With this groundwork laid in Aristotle and modern research, we proceeded to articulate an understanding of the arts as situated in history and culture, as familial and traditional in nature. The upshot of this view is that we must apprentice students into specific traditions of artistry. We are not training abstract intellectual skills that can be transferred to new contexts, as Bloom’s taxonomy and the faculty theory of education supposed. When we train students in arithmetic or grammar, just like painting or gymnastics, we are inducting them into something both old and new. The ancient insights, styles and methods in these domains have been continuously adjusted and updated since their inception. This does not mean we must accept modern methods or assumptions in various arts (see A Pedagogy of Craft), but it does entail that some traditional artistic abilities and practices have little relevance in our contemporary context. Few schools teach horseback riding or ancient sailing and navigation techniques, and for good reason.

The Limitations of Artistic Divisions

In a similar way, there is no sacrosanct set of divisions between the arts handed down as if from on high. What we see in the classical tradition is a variety of distinctions between the branches of various artistic traditions as they developed over time. Many of the things that we regard as grammar (e.g., distinctions between singular and plural, parts of speech, types of sentences) are discussed by Augustine of Hippo in his treatise On Dialectic (de Dialectica). We should not be surprised at this fact. Since the arts are living traditions, human descriptions of their boundaries and nature are like mapping a flood plain. So, as much as we may nerd out about the Seven Liberal Arts (I am speaking to myself as much as to others…) we should not be disturbed when Hugh of St Victor, for instance, refuses to follow the early medieval divisions. 

(In the Didascalicon Hugh advocates for four branches of knowledge or wisdom: the theoretical [disciplines like mathematics, physics and theology], the practical [ethics and politics], the mechanical [architecture, medicine, agriculture, etc.], and logic, or the science which ensures proper reasoning and clarity in the other sciences.)

While we are, in this series, developing Aristotle’s divisions of the intellectual virtues, therefore, we should not prejudge the idea that his is the best or the only proper mapping of the intellectual virtues, the educational project or the distinctions between categories of knowledge. This series should be viewed as the opening of a conversation about rethinking our educational goals within Aristotelian terms, as more philosophically sound and helpful than Bloom’s Taxonomy. In the same way, though I have often referred to the classical distinction between the arts and sciences, it would be more accurate to reference the Aristotelian distinction between artistry (techne) and scientific knowledge (episteme), which had the effect in the tradition at varying times and places of issuing in a similar distinction between the branches of knowledge and of arts. 

Likewise, with arts in particular, I have proposed a fivefold division of the arts as in my view the most helpful for gesturing toward wholeness in our current renewal movement, and not because I dismiss the elegance of the threefold vision of common, liberal and fine arts, endorsed by Chris Hall, Ravi Jain and Kevin Clark. 

Techne — Artistry or craftsmanship

1. Athletics, games and sports
2. Common and domestic arts
3. Professions and trades
4. Fine and performing arts
5. The liberal arts of language and number

The main reason to do so lies in the realization that athletics, games and sports are indeed forms of techne, but they are not easily captured under the headings of common, liberal or fine. This is a problem if, as I contend, athletics, games and sports rightly play an important role within education. Separating out professions and trades from the common and domestic arts, secondarily, gestures towards modern cultural realities post-industrialization. Tending a garden in your backyard represents a different stream of craftsmanship than managing a commercial greenhouse. We risk a high degree of unhelpful equivocation by attempting to use medieval categories in the modern world. 

Of course, the fact that these are arts does not entail that we are obliged to train students in all of them—an impossibility in any case! What I have said is that we should structure the academy optimally to cultivate the arts and that we should aim at a universality, not a comprehensiveness, of artistic training in our K-12 educational programs. It is possible to train students in representatives from each of the five categories, with the liberal arts occupying a central role for the production of the other intellectual virtues (see later section in this article). As I discussed in an earlier article, the choice of which arts to cultivate constitutes a cultural judgment based on the calling and opportunities of a particular school. 

If all this talk of the culturally situated nature of the arts lands me in controversy, at least I can claim that I am not anti-tradition, but I am in fact restoring a proper understanding of artistic traditions against the modernist pretensions about objectivity. As Aristotle articulated so clearly, techne concerns itself with the ultimate particular facts, with what may or may not be, with contingent things and not with necessary being. Knowledge of how to make something does not constitute knowledge of the essences of things or philosophic wisdom. These truths are part and parcel of the natural limitations of artistry. 

The Transcendence of Artistry into Morality

However, it is also worth recognizing how artistry can in fact transcend itself. If craftsmanship can be figuratively represented by skillful hands, then as we already explained those same hands are hardwired to the heart and head, and even the spirit. In a way we have already noted this fact at length in the prelude to Apprenticeship in the Arts. Aristotle himself recognized the similarities between morality and artistry. But we have not as yet duly noted the extent to which the training of the hands also conditions the heart. As Comenius recognized, the arts require their own sort of prudence, by which the artisan foresees what will turn out for the best with his artistic production. 

Likewise, a hard and painful practice regimen enables the production of good and beautiful things. In this way, apprenticeship in the arts participates in the nature of the moral training that enables a person to delay instant gratification for the sake of a greater reward later. By thus disciplining the desires, artistic training acts as a natural prelude and arena for the development of self-control and this not only in athletics and sports, but in all the various arts. In both artistry and morality, one must aim at a target and pursue it through reasoned use of contingent means. Techne transcends itself through its natural participation in all the moral virtues and in the intellectual virtue of phronesis, or practical wisdom. 

After all, the sphere of human production has a natural affinity with the sphere of human action and goods. Producing something beautiful and valuable is itself a prudent action for a human being. Even more, developing some form of artistry is necessary for living a good life and enjoying the good things of life. Adopting a craftsman mindset in one’s work and getting into the flow of deliberate or purposeful practice constitutes a chief element of a prudent, and therefore happy, life. One must at times display the moral virtues of courage, temperance and justice in the serious work of artistic excellence. Jordan Peterson, for one, has discussed the importance of fair play and reciprocity in games as an emergent ethic. 

Artistry’s Moral and Spiritual Limitations

All this said, we can note again the limits of this blending of artistry into prudence. After all, the super star performer and artistic genius are also liable to moral dissolution and depravity, as we have daily witness in the tabloids. As in the case of the traditions of artistry themselves, it seems that self-control and moral foresight are not necessarily transferred from one sphere of life to another. The devoted Olympic athlete has his impeccable diet and training regimen, but he might be notoriously licentious or proud.

This limitation even shows itself in the spiritual sphere where transformations of artistry can mask, for a time, the impurities of the heart. As Jesus stated explicitly in the Sermon on the Mount,

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’” (Matt 7:21-23 ESV)

Spiritual gifts, or what we might call spiritual forms of artistry (since they are productive acts in the world), do not ensure that such artisans are morally sound. They might outwardly perform spiritual works, but in the eyes of God they remain still “workers of lawlessness.” In the same way, our liberal arts educated students may become nothing more than “clever devils,” to borrow C.S. Lewis’ phrase from The Abolition of Man. 

Among other things, this is why we must go on from artistry, which, for all its possibilities for transcendence, is properly basic and preparatory to the other intellectual virtues, rather than constituting them in itself. As Saint Paul claims, “I will show you a still more excellent way” (1 Cor 12:31b ESV), while he transitions from the gifts of spiritual artistry to the transcendent value of love, over and above all the intellectual and moral virtues on display in their full extravagance and grandiosity. Not just tongues of men, but of angels—what a statement to put the trivium arts to shame! “Prophetic powers” and understanding “all mysteries and all knowledge”—what phrases to humble the prophet, scholar and philosopher alike! 

It may be that we can ascribe the term ‘wisdom’ even to the greatest exponents of the arts, as Aristotle mentions in Book VI, ch. 4 of the Nicomachean Ethics. But by this we do not mean either that practical wisdom for life or philosophical wisdom of the highest mysteries.

Artistry as a Prelude to the Other Four Intellectual Virtues

And yet again, the arts can by their very nature transcend toward philosophical wisdom just like toward moral prudence. In the fine arts, for instance, it is not only their beauty that we prize but the messages that our great artists have embodied in shape and form. These insights into the nature of life and reality are valuable in so far as they are true. Or to put it another way, great artists rely on their intuition (nous) or understanding of reality (both in universals and in particulars) for the messages they have skillfully conveyed in artistic form. This intuition about life can, fortunately and unfortunately, coexist with poor habits and a personal lack of prudence. The artist may be our muse, whether or not she herself practices what she preaches!

Not all artistic productions convey a high degree of knowledge about the world, but the higher fine and performing arts, as well as the liberal arts do. In fact, it is these traditional productions of genius—paintings and sculptures, poems and novels, histories and plays, speeches and debates—that act as the forerunners of intuition and scientific knowledge in the student. It is through attention to these Great Works that defy easy categorization that the perceptive and reasoning abilities of the student are honed and developed. They provide a form of enriched second-hand experience enabling students’ thought to grow and mature. By imitating them throughout their training in the arts, students are given more than simply artistry itself. They are given the forerunners of the other intellectual virtues: the opinions of authorities, “the words of the wise and their riddles” (Prov 1:6b ESV).

While experiencing artistic productions can lead to artistry in the student when combined with imitation and coached practice, it is through reflection on the authorities, especially in the liberal arts, that prudence, intuition, scientific knowledge and ultimately philosophical wisdom are developed. In this way, while artistry is not enough, it is by nature a prelude to the other intellectual virtues. For this reason, the tradition recognized training in the liberal arts as preparatory to the sciences. In particular, the traditional productions of artistic wisdom are meant to provide fodder for reflection on the nature of human goods, thus developing prudence. From our Aristotelian vantage point, we can see the late medieval vision of moral philosophy as informing the individual’s development of phronesis. 

In a similar fashion, the arts help us see in a way that we would not on our own, forming our intuition or nous, those starting points for reasoning, whether in human, mathematical or natural spheres. At the same time, training in the liberal arts of language and number enable us to demonstrate propositions to be the case, establishing a statement as true or false. In this way, artistry with words and numbers constitutes the necessary prerequisite for scientific knowledge in what the later tradition would have called metaphysics and natural science. Both deliberation (for affairs of human choice regarding goods) and inquiry (for universal and particular truths regardless of human desire), then, require use, if not mastery, of the liberal arts for their practice. And so, these other intellectual virtues are dependent upon the liberal arts.

So, we are for this reason justified in seeing the liberal arts tradition as in a unique way indebted to the Aristotelian paradigm of intellectual virtues. Although not everyone in the tradition articulated this distinction between the liberal arts and sciences in the same way, the insight about the liberal arts’ central role as the pathways to moral virtue and wisdom owes a great deal to Aristotle. 

It is important to conclude by stating clearly that training in the liberal arts, like other forms of artistry, does not always and necessarily lead to the other intellectual virtues. As Clark and Jain have contended in The Liberal Arts Tradition, the liberal arts are not enough. We need only look to Plato’s Gorgias to see Socrates demolishing this supposition before Aristotle came along. Rhetoric could be a mere knack or craftiness that makes the worse appear to be the better cause. All the arts have their forms of trickery that are out of step with moral or spiritual reality. Artistry, particularly liberal artistry, can transcend itself as the doorway into deeper things, but it need not and therein lies the danger of relying or focusing on it alone. Which is why we must go on from artistry, entering the realms of prudence next….

Earlier Articles in this series:

1. Bloom’s Taxonomy and the Purpose of Education

2. Bloom’s Taxonomy and the Importance of Objectives: 3 Blessings of Bloom’s

3. Breaking Down the Bad of Bloom’s: The False Objectivity of Education as a Modern Social Scienc

4. When Bloom’s Gets Ugly: Cutting the Heart Out of Education

5. What Bloom’s Left Out: A Comparison with Aristotle’s Intellectual Virtues

6. Aristotle’s Virtue Theory and a Christian Purpose of Education

7. Moral Virtue and the Intellectual Virtue of Artistry or Craftsmanship

8. Practicing in the Dark or the Day: Well-worn Paths or Bushwalking, Artistry and Moral Virtue Continued

9. Apprenticeship in the Arts, Part 1: Traditions and Divisions

10. Apprenticeship in the Arts, Part 2: A Pedagogy of Craft

11. Apprenticeship in the Arts, Part 3: Crafting Lessons in Artistry

12. Apprenticeship in the Arts, Part 4: Artistry, the Academy and the Working World

13. Apprenticeship in the Arts, Part 5: Structuring the Academy for Christian Artistry

Next subseries in Aristotle’s Intellectual Virtues:

The Counsels of the Wise, Part 1: Foundations of Christian Prudence

The post Apprenticeship in the Arts, Part 6: The Transcendence and Limitations of Artistry appeared first on .

“Why the History of Narration Matters” series:

Part 1: Charlotte Mason’s Discovery?

Part 2: Classical Roots

Part 3: Narration’s Rebirth

Part 4: Charlotte Mason’s Practice of Narration in Historical Perspective

Expanding Narration’s History with Comenius: Narration’s Rebirth, Stage 2 – The Great Didactic

Expanding Narration’s History with Comenius: Narration’s Rebirth, Stage 2 – The Analytical Didactic

This series began as an attempt to wrap up the loose ends of hints and speculations I had had for years, regarding the origins of Charlotte Mason’s practice of narration. Was it her own invention? Some passages I had discovered in a rhetoric textbook from the early 1900s, and then from Quintilian and John Locke, argued otherwise. Perhaps this, then, was a test-case for the broader question of Charlotte Mason’s relationship to the classical tradition.

Since then I have been able to fill in a pretty compelling set of stepping stones for the use of narration-like practices throughout the history of education. But one major gap remained…. the Middle Ages. I am excited to announce that I have filled in that gap; or at least, I have moved up the gap in the history of narration from the Renaissance proper to the twelfth century renaissance of the high Middle Ages. The source: John of Salisbury’s Metalogicon, or defense of the verbal and logical arts of the trivium. The proponent of narration: Bernard of Chartres.

While this investigation into the history of narration began with the theme of Charlotte Mason’s place within the classical tradition of education, it has come to represent more than that for me. In our recovery movements we have focused our attention on recovering the broader and more holistic purpose of education (the Why), in contrast to modern utilitarianism and pragmatism. In addition, we have rediscovered old curricular tracks (the What), like the liberal arts themselves. But we have not delved as deeply for the gems of pedagogy, the teaching methods of the classical tradition in all their multiform glory.

This short history of narration (which I am revising and expanding into a book to be published with Educational Renaissance) aims to uncover narration as it was practiced in the tradition, turning this pedagogical gem in the light of various centuries and cultural expressions. This historical understanding will then give us a flexibility and creativity of application with the teaching practice that we couldn’t gain any other way.

With that preface, let us travel back to the late Middle Ages!

The Twelfth-Century Educational Renaissance

Daniel D. McGarry sees the twelfth century as the birthplace of modern Western pedagogy, noting that while the “constituent elements were Greek, Roman, and early Christian in origin, yet it is also true that these received new form and life in the Middle Ages.”[1] He goes on to call this momentous time period of intellectual flourishing, in which John of Salisbury lived, the “twelfth-century educational ‘renaissance’.” Whether we agree with designating the twelfth century as the birthplace of modern Western pedagogy may depend more upon our assessment of the relative merits of ancient and modern teaching methods than anything else. But the important point for our purposes is the new life, and what we can undoubtedly call the rebirth of narration, among other teaching practices that occurred during this time period.

Jerome Taylor of the University of Notre Dame also has called the twelfth century a “renaissance”, describing it as “a time when centers of education had moved from the predominantly rural monasteries to the cathedral schools of growing cities and communes; when education in the new centers was becoming specialized, hence unbalanced, according to the limited enthusiasms of capacities of particular masters”.[2] Against this backdrop, John of Salisbury wrote his Metalogicon to combat a group scholars who repudiated the value of the Trivium arts of grammar, dialectic and rhetoric, and claimed to advance on to mastery of philosophy in but a few years of study.[3]

John of Salisbury closes his discussion of the importance of full grammatical training by discussing an eminent teacher of the previous generation, Bernard of Chartres, who taught at the cathedral school there beginning in 1115. Bernard is the earliest figure to be attributed with the famous “standing on the shoulders of giants” conception.[4] With such a value for the thoughts of those who came before, it is no wonder that we see him using narration as a core teaching practice. As we have mentioned elsewhere, narration is a fundamentally pious act that accords well with a focus on classic literature and the Great Books.[5]

Bernard of Chartres Teaching Grammar

John of Salisbury begins by describing Bernard’s method of teaching grammar:

Bernard of Chartres, the greatest font of literary learning in Gaul in recent times, used to teach grammar in the following way. He would point out, in reading authors, what was simple and according to rule. On the other hand, he would explain grammatical figures, rhetorical embellishment, and sophistical quibbling, as well as the relation of given passages to other studies. He would do so, however, without trying to teach everything at one time. On the contrary, he would dispense his instruction to his hearers gradually, in a manner commensurate with their powers of assimilation.[6]

This explanatory lecture method is well attested for grammatical teachers in the tradition going right on back to Quintilian. What is noted as of special importance is Bernard’s avoidance of being pedantic about the wrong sorts of details. In his discursive commentary on texts, Bernard took a methodical and gradual approach, suiting his teaching to the receptivity of his hearers. His unique sensitivity to what his students could “assimilate” was likely borne of his practice of listening to his students narrate the next day (see below).

Proponents of narration might be inclined to see in Bernard’s method nothing more than the ineffective lecture-based approach to education that we deplore. But according to John of Salisbury, Bernard would not leave his readings of texts and lectures there, simply in the air to be remembered or not by his pupils. Instead, Bernard was aware of the necessity for mental exercise through narration or recitation:

In view of the fact that exercise both strengthens and sharpens our mind, Bernard would bend every effort to bring his students to imitate what they were hearing.[7] In some cases he would rely on exhortation, in others he would resort to punishments, such as flogging. Each student was daily required to recite part of what he had heard on the previous day. Some would recite more, others less. Each succeeding day thus became the disciple of its predecessor.[8]

Bernard’s teaching practice involved students in the imitation of the authors “that he read to them” (see n. 28). In addition, we can see that this was a required daily practice for all students – a fact that impresses us with the pedagogical value Bernard attributed to it.  John says he “would bend every effort” to this task. We might say that Bernard assigned his students homework to remember something of what he had taught them the previous day. Failing to complete your homework for Bernard’s class might have dire consequences (i.e. “flogging”). It seems at least partly ambiguous whether details from Bernard’s lecture would be included in students’ recounting of the content of the texts. But we could easily imagine commentary and text fusing together naturally when the previous day’s topics were retold by many students, one after another.

We might wonder whether the recitation that Bernard speaks of was similar to what Charlotte Mason called ‘narration’ or if it involved the word-for-word memorization of select passages from the texts Bernard read aloud, what many modern classical Christian educators and Masonites now call recitation. While the details here are somewhat ambiguous, a few factors push me in the direction of the former. First, the fact that “some would recite more, others less” seems true to life for educators who have used narration, whereas if word-for-word memorization were in view, we would expect a teacher to assign a set number of lines. Would Bernard leave it to chance which passages his students memorized? Likewise, the closing observation that each day “became the disciple of its predecessor” seems to fit better with an oral recounting of the content from the previous day by many students than memory work.

A later passage also exhibits the same ambiguity about whether narration or memorization is in view:

Bernard used also to admonish his students that stories and poems should be read thoroughly, and not as though the reader were being precipitated to flight by spurs. Wherefor he diligently and insistently demanded from each, as a daily debt, something committed to memory.[9]

It is possible that this passage refers to Bernard’s homework requirement of memorization, while the other refers to narration. Or both could refer to the same practice of narration or memorization. Either way, even if we were to conclude (which I doubt) that word-for-word memorization is intended in both these passages, we could still argue that such a heavy use of recitation (as “a daily debt”) edges into the benefits of the unique practice of narration because of how consistently and vigorously it engages the memory.

At the end of the day, it seems most likely that Bernard employed both narration and word-for-word memorization (as did Charlotte Mason and countless educators throughout history). What he was most remarkable for was his use of these imitative exercises as a daily requirement for all students. In this way, we can see the features of earlier rhetorical and grammatical teaching reinvigorated and taken seriously in a way that John of Salisbury, at least, found remarkable and rare in his own time.

Bernard’s “Conferences” and the Narration-Trivium Lesson

For classical educators who worry about a bare recital of content, Bernard’s methods went further to cultivate what we might call the higher order thinking skills and creative production of his students:

A further feature of Bernard’s method was to have his disciples compose prose and poetry every day, and exercise their faculties in mutual conferences,[10] for nothing is more useful in introductory training than actually to accustom one’s students to practice the art they are studying. Nothing serves better to foster the acquisition of eloquence and the attainment of knowledge than such conferences, which also have a salutary influence on practical conduct, provided that charity moderates enthusiasm, and that humility is not lost during progress in learning.[11]

Bernard’s “daily debt” did not only involve narration and/or memorization, but also literary composition and discussion. These “conferences” might have sounded like what we call socratic seminars, involving the discussion of ideas from the authors being read as well as their relationships and applications to other ideas. This conclusion finds support in John’s claim that they would have a “salutary [health-bringing] influence on practical conduct”. Or else, these conferences could have required students to critique one another’s prose and poetic compositions, judging their merits and flaws. In all likelihood, both sorts of discussions occurred thereby fostering both “the acquisition of eloquence and the attainment of knowledge”.

Bernard’s method of teaching grammar thus coheres broadly with the Narration-Trivium lesson structure that I have advocated for as a fusion of Charlotte Mason’s narration lesson with the classical tradition.[12] Bernard’s explanatory lectures provided the set-up or 1^st little talk that enabled his students to understand the texts that he read to them. His extended commentary on the text cleared up further difficulties and focused on the detailed development of grammatical learning. The text and proper explanation were then required to be narrated, not immediately, but the next day by each student, as much as he could remember. Students’ preparation for this task might have involved them engaging in their own sorts of retrieval practice activities (perhaps involving notes) which would enable them to tell in detail the next day. They may also have memorized word-for-word particular passages or quotations from the texts, which they might have jotted down in a commonplace journal.

Then students would engage in “conferences” where they discussed the ideas and features of the texts they were studying, based on their knowledge of the text gained through lecture and narration. Finally, they would also write their own imitative compositions, share them with others for discussion and critique, thus training them in dialectic and rhetoric, the second little talk and a creative or analytical response to the text. Instead of happening all in a single lesson, this process would begin on one day and continue into the next, a practice that I would commend as well, esp. for older students. The Narration-Trivium lesson structure is intended to be flexible and adaptable by the teacher to the nature of the subject-matter and the needs of the students.

Bernard’s Methods as a Classical Inheritance

We might be tempted to think of Bernard’s grammatical pedagogy involving narration as simply a blip on the timeline of the Middle Ages, but its resonance with the practices of the classical era should cause us to wonder whether there were many more unremembered Bernards throughout the Middle Ages at earlier monastic or church schools, who followed the traditions of genuine classical learning. Even in his own time, Bernard’s pedagogy was adopted by many, according to John, even if it died off quickly:

My own instructors in grammar… formerly used Bernard’s method in training their disciples. But later, when popular opinion veered away from the truth, when men preferred to seem, rather than to be philosophers, and when professors of the arts were promising to impart the whole of philosophy in less than three or even two years… [they] were overwhelmed by the onslaught of the ignorant mob, and retired. Since then, less time and attention have been given to the study of grammar. As a result we find men who profess all the arts, liberal and mechanical, but who are ignorant of this very first one [i.e., grammar], without which it is futile to attempt to go on to the others.[13]

John of Salisbury’s nostalgic reflections of his own quality instruction in grammar by teachers following Bernard’s approach might cause us to wonder whether the human tendency to take short cuts is really to blame for narration’s neglect. As Plato feared, writing has proved to be “a recipe not for memory, but for reminder,” filling men “not with wisdom, but with the conceit of wisdom”.[14] In all times and places, narration (alongside other genuinely classical teaching methods) represents a hard and uphill climb, but the true route to the peak of the mountain of intellectual virtue.

In this final article on the history of narration, I’ve given you a taste of the book that Educational Renaissance published in early 2022: A Short History of Narration. I hope you’ve been inspired by the history of narration and that you will buy the book to take your practice of narration to the next level. Also, check out our webinars, like Habit Training 2.0 or one on Narration 2.0, to get the practical resources and insight you need to bring ancient wisdom into modern era in your classroom!

[1] Daniel D. McGarry, “Introduction” in The Metalogicon of John of Salisbury: A Twelfth-Century Defense of the Verbal and Logical Arts of the Trivium (Mansfield Centre, CT: Martino Publishing, 2015), xv.

[2] Jerome Taylor, “Introduction” in The Didascalicon of Hugh of St. Victor: A Medieval Guide to the Arts, translated by Jerome Taylor (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961; Forgotten Books reprint, 2018), 4.

[3] He actually addresses one particular advocate whom he nicknames Cornificius for the ancient detractor of Vergil, but this may be a literary fiction, and either way, the individual represents a movement of thought, on which see John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, 11.

[4] John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, 167:

Bernard of Chartres used to compare us to [puny] dwarfs perched on the shoulders of giants. He pointed out that we see more and farther than our predecessors, not because we have keener vision or greater height, but because we are lifted up and borne aloft on their gigantic stature.

[5] See Jason Barney, A Classical Guide to Narration, 89.

[6] John of Salisbury, The Metalogicon of John of Salisbury: A Twelfth-Century Defense of the Verbal and Logical Arts of the Trivium, translated by Daniel D. McGarry (Mansfield Centre, CT: Martino Publishing, 2015), 67.

[7] The translator adds a note, ibid., 68: “Literally: what they were hearing, namely, the selections that he read to them [from the authors].”

[8] Ibid.

[9] Another note from the translator, ibid.: “Bernard apparently required of each of his students the daily recitation of some passages memorized from their current reading.”

[10] Translator’s note, ibid, 70: “collationibus, collations, conferences, comparisons. Although ‘conferences’ would seem to fit here as a translation, Webb holds that ‘comparisons’ is better….”

[11] Ibid.

[12] See www.educationalrenaissance.com for a free eBook explaining the Narration-Trivium lesson.

[13] Ibid., 71.

[14] Plato, Phaedrus in The Collected Dialogues, 520.

“Why the History of Narration Matters” series:

Part 1: Charlotte Mason’s Discovery?

Part 2: Classical Roots

Part 3: Narration’s Rebirth

Part 4: Charlotte Mason’s Practice of Narration in Historical Perspective

Expanding Narration’s History with Comenius: Narration’s Rebirth, Stage 2 – The Great Didactic

Expanding Narration’s History with Comenius: Narration’s Rebirth, Stage 2 – The Analytical Didactic

The post Expanding Narration’s History in the late Middle Ages: Bernard of Chartres from John of Salisbury’s Metalogicon appeared first on .

Similarly, within the Christian classical school movement, some have asked, “What has Charlotte Mason to do with Dorothy Sayers?” In other words, can the pedagogical insights of the British educator Charlotte Mason be conducive for classical education today? Where is there harmony? Where is there discord?

While a full treatment of this question, and the subsequent questions I posed, would require more than a single blog post, I want to begin the conversation by highlighting one prominent interpretation of classical education and then dispelling of two myths that would suggest Charlotte Mason and the tradition are at odds. The interpretation of classical education I will highlight comes from Kevin Clark and Ravi Scott Jain’s The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Christian Classical Education, which has become a seminal text in the Christian classical school movement.

A Paradigm for the Liberal Arts Tradition

To get started, let me first summarize Clark and Jain’s proposed paradigm for the liberal arts tradition. To be clear, I am not suggesting, nor do the authors, that this paradigm gets everything right about the western tradition of education. The history of education in western civilization spans millennia and cultures. It therefore encompasses a variety of thinkers and ideas that vary depending on their context and position within its development. Nevertheless, to suggest that there is no tradition at all is equally incorrect. Through careful study, we can observe some common threads present across time and place, which together bear witness to a single living tradition. It is precisely this rich heritage of education which Clark and Jain seek to uncover and illuminate for modern day scholars and practitioners alike.

The authors define the purpose of the liberal arts tradition in the West as follows: “Grounded in piety, Christian classical education cultivates the virtues of the student in body, heart, and mind while nurturing a love for wisdom under the lordship of Christ.” To unpack this purpose statement and help their readers keep the big picture in mind, they divide the paradigm into multiple categories—Piety, Gymnastic, Music, Arts, Philosophy, and Theology—or PGMAPT, for easy remembering. Let me briefly walk us through each category now.

Piety is the abiding love, gratitude, and loyalty members of a tradition share for their heritage. When fully realized, piety harnesses the heart and will toward a proper sense of duty for what has come before.

Gymnastic is the focused and intensive training of the physical body. As embodied souls, or ensouled bodies, humans must gain mastery of their physical bodies if they are to truly flourish in a physical world.

Music (not to be confused with the modern “subject” of music) tunes the heart to wonder, delight, and love. It forms the affections and moral imagination of the youngest students. Rather than focusing exclusively on instruments or singing, musical education is directed toward joyful engagement with reality. 

The Arts refer to the Liberal Arts, both the Trivium (language arts) and Quadrium (numerical arts). Together they are to be understood as the tools of learning, the intellectual skills required to create and justify knowledge.

Philosophy is the pursuit of wisdom and knowledge about the world, understood in a threefold division: knowledge about humans, nature, and metaphysics. Together these divisions point toward a single unified and synthetic view of knowledge and reality.

Finally, Theology is the study of divine revelation, which is the culmination of knowledge in the western educational tradition. Theology provides the unifying framework for all the liberal arts and sciences. 

The Learning Tree

Together these categories work together sequentially, resulting in a paradigm, or a comprehensive structuring, of the liberal arts tradition. To help their readers grasp this structuring, Clark and Jain liken it to a tree. 

The roots of the tree are piety, for, without piety, a person would have no reliable map or compass for one’s purpose in life. Piety serves both as a launching pad and source of sustenance for one’s understanding and approach to a meaningful life. Next come Gymnastic and Music, located on the lowest part of the tree trunk, indicating that these categories begin during the earliest years in a child’s education. Physical development and self-control, for example, are crucial during this stage. What initially begins with basic head movement and rolling on the floor quickly turns into crawling, walking, and soon enough, running and jumping. Likewise, the minds of children are incredibly active and curious, seeking to absorb everything in their paths. Therefore, the right stories, songs, and art should be offered and assimilated for their moral imaginations to flourish. 

With this foundation laid in the early years, training in the liberal arts occurs next. Not understood as stages in childhood development, but rather as dynamic tools of learning across grade levels, students learn how to use these tools as they engage with linguistic and mathematical content. The language tools have to do with all that is necessary to read and interpret a text, think critically, engage in discussion, and communicate both orally and in writing with eloquence. The number tools have to do with understanding the complex relationships between quantity, size, location, and shape, and then applying this knowledge toward practical outcomes. 

Together the liberal arts of language and number are the tools of learning that equip a student to think independently and dynamically. And while the training in these skills includes the transmission of some knowledge content, the focus is on honing skills that they may then go on to utilize in their own pursuits of knowledge down the road. Philosophy, the pursuit of wisdom, consists of all the subjects, or fields of knowledge, that one can study, such as chemistry, biology, economics, history, or literature. Philosophy, as the domain of all knowledge, is located at the highest point on the tree trunk, indicating that if a student has made her way up to this point, she is now ready to begin the real work of the tree: bearing fruit. This feature of the illustration is crucial for it reminds us as educators that the ultimate purpose of education is not mere knowledge, but virtue formation and the cultivation of desire directed toward the good, true, and beautiful.

And where does theology belong on the tree you might ask? Interestingly, theology itself is not located in any one particular place on the tree, but instead is situated above the tree. This unique positioning communicates that knowledge and understanding of the Triune God transcends all the other categories of education.

Dispelling Two Myths about Charlotte Mason and the Liberal Arts Tradition

Now that I’ve sketched out Clark and Jain’s comprehensive interpretation of the liberal arts tradition, I want to now dispose of two myths that question whether Charlotte Mason’s educational principles fit within the tradition.

The first myth is the simplistic notion that while Charlotte Mason emphasizes ideas, classical education focuses on something else entirely: facts. While it is true that Charlotte Mason greatly emphasizes the power of ideas, it is not accurate to say that classical education, or the liberal arts tradition more broadly, focuses on facts. The popularization of this viewpoint is, of course, understandable. The birth of the classical Christian school renewal movement began, in some ways, with Doug Wilson’s interpretation and application of the Trivium as he understood medievalist Dorothy Sayers to be explaining it. According to this treatment of the Trivium, the elementary years should focus exclusively on fact memorization as a way of honing the liberal art of grammar.

Recently, however, this view of grammar has been shown to be insufficient and inconsistent with the liberal arts tradition. The liberal art of grammar, as it would come to be shown, has more to do with reading and interpretation of language rather than fact memorization, and, additionally, was never historically confined to a particular stage in childhood development. So the idea that classical education necessarily elevates facts over ideas isn’t historically accurate and therefore not essential to the liberal arts tradition. More and more classical schools today are moving away from this approach, in fact, while retaining Sayers’ fundamental insight that young minds can and should be intellectually challenged appropriately. 

The second myth I wish to dispel is that Charlotte Mason elevated, above all else, the cultivation of a love for learning, while classical educators prioritize academic rigor. In response to this myth, let me say that Charlotte Mason was indeed passionate about awakening the minds of children to real knowledge. She believed that each child was a person made in the image of God, and, therefore, parents and teachers are limited to certain methods for raising and teaching these young scholars. She was deeply committed to educating children in a way that is befitting of their personhood: morally, spiritually, intellectually, and physically.

But this conviction is in no way incompatible with an academically rigorous education. In fact, it is reasonable to argue that this high view of children warrants an academically rigorous education properly defined. Children are not be treated as mere cattle on a farm or products on an assembly line. They enter this world with immense potential to think, create, explore, write, observe, perform, analyze, and more. As a result, the sort of work we give children to do in the classroom ought to activate and strengthen these capacities to the limits of each child’s potential. Charlotte Mason herself pokes fun at the sort of educational environments that are free of hardship, adversity, and genuine challenge. Humans, as it turns out, thrive in the face of challenge and experience real joy when coached to achieve excellence.

Now, to be sure, Charlotte Mason did question the usefulness of grades and competition as tactics for motivating children to learn. Stemming from her view of human minds as living and hungry for knowledge, she firmly believed that knowledge itself ought to be the reward for the worthy work of learning. Interestingly, the strength of intrinsic motivation for learning has been confirmed in recent literature. For example, in David Pink’s Drive, the author shows that modern research has revealed that for worthy tasks, like learning, intrinsic motivation is more powerful for long-term gains and sustained achievement. So although Charlotte Mason was careful to not permit motivators often associated with academic rigor to enter her classrooms, there turns out to be good reasons, which are actually a,menable toward academic rigor, for doing so.

Hopefully I have whet your appetite for the possible harmony Charlotte Mason and the liberal arts tradition may share. In my next article, I will continue the conversation through providing some specific examples, such as narration (download Jason’s eBook here), habit training (download Patrick’s eBook here), and nature study from Charlotte Mason’s pedagogical practices that fit within Clark and Jain’s PGMAPT paradigm. For now, I encourage educators today who are interested in synthesizing these inspiring approaches to education to step back into their classrooms and give these ideas a try!

The post Charlotte Mason and the Liberal Arts Tradition, Part 1: Mapping a Harmony appeared first on .

Given the hype for STEM, defending the value of the humanities (as Martin Luther did, for one) is an important move in the broader education dialogue. And it’s one that’s not very hard to make, when there are articles like this one on how Google was planning to hire more humanities trained employees rather than more programmers. It turns out that technological change and the job market aren’t making the humanities irrelevant after all.

But for a while I’ve felt that the trade-off between STEM and the humanities is an unfortunate false dichotomy. (Logic lesson: false dichotomy – when two things are posed as mutually exclusive options when both can be embraced at the same time.) The seven liberal arts of the classical tradition encompassed BOTH the language arts of the trivium (grammar, dialectic and rhetoric, or perhaps humanities in a general sense) AND the mathematical arts of the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy).

In a way, astronomy was the paradigmatic STEM discipline, since it wove together the science of the natural world with mathematical calculations to “save the appearances” and had applications to the travel technologies of the day.

Problems with the Trade-Off Between STEM and the Humanities

Part of the problem with the whole dichotomy is that we’re left arguing about whether to privilege STEM over the humanities or the humanities over STEM, when embracing both would be mutually beneficial. After all, scientists still need to write and publish those rhetorical masterpieces we call academic papers to advance the discipline. And what culturally savvy hipster could not benefit from some of the scientific precision of mathematics and design thinking?

But the other problem, which is more to the point for this blog article, is that a utilitarian focus doesn’t serve either the humanities or STEM careers very well. And that’s because too much focus on money-making skills for the job market doesn’t end up creating the best professionals in either domain. That comes from deep work, passionately and regularly pursued. The best programmers get good at it because they love programming!

STEM and the humanities, or the seven liberal arts of the trivium and quadrivium, were discovered and developed in the first place, because getting into the flow of thought is a source of happiness and joy for human beings. Thinking along the lines of the liberal arts is more like a mental game than a utilitarian bid for power, money or success.

We get support for this notion from an unlikely source, the modern positive psychologist Mihayli Csikszentmihalyi. In his book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (Harper Perennial 2008), he writes:

“It is important to stress here a fact that is all too often lost sight of: philosophy and science were invented and flourished because thinking is pleasurable. If thinkers did not enjoy the sense of order that the use of syllogisms and numbers creates in consciousness, it is very unlikely that now we would have the disciplines of mathematics and physics.” (126)

The background for our psychologist’s claim is his idea that our consciousness as human beings is naturally disordered and chaotic, and so one of the primary ways to build human happiness is to engage in activities that order consciousness. While he explores many other ways of achieving flow, that optimal state where our skills meet our challenges and our focus is absorbed by a meaningful activity, one of his chapters is on the flow of thought, or how thinking itself can be an avenue into flow.

Mathematicians and physicists didn’t make their greatest discoveries and push the bounds of human knowledge because of utilitarian motives, but because they got lost in the joy of thought. As he goes on to explain, this claim flies in the face of many historians’ standard explanations of key discoveries:

“The evolution of arithmetic and geometry, for instance, is explained almost exclusively in terms of the need for accurate astronomical knowledge and for the irrigational technology that was indispensable in maintaining the great ‘hydraulic civilizations’ located along the course of large rivers like the Tigris, the Euphrates, the Indus, the Chang Jiang (Yangtze), and the Nile. For these historians, every creative step is interpreted as the product of extrinsic forces, whether they be wars, demographic pressures, territorial ambitions, market conditions, technological necessity, or the struggle for class supremacy.” (126)

Yes, these developments in arithmetic and geometry coincided with applications to “irrigational technology,” but that doesn’t mean that the individuals who invented them did so for such utilitarian reasons. Often it happens that the knowledge necessary for some practical application is discovered first with no thought of its usefulness or application. Then only later, and often by someone else, that knowledge is applied to a practical problem felt by the civilization.

For instance, Csikszentmihalyi tells of the discovery of nuclear fission and how the arms race of World War II is often urged as the inciting historical factor. However, the advancements in knowledge necessary to its development came before and were discovered in a more pleasurable and altogether collegial manner:

“But the science that formed the basis of nuclear fission owed very little to the war; it was made possible through knowledge laid down in more peaceful circumstances—for example, in the friendly exchange of ideas European physicist had over the years in the beer garden turned over to Niels Bohr and his scientific colleagues by a brewery in Copenhagen.” (126)

The joy of thought, of discovery and of solving abstract problems lies at the base of the advance of knowledge, in every age, time and place. As our psychologist summarizes:

“Great thinkers have always been motivated by the enjoyment of thinking rather than by the material rewards that could be gained by it.” (126)

This is supported by several quotations from the Greek philosopher Democritus, a highly original thinker: “It is godlike ever to think on something beautiful and on something new”; “Happiness does not reside in strength or money; it lies in rightness and manysidedness”; “I would rather discover one true cause than gain the kingdom of Persia” (127).

The seven liberal arts of the trivium and quadrivium are those tools of knowledge that are so pleasurable in the handling. Let’s take some time to break down a few of them and see how they work, just for the joy of it.

Gaming the Liberal Art of Grammar

In the classical tradition grammar referred to a much broader category of skills that the modern subject does today. It included all the complex skills involved in reading and interpretation, as well as the mechanics of writing. The term was derived from the Greek word for ‘letter’ (gramma), and thus referred to the holistic study of letters. The famous Roman orator and teacher Quintilian explained in the 1^st century that the best Latin translation of the term was the Latin word litteratura from which we get ‘literature’ (see Institutes of Oratory II.1).

It’s not an accident that in our psychologist’s many studies, one of the most cited ‘flow activities’ that people self-report is the act of reading (Csikszentmihalyi 117). Deep reading, getting lost in a book, is for many a pleasurable activity—the title of Alan Jacob’s book The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction (which I highly recommend) says it all.

Of course, the foundation of this great grammatical activity of piecing letters together into words is the activity of naming itself. Brining order to consciousness relies on some sort of ordering principle and words provide that. They name persons, places, things or ideas, therefore creating order in the mind for an experience or phenomenon, where only chaos existed before:

“The simplest ordering system is to give names to things; the words we invent form discrete events into universal categories.” (124-5)

In both the Judeo-Christian worldview and the Greek roots of the classical tradition, this primacy of the word is endorsed:

“In Genesis 1, God names day, night, sky, earth, sea, and all the living things immediately after He creates them, thereby completing the process of creation. The Gospel of John begins with: ‘Before the World was created, the Word already existed…’; and Heraclitus starts his now almost completely lost volume: ‘This Word (Logos) is from everlasting, yet men understand it as little after the first hearing of it as before….’” (125)

Readers of the Bible will know that in Genesis 2 God assigns the task of naming the animals to Adam in the sequence leading up to the creation of Eve. Adam, whose name means ‘humanity’ in Hebrew, is given the honor and joy of naming the animals that God brings before him—a task that is fitting for him, given how human beings were made in the image of God according to the chapter before.

In its broadest sense then, grammar and the other trivium arts of dialectic and rhetoric involve the practitioner of them in the process of bringing order out of chaos. It is a godlike activity, to borrow the phrase from Heraclitus, to name and distinguish and describe reality. Why should we wonder that such a process would be pleasurable?

Aside: Download the Free eBook “5 Tips for Fostering Flow in the Classical Classroom”

Wondering how to practically apply the idea of flow in your classroom? These 5 actionable steps will help you keep the insights of flow from being a pie-in-the-sky idea. Embody flow in your classroom and witness the increased joy and skill development that result!

You can download “5 Tips for Fostering Flow in the Classical Classroom” on the flow page. Share the page with a friend or colleague, so they can benefit as well.

Embarking on the Quest of the Quadrivium

As with the language arts, it is to the ancient roots of the classical tradition that Csikszentmihalyi goes in order to explain the flow of thought along the lines of the quadrivium:

“After names came numbers and concepts, and then the primary rules for combining them in predictable ways. By the sixth century B.C. Pythagoras and his students had embarked on the immense ordering task that attempted to find common numerical laws binding together astronomy, geometry, music and arithmetic. Not surprisingly, their work was difficult to distinguish from religion, since it tried to accomplish similar goals: to find a way of expressing the structure of the universe. Two thousand years later, Kepler and then Newton were still on the same quest.” (125)

The point that our psychologist is eager to make in this recitation is that the quadrivium arts were not abstract skills aimed at utilitarian ends. Instead, Pythagoras and his students had religious goals of a monumental nature in their numerical and mathematical work. The birth of the quadrivium was nothing less than a “quest” to “find a way of expressing the structure of the universe.”

We can easily see how such a pursuit would catch the hearts and minds of students. Kevin Clark and Ravi Jain present a similar picture of the quest of the quadrivium in their book The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Christian Classical Education (which is coming out soon in a revised and updated version!). They point out that “there was deeply spiritual element to it as well…. Pythagoras thought that the harmony of the spheres, part of the liberal art of music, was established by the power of ‘the One’” (version 1.1, p. 53). This, along with their suggestion that “the study of mathematics ought to strike a balance between wonder, work, wisdom and worship,” seems suggestive of the type of joy and pleasure attained in a flow activity.

Of course, for that to be the case, there would need to be, not only a transcendent quest, but also a series of sub-goals and intermediate tasks with clear feedback and of limited scope, so that the rules for a flow activity could be met. When a challenge exceeds the person’s skills by too much, anxiety tends to crush the possibility for flow; likewise, make the activity too easy and boredom ensues (Csikszentmihaly 74).

The development of rules, representations and proofs seem to assist in the process of defining discrete next steps in the grand quest:

“Besides stories and riddles all civilizations gradually developed more systematic rules for combining information, in the form of geometric representations and formal proofs. With the help of such formulas it became possible to describe the movement of the stars, predict seasonal cycles, and accurately map the earth. Abstract knowledge, and finally what we know as experimental science grew out of these rules.” (125)

It seems that the experience of flow and the advancement of discovery almost require the phenomenon of the absent-minded professor. That is because one of the demands of flow is that the mind be wholly absorbed in a meaningful activity. The scientist or mathematician so absorbed has “temporarily tuned out of everyday reality to dwell among the symbolic forms of their favorite domain of knowledge” (127). A great example of this is how the philosopher Immanuel Kant placed his watch in a pot of boiling water while holding carefully onto his egg in the other hand, ready to time out its cooking.

As our psychologist concludes:

“The point is that playing with ideas is extremely exhilarating…. Not only philosophy but the emergence of new scientific ideas is fueled by the enjoyment one obtains from creating a new way to describe reality.” (127)

The Games of the Mind and the Tools of Learning

Such observations about how the liberal arts of both language and number are pleasurable activities may raise a brow of confusion for some teachers and parents.

After all, knowing that great professors, scientists and philosophers can have a grand old time in their work doesn’t solve the angst of my child or the child in my class, who is either bored by a particular discipline or filled with anxiety and self-consciousness.

So how can we help turn the tools of learning into games of the mind for our students who struggle?

Part of the advice our psychologist’s book seems to imply is a reframing of the teacher’s task. While we might be inclined to think that teachers are primarily supposed to deliver correct information to students, perhaps instead teachers should be designers of flow activities within the discipline. If our goal is to cultivate a love of learning in students, then they will have to experience the challenge and discovery of learning for themselves. Receiving the answers is not an empowering, godlike task that optimally challenges your current skills (unless you’re at least required to narrate them back…).

Some examples are probably in order here. In a humanities class, perhaps students should be involved in the process of naming new experiences and ideas that they encounter in their books. How often, I wonder, does a humanities teacher think of the work of reading as an activity in which students will encounter new realities that they will then try to make sense of through concept formation? Are we asking them to notice and describe, to discuss and distinguish? That takes a lot of time devoted to classroom dialogue and is not so efficient as telling students the answers that teacher or students have diligently culled from SparkNotes.

For mathematics instruction Ravi Jain has discussed the importance of puzzle, proof and play. If we can get students puzzling and playing with numbers and formulas, then they will get in flow and start loving the process of discovery. Answers and alternate methods will generate excitement and be stored in their memory, as they strive for greater levels of skill along the quest. It can’t just be about chugging problems and memorizing formulas for an extrinsic reward, like a grade. The best programmers weren’t grade-chasers in their programming class (if they took one and weren’t just self-taught).

After all, the quest for ordering reality through language and number isn’t just about money and success. It’s a transcendent human activity, naturally pleasurable and desirable in and of itself. When we treat it as less than that, we fail to initiate our students into their full God-given inheritance as image-bearers and culture makers.

What other ideas do you have for turning the tools of learning into flow activities?

New Book! The Joy of Learning: Finding Flow Through Classical Education

Enjoying this series? Jason Barney revised and expanded it into a full length book that you can buy on Amazon. Complete with footnotes and in an easy-to-share format for teacher training or to keep in your personal library, the book aims to help you apply the concept of flow in your classical classroom.

Make sure to share about the book on social media and review it on Amazon!

Past installments – Part 1: Training the Attention for Happiness’ Sake, Part 2: The Joy of Memory, Part 3: Narration as Flow. Future installments – Part 5: The Play of Words; Part 6: Becoming Amateur Historians; Part 7: Rediscovering Science as the Love of Wisdom; Part 8, Restoring the School of Philosophers, Part 9, The Lifelong Love of Learning.

The post The Flow of Thought, Part 4: The Seven Liberal Arts as Mental Games appeared first on .

In The Liberal Arts Tradition Kevin Clark and Ravi Jain endeavor to set the record straight about what made up the course of study in the classical tradition of education. As two longtime friends and colleagues at the Geneva School–one of the early and well-developed classical Christian schools located outside of Orlando, FL–they combined their talents in rhetoric/philosophy (Kevin) and math/science (Ravi) and their mutual love of theology and the tradition to broaden the focus of the conversation about classical education.

The Liberal Arts Tradition participates in the recovery movement that goes back to Douglas Wilson’s discovery of Dorothy Sayer’s 1947 Oxford address, “The Lost Tools of Learning.”  Their central argument is that, while the first stage of their movement focused on the Trivium or language arts of Grammar, Logic and Rhetoric, which Dorothy Sayers called the lost tools of learning, the paradigm of the liberal arts tradition was actually much broader. Before them, Robert Littlejohn and Charles Evans, in their 2006 book Wisdom and Eloquence, had argued for the inclusion of the Quadrivium or mathematical arts from students’ earliest years, and against the idea of stages of learning following the Trivium as historically accurate. They claimed that Dorothy Sayers had invented the paradigm of students progressing through a Grammar, Logic and Rhetoric stage, and instead they argued for the presence of all the liberal arts from the earliest grades, emphasizing that a PK-12 curriculum should be planned from top-down with a focus on necessary linguistic and mathematical skills (their “tools of learning”) established intentionally along the way. Building on this conversation, Kevin and Ravi paint a broader picture of the liberal arts tradition, including piety, gymnastic and music as a fundamental approach to early education, and the disciplines of philosophy (natural, moral and divine/metaphysical) and theology as the crowning point. One of their main emphases is on the holistic nature of this broader paradigm, training students in heart, soul, mind and body, rather than just the mind.

The book walks the reader systematically through each aspect of this paradigm, providing academic style references for high points in the tradition and secondary sources to support their characterizations of its philosophy and emphases. They keep up a running polemic with modernism and its claims to objectivity, its scorning of the tradition and of Christianity, and its focus on the disembodied mind to the neglect of a more formative approach. The book’s main accomplishment is to take the movement’s discourse about the classical tradition of education to the next level of complexity by undergirding their claims with academic research. Their descriptions of piety, gymnastic and music provide a much needed counter-balance to some of the tendencies of a Sayers-Wilson grammar school approach. While they are to be commended for how they have traced the trajectory of each classical “discipline,” often making innovative connections–say, with the scientific revolution’s reliance on Greek thought and Christian principles–at times they seem to have bitten off more than they can chew. Given the size of their work, they are prevented from being able to treat various disciplines in anything more than broad brush strokes, and a certain stylistic unevenness and argumentative meandering are the unfortunate result. Also, their focus on captain figures and the historical development of the cutting edge of each discipline overshadows the practical application of the philosophy to PK-12 education today; while it’s wonderful to hear about Kepler and Newton, Aquinas and Cicero, and other leading thinkers, and the book is not without paragraphs focused on important courses, subjects or methods, the writers fall short of unpacking fully the implications of how, for instance, the tradition of philosophy or the liberal arts would inform a pedagogy for teaching those ‘subjects’.

Without a doubt, Clark and Jain’s The Liberal Arts Tradition is a must-read for any educator in the classical Christian school movement, and will function as a starting place for further detailing, clarification and application of their compelling and suggestive paradigm.

The post Review of The Liberal Arts Tradition by Kevin Clark and Ravi Jain appeared first on .

Of course, we’ve heard Dorothy Sayers call the liberal arts the lost tools of learning, and we’ve tried to apply her insights about how the trivium arts can map on practically to the different stages of a child’s development, and that therefore the arts aren’t exactly subjects in themselves but more like a way of approaching each subject. But in the classical tradition the difference between an ‘art’ and a ‘science’ was a little bit more subtle. A ‘science’ is simple enough because it comes from the Latin word ‘scientia’ meaning knowledge. A science is therefore a body of knowledge that a person might master. The way to master a science is simply to learn or discover all the truth that one can about that area and integrate it so far as possible with everything else one knows. An ‘art’ however is not a body of knowledge but an ability to create or produce something. So, for instance, a person who has mastered the art of architecture, will have the ability to design sound and esthetically pleasing buildings. The person skilled in the art of underwater basket-weaving will be able to weave baskets while submerged under water. An art is about the ability to make something; it is not primarily about knowing truths.

This distinction goes all the way back to Aristotle, when he defined the intellectual virtue of ‘art’ as a “state of capacity to make [something], involving a true course of reasoning” (1140^a.31), whereas ‘knowledge’ or ‘science’ is a “state of capacity to demonstrate” (1130^b.10). In other words, someone who is skilled in the art of basket-weaving has the ability to weave a basket correctly, based on prior experience and practice and according to the actual nature of the materials and the needs of a basket (“a true course of reasoning”); on the other hand, someone who has knowledge, or has learned a particular subject or ‘science’, is able to show or demonstrate that knowledge, whether through inductive or deductive reasoning. As the late Victorian British educator Charlotte Mason also said, “Whatever a child can tell, that we may be sure he knows, and what he cannot tell, he does not know.” Now Aristotle’s distinction between the intellectual virtues of ‘art’ and ‘science’ became a crucial touchpoint for the classical tradition of the liberal arts and sciences. However, our modern classical revival movement has not always been so clear about this distinction.

In its clearest articulation, then, the seven liberal arts were not ‘subjects’ or bodies of demonstrable knowledge, but instead were highly complex skills that students needed to be trained in over a course of years. Of course, under the general heading of philosophy there was a science for every one of these areas, like the science of grammar, since there was in the tradition a whole body of discovered truth about the grammar of various languages, or about logical reasoning, or about the nature of the rhetorical task. There is a science for every subject. But that was viewed as distinct from training in the art.

Naturally, students of the liberal arts would gain knowledge of all kinds along the way, especially concerning the liberal art they were studying, just as someone learning the art of basket-weaving would learn many things about baskets and how they are woven. However, a student’s ability to demonstrate their knowledge of basket-weaving is a completely different thing from their ability to weave a basket correctly. On the other hand, the liberal arts are a unique case, because the ‘products’ of grammar, dialectic and rhetoric are themselves the communicated products of knowledge, namely reading and interpretation (grammar), discussion and reasoning (dialectic or logic), and spoken or written persuasion (rhetoric). But the distinction still holds between the ability to make and pure knowledge.

How has the classical school movement grown in its understanding of this distinction? If we go back to Dorothy Sayers’s essay on the lost tools of learning, it’s easy to see that this distinction between arts and sciences was important for her. She claims that an important difference between modern and medieval education was the emphasis on ‘subjects’ versus “forging and learning to handle the tools of learning,” by which she means the trivium arts of grammar, logic and rhetoric. As she wrote, “Although we often succeed in teaching our pupils ‘subjects,’ we fail lamentably on the whole in teaching them how to think; they learn everything, except the art of learning.” Doug Wilson, in recovering and applying her essay, has emphasized particularly her mapping of the trivium onto stages of a child’s development, so that the grammar of each subject is emphasized for young students, then the logic or reasoning for older, and eloquent expression of truth about a subject for the oldest.

Then back in 2006 Robert Littlejohn and Chuck Evans wrote Wisdom and Eloquence, in which they argued against a strong emphasis on the trivium as stages of development, based on their analysis of the historical facts of the tradition. They also argued that the tools of learning are not the liberal arts themselves, but are skills like phonetic decoding, reading comprehension, critical thinking, research, public speaking, etc. The liberal arts, both trivium and quadrivium are subjects, not these discrete skills, claimed Littlejohn and Evans.

Now it’s important for us to concede their first point. The classical tradition has taught the trivium in many ways, but before Dorothy Sayers it’s almost impossible to find the idea that the trivium represents stages a child goes through in their development. In the Roman period students went to a grammaticus to learn how to read and write in Greek and their own language Latin. Quintilian, the famous Roman orator and educator, discussed how the equivalent Latin word for the Greek ‘grammatiké’ was ‘litteratura,’ literature, or I might say, literacy, and how among other things the student would learn to read literature and poetry, scan the meter, analyze the meanings of words, read it aloud properly with attention to proper phrasing and accent, and interpret it through all the necessary background information, whether historical, geographical or scientific (see Book 1.4 of Institutes of Oratory). That was training in grammar. After that a student would be sent to a rhetorical teacher like Quintilian to learn to speak publicly in every possible situation that might be needed to bring leadership to the public square. After that, education was done, unless a student wanted to go to Athens and study with the philosophers. That’s a very different picture of trivium education than what we might be used to; it’s not the grammar-logic-rhetoric as stages of development paradigm.

But to answer Robert Littlejohn and Chuck Evan’s last point about the liberal arts being ‘subjects’, we should go on to a more recent book by Kevin Clark and Ravi Jain, The Liberal Arts Tradition. In their chapter on the liberal arts they use Thomas Aquinas, who held Aristotle’s distinction close to his heart, in order to explain that the liberal arts are the “tools by which knowledge is fashioned” (33). “An art could be attained from an extensive foundation in action and imitation forming cultivated habits,” say Kevin Clark and Ravi Jain, whereas “a science can be in the mind alone and does not require any practice or the production of anything.” Based on this distinction, from Aristotle to Aquinas and into our own recovery movement, it seems to make most sense to think of the trivium arts as something different than modern ‘subjects’. They are well-worn paths, they are complex imitative habits, they are the tools of learning, they are the skills needed to discover and justify knowledge.

Obviously, if this little review of our movement’s growing understanding of the trivium as arts is true, then it changes how we should view the trivium. It doesn’t necessarily mean that we should throw out our grammar, logic and rhetoric textbooks. But it should radically reorient us on what we think we’re doing when we’re teaching grammar. If ‘grammatiké’ is the ability to read and interpret texts, with all the sub-skills attached to it, like phonetic decoding, background knowledge, reading comprehension, etc., well then, what students need to master grammar in this sense is lots and lots of coached practice; they don’t necessarily need another lecture. They need to read harder and harder texts in all sorts of subject areas. And they need to be actively coached by their teachers in how to do this well, in what needs to be known and understood, in order to interpret this text correctly. And over time with practice, students will become more and more literate, they will become grammarians, skilled readers and interpreters. The same can be said for logic or, I prefer, dialectic, the art of reasoning and discussion. In order to master this art, students need to do lots and lots of discussing, being forced to think carefully about what they have read. They need to learn to argue with one another respectfully, anticipate others’ trains of thought, call out faulty reasoning in themselves and others. Most of all they need accountable practice in discussing important matters at a higher and higher level. Mastering rhetoric, lastly, comes in the ability to speak or write persuasively and knowledgeably about all manner of subjects. It is not the same as learning about the subject of rhetoric, the types, the proper divisions, rhetorical devices and flourishes that can be used, though these are all things it would be great for them to know. But a student could learn the science of rhetoric, be ready to spew forth the definitions of every term, yet be the least persuasive speaker or writer in the world.

Well, this leads me to propose a twofold understanding of grammar, dialectic and rhetoric. Each is both an art and a science, both a complex skill of communication and a traditional body of knowledge about that area. So everyone is right, Sayers, Wilson, Littlejohn and Evans, as well as Clark and Jain. This is perhaps easiest to see if I use my absurd outside example: basket-weaving. Imagine two different people who claim to be wise in the art of basket-weaving. One of them knows the whole history of basket-weaving, can name all the important figures, describe key changes in different cultures’ application of basket-weaving, and he himself even has his own particular theories about why basket-weaving developed as it did, but unfortunately, he has never actually woven a basket for himself. The other has never heard of any different way to weave a basket than the way that she was taught by her mother growing up, and yet she weaves baskets daily, that only get better and better, sometimes departing from tradition with bold and innovative designs. The first person is wise in the science of basket-weaving; the second is actually a trained basket-weaver, an artist in her own right. Of course, many artists also know some of the science, and many scientists have a rudimentary practice of the art.

The same can be said of grammar, dialectic and rhetoric. There are bodies of knowledge about these arts that one can master. One can become a grammarian, one can study the philosophy of logic, or one can take courses in rhetorical studies at a university. Some amount of study in these sciences can help one to master the arts, just as knowledge of the history and various techniques of basket-weaving is useful to the artist. But someone could be a powerful public speaker without any study of the history of rhetoric, because of a combination of natural talent, imitation and coached practice.

This changes things for us as classical educators because it forces us to ask the question: “Which are we aiming for here?” If you look at many of our textbooks in grammar, logic or rhetoric, you have to admit that the method of the textbook seems to assume that the goal is primarily to teach our students knowledge about these ‘subjects,’ as if that were enough. This is to treat the liberal arts as if they were sciences. Now don’t get me wrong here, a science is a very good thing, and can be helpful, especially if it is fused with appropriate practice. However, the sciences of grammar, logic and rhetoric can be deadening if they are learned in the absence of training in the arts. There’s a reason in the tradition that the liberal arts preceded the sciences. And perhaps I should mention that it’s a particular flaw of the Enlightenment and Modernism that the sciences and being scientific are preferred to anything else. This may be one of the ways that we as classical educators have implicitly fallen prey to modern assumptions about education.

At the same time, we’re not the first classical educators to have fallen prey to this error. For instance, John Locke, the British philosopher, in his work on education, wrote:

“For I have seldom or never observed anyone to get the skill of reasoning well or speaking handsomely by studying those rules which pretend to teach it; and therefore I would have a young gentleman take a view of them in the shortest systems that could be found without dwelling long on the contemplation and study of those formalities.” (Some Thoughts Concerning Education, p. 140)

Locke claims that learning rules won’t make you either an eloquent speaker or a brilliant conversationalist, nor will logical systems of analyzing mode and figure, predicates and predicables, teach a young gentleman to reason well. That requires, he goes on, the imitation of great authors or thinkers and practice reasoning to the truth or speaking publicly. He recommends that young children be asked to narrate stories they have read, from Aesop’s fables say, and to read great orators. It seems that even in Locke’s day the classical practices of the trivium had gotten crystalized into a deadening form, where students learned the science, but not the art. They memorized rules for logic and rhetoric, but couldn’t reason to the truth, let alone speak fluently. As he explains later on,

“There can scarce be a greater defect in a gentleman than not to express himself well either in writing or speaking. But yet, I think, I may ask my reader whether he does not know a great many who live upon their estates and so, with the name, should have the qualities of gentlemen, who cannot so much as tell a story as they should, much less speak clearly and persuasively in any business. This I think not to be so much their fault as the fault of their education.” (141-2)

This is a haunting warning that we should heed well in our movement, in order to be sure that our schools don’t fall prey to this same fault. We might be training young ladies and gentlemen, who can spout off the right answers but do not in fact have the ability to think, speak and write, who have not, in fact, as Dorothy Sayers would say, learned the arts of learning.

Resources

Barnes, Jonathan, ed. The Complete Works of Aristotle. The Revised Oxford Translation,Volume Two. Princeton, 1984.

Clark, Kevin and Ravi Jain. The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Christian Classical Education. Classical Academic Press, 2013.

Littlejohn, Robert and Charles Evans. Wisdom and Eloquence: A Christian Paradigm for Classical Learning. Crossway, 2006.

Locke, John. Some Thoughts Concerning Education (first published 1693) and Of the Conduct of the Understanding. Hackett, 1996.

Quintilian. Institutes of Oratory. Translated by John Selby Watson (1856), revised and edited by Lee Honeycutt (2007) and Curtis Dozier. Creative Commons, 2015.

Sayers, Dorothy. “The Lost Tools of Learning.” First delivered at Oxford, 1947. Accessed at http://www.gbt.org/text/sayers.html, June 2018.

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