph, he uses the word "memorization"? Scary stuff, that.)
