What Should Be Studied?
Part 4 of My Classical Education Series
Welcome back to The Burnett Breakdown. I am wrapping up my series on classical education and will get back to regular programming next week. If that is of interest to you, then please like, subscribe, share, and comment.
The “What” of Education
This week I am rounding my series on classical education. To recap, I started by discussing the purpose of education which is to instill wisdom and virtue in students. Then, I moved on to discuss how classical education proposes to accomplish this goal, namely, by teaching students the liberal arts.
As I wrote, the liberal arts, consisting of the Medieval Trivium and Quadrivium, are the “skills that a man must possess in order to be free.” The seven liberal arts are the linguistic and numerical “thinking skills” that provide students with the ability to “think critically”. You can read my newsletters where I elaborate on each of the arts individually here and here if you missed them.
Now, one of the most important pieces that is missing from my discussion of classical education so far is the actual material or content that should be taught. When we think about what material should be taught, we must hold two things in our mind at once.
First, the material that we teach should contribute to our ultimate purpose of education to instill wisdom and virtue into students. This means that the material itself must be chock-full of wisdom and virtue. It cannot be “morally neutral” (as if there was such a thing) and the virtues that are present should be extolled by the teacher.
Second, the material should be well-suited to develop the liberal arts in the students. If we think of the liberal arts as skills of the mind, then students need to develop these skills by using or practicing these skills. The material that we choose to give students to practice these skills needs to actually help them sharpen their skills. Like a soccer player practicing with a football, a student using material not suited to develop the liberal arts is going to develop skills that aren’t useful and even potentially detrimental.
So, what material fits the criteria of being best at sharpening a student’s liberal art skills and instilling wisdom and virtue?
Answer: the Great Books of the Western tradition.
By studying the “Great Books,” students learn what were traditionally called the “sciences.” The sciences in the Middle Ages were not the “subjects” that are referred to as the sciences today (biology, chemistry, physics, etc.); rather, they were any organized body of knowledge. Vestiges of this usage can still be seen on many college campuses that have colleges of arts and sciences.
Traditionally, there were three types of sciences: the natural sciences, humane/moral sciences (humanities), and the theological sciences.
The natural sciences refer to organized knowledge about the natural world. This doesn’t just mean taking nature walks and experiencing nature (though I certainly hope we all experience nature), but this really refers to the process of humans making sense of the natural world by imposing organization on it.
The natural sciences don’t just call for humans to see a cat and think “that’s cool”, but to systematically study the attributes and characteristics of the cat and categorize it in relation to other parts of the natural world. The proliferation of the “subjects” that are now referred to as “science” is just the continuation of this process of categorizing and organizing the natural world so that humans can better understand it.
By better understanding the natural world, humans should be left more in awe of creation (and thus the Creator) and more knowledgeable on how to use creation for human flourishing.
Then, there are the humanities or the humane/moral sciences. The humanities are primarily the study of history, literature, and philosophy. These sciences teach us about the human experience and are the primary means of cultural transmission.
Imagine asking your grandparents what life was like when they were growing up and what lessons they learned over the course of their life. Now, imagine asking your grandparents’ grandparents what life was like when they were growing up and what lessons they learned over the course of their life. Now, imagine asking your grandparents’ grandparents’ grandparents what life was like when they were growing up and what lessons they learned over the course of their life.
This is what the study of the humanities does for us and more. The humanities provide us with the accumulated experience of generations past to help us better understand ourselves. By learning from other humans who lived in an entirely different context than ours, we can identify those things which are constant in human nature and identify blind spots that are rampant in our own time.
Beyond the individual benefits of studying the humanities, they are also the primary means of cultural transmission from one generation to the next. Unfortunately, culture, today, is thought to be only surface level differences of dress, food, dances, etc. While those are the most obvious cultural distinctions, they are far from the most significant; rather, the traditions, ideas, behaviors, and institutions that are often invisible do more to shape people and societies.
The ideas about their god(s), beliefs in the afterlife, and religious institutions that the Aztecs passed on through the generations led to the devaluing of human life in the form of human sacrifice. No type of clothing, dance, or food could have had this same level of impact.
The type of culture, especially ideas, institutions, and traditions, that we pass on to the next generation deeply matters, and we pass on culture by studying a culture's history, literature, and philosophy. This raises the questions of whose history, literature, and philosophy should be studied and whose culture should be transmitted?
This is where the “classical” part of “classical education” is important. By “classical”, it is meant the classical cultures of Greece and Rome. These cultures were then inherited and informed by the Christian culture of the Middle Ages to form the Western civilization that classical education seeks to transmit to students.
Finally, there are the theological sciences. The theological sciences are the organized bodies of knowledge regarding the nature of God and our relation to Him. This was the apex of education in the Medieval university. So much so, that Theology was named the “queen of the sciences.”
All other sciences were, and are, meant to lead to the contemplation of God and our relation to Him.
By using the “Great Books” as the material for students to develop their liberal arts, classical education takes advantage of time as a filter and, thus, teaches the best that has been thought and said regarding the natural sciences, humanities, and theological sciences.
As a result, classically educated students are the best equipped to think about and practice virtue as Paul commands in Philippians 4.
God Bless,
Hunter Burnett