Classical education movement - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Classical education movement advocates a form of education based in the traditions of Western culture

Western culture

Western culture, sometimes equated with Western civilization or European civilization, refers to cultures of European origin and is used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, religious beliefs, political systems, and specific artifacts and...

, with a particular focus on education as understood and taught in the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

. The curricula and pedagogy of classical education was first developed during the Middle Ages by Martianus Capella

Martianus Capella

Martianus Minneus Felix Capella was a pagan writer of Late Antiquity, one of the earliest developers of the system of the seven liberal arts that structured early medieval education...

, and systematized during the Renaissance by Petrus Ramus

Petrus Ramus

Petrus Ramus was an influential French humanist, logician, and educational reformer. A Protestant convert, he was killed during the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre.-Early life:...

. Capella's original goal was to provide a systematic, memorable framework to teach all human knowledge. The term "classical education" has been used in Western culture for several centuries, with each era modifying the definition and adding its own selection of topics. By the end of the 18th century, in addition to the trivium and quadrivium

Quadrivium

The quadrivium comprised the four subjects, or arts, taught in medieval universities, after teaching the trivium. The word is Latin, meaning "the four ways" , and its use for the 4 subjects has been attributed to Boethius or Cassiodorus in the 6th century...

of the Middle Ages, the definition of a classical education embraced study of literature, poetry, drama, philosophy, history, art, and languages. In the 20th and 21st centuries it is used to refer to a broad-based study of the liberal arts and sciences, as opposed to a practical or pre-professional program. The University of Pennsylvania seal (1894) depicted the trivium as a stack of books providing the foundation for a quadrivium

Quadrivium

of mathematics, natural philosophy (empirical science), astronomy, and theology.

There exist a number of informal groups and professional organizations which take the classical approach to education seriously, and who undertake it in earnest. Within the secular classical movement, in the 1930s Mortimer Adler

Mortimer Adler

Mortimer Jerome Adler was an American philosopher, educator, and popular author. As a philosopher he worked within the Aristotelian and Thomistic traditions. He lived for the longest stretches in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, and San Mateo, California...

and Robert Hutchins

Robert Hutchins

Robert Maynard Hutchins , was an educational philosopher, dean of Yale Law School , and president and chancellor of the University of Chicago. He was the husband of novelist Maude Hutchins...

set forth the "Great Books" of Western civilization as center stage in the curriculum for a classical education. Also some public schools, primarily charter schools, have structured their curricula and pedagogy around the trivium and integrate the teaching of values (sometimes called "character education") into the mainstream classroom. Within the classical Christian education

Classical Christian education

Classical Christian education is an approach to learning which emphasizes biblical teachings and incorporates a teaching model known as the Trivium, consisting of three parts: grammar, logic, and rhetoric. According to Douglas Wilson, this method of instruction was developed by early Christians as...

movement, the Society for Classical Learning, the Association of Classical and Christian Schools

Association of Classical and Christian Schools

The Association of Classical & Christian Schools is an organization founded in 1994 to encourage the formation of Christian schools using a model of classical education...

, and the CiRCE Institute play a leading role.

Three Phases of Modern Education Linked to Classical Education

Classical education developed many of the terms now used to describe modern education

Education

Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...

. Western classical education has three phases, each with a different purpose. The phases are roughly coordinated with human development

Developmental psychology

Developmental psychology, also known as human development, is the scientific study of systematic psychological changes, emotional changes, and perception changes that occur in human beings over the course of their life span. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to...

, and would ideally be exactly coordinated with each individual student's development.

"Primary education" teaches students how to learn.

"Secondary education" then teaches a conceptual framework that can hold all human knowledge (history), and then fills in basic facts and practices of the major fields of knowledge, and develops the skills (perhaps in a simplified form) of every major human activity.

"Tertiary education" then prepares a person to pursue an educated profession, such as law, theology, military strategy, medicine or science.

Primary education

In classical terms, primary education was often called the trivium, which consisted of three parts: grammar, logic, and rhetoric.

Logic and rhetoric were often taught in part by the Socratic method

Socratic method

The Socratic method , named after the classical Greek philosopher Socrates, is a form of inquiry and debate between individuals with opposing viewpoints based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to illuminate ideas...

, in which the teacher raises questions and the class discusses them. By controlling the pace, the teacher can keep the class very lively, yet disciplined.

Grammar

Grammar consists of language

Language

Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...

skills such as reading and the mechanics of writing. An important goal of grammar is to acquire as many words and manage as many concepts as possible so as to be able to express and understand clearly concepts of varying degrees of complexity. Very young students can learn these by rote especially through the use of chant and song. Their minds are often referred to as "sponges", that easily absorb a large number of facts. Classical education traditionally included study of Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

and Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

, which greatly reinforced understanding of grammar, and the workings of a language, and so that students could read the Classics

Classics

Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean world ; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity Classics (sometimes encompassing Classical Studies or...

of Western Civilization

Western culture

in the words of the authors. In the modern renaissance of classical education, this period refers to the upper elementary school years.

Logic

In philosophy, Logic is the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. Logic is used in most intellectual activities, but is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science...

(dialectic

Dialectic

Dialectic is a method of argument for resolving disagreement that has been central to Indic and European philosophy since antiquity. The word dialectic originated in Ancient Greece, and was made popular by Plato in the Socratic dialogues...

) is the science of correct reasoning. The traditional text for teaching logic was Aristotle

Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...

's Logic. In the modern renaissance of classical education, this logic stage (or dialectic stage) refers to the junior high or middle school aged student, who developmentally is beginning to question ideas and authority, and truly enjoys a debate or an argument. Training in logic, both formal and informal, enables students to critically examine arguments and to analyze their own. The whole goal is to train the student's mind not only to grasp information, but to find the analytical connections between seemingly different facts/ideas, to find out why something is true, or why something else is false, in short, reasons for a fact.

Rhetoric

Rhetoric is the art of discourse, an art that aims to improve the facility of speakers or writers who attempt to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. As a subject of formal study and a productive civic practice, rhetoric has played a central role in the Western...

debate and composition (which is the written form of rhetoric) are taught to somewhat older (often high school aged) students, who by this point in their education have the concepts and logic to criticize their own work and persuade others. According to Aristotle

Aristotle

"Rhetoric is the counterpart of dialectic." It is concerned with finding "all the available means of persuasion." The student now learns to articulate answers to important questions in his/her own words, to try to persuade others with these facts, and to defend ideas against rebuttal. The student has learned to reason correctly in the Logic stage so that they can now apply those skills to Rhetoric. Students would read and emulate classical poets such as Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...

and others in learning how to present their arguments well.

Secondary education

Secondary education, classically the quadrivium
Quadrivium
The quadrivium comprised the four subjects, or arts, taught in medieval universities, after teaching the trivium. The word is Latin, meaning "the four ways" , and its use for the 4 subjects has been attributed to Boethius or Cassiodorus in the 6th century...

or "four ways," classically taught in the order of arithmetic

Arithmetic

Arithmetic or arithmetics is the oldest and most elementary branch of mathematics, used by almost everyone, for tasks ranging from simple day-to-day counting to advanced science and business calculations. It involves the study of quantity, especially as the result of combining numbers...

, geometry

Geometry

Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....

, music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

, and astronomy

Astronomy

Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...

, usually from Aristotle and Euclid

Euclid

Euclid , fl. 300 BC, also known as Euclid of Alexandria, was a Greek mathematician, often referred to as the "Father of Geometry". He was active in Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy I...

. Arithmetic is Number in itself, which is a pure abstraction; that is, outside of space and time. Geometry is Number in space. Music is Number in time, and Astronomy is Number in space and time. Sometimes architecture

Architecture

Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...

was taught, often from the works of Vitruvius

Vitruvius

Marcus Vitruvius Pollio was a Roman writer, architect and engineer, active in the 1st century BC. He is best known as the author of the multi-volume work De Architectura ....

.

History was always taught to provide a context, and show political and military development. The classic texts were from ancient authors such as Herodotus

Herodotus

Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...

, Thucydides

Thucydides

Thucydides was a Greek historian and author from Alimos. His History of the Peloponnesian War recounts the 5th century BC war between Sparta and Athens to the year 411 BC...

, Livy

Livy

Titus Livius — known as Livy in English — was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people. Ab Urbe Condita Libri, "Chapters from the Foundation of the City," covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome well before the traditional foundation in 753 BC...

, Cicero

Cicero

Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...

and Tacitus

Tacitus

Publius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors...

.

Biographies were often assigned as well; the classic example being Plutarch

Plutarch

Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...

's "Lives." Biographies help show how persons behave in their context, and the wide ranges of professions and options that exist. As more modern texts became available, these were often added to the curriculum.

In the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

, these were the best available texts. In modern terms, these fields might be called history

History

History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

, natural science

Science

Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...

, accounting and business

Business

A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...

, fine art

Fine art

Fine art or the fine arts encompass art forms developed primarily for aesthetics and/or concept rather than practical application. Art is often a synonym for fine art, as employed in the term "art gallery"....

s (at least two, one to amuse companions, and another to decorate one's domicile), military strategy

Military strategy

Military strategy is a set of ideas implemented by military organizations to pursue desired strategic goals. Derived from the Greek strategos, strategy when it appeared in use during the 18th century, was seen in its narrow sense as the "art of the general", 'the art of arrangement' of troops...

and tactics

Military tactics

Military tactics, the science and art of organizing an army or an air force, are the techniques for using weapons or military units in combination for engaging and defeating an enemy in battle. Changes in philosophy and technology over time have been reflected in changes to military tactics. In...

, engineering

Engineering

Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...

, agronomy

Agronomy

Agronomy is the science and technology of producing and using plants for food, fuel, feed, fiber, and reclamation. Agronomy encompasses work in the areas of plant genetics, plant physiology, meteorology, and soil science. Agronomy is the application of a combination of sciences like biology,...

, and architecture

Architecture

.

These are taught in a matrix of history, reviewing the natural development of each field for each phase of the trivium. That is, in a perfect classical education, the historical study is reviewed three times: first to learn the grammar (the concepts, terms and skills in the order developed), next time the logic (how these elements could be assembled), and finally the rhetoric, how to produce good, humanly useful and beautiful objects that satisfy the grammar and logic of the field.

History is the unifying conceptual framework, because history is the study of everything that has occurred before the present. A skillful teacher also uses the historical context to show how each stage of development naturally poses questions and then how advances answer them, helping to understand human motives and activity in each field. The question-answer approach is called the "dialectic method," and permits history to be taught Socratically as well.

Classical educators consider the Socratic

Socrates

Socrates was a classical Greek Athenian philosopher. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of later classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon, and the plays of his contemporary ...

method to be the best technique for teaching critical thinking. In-class discussion and critiques are essential in order for students to recognize and internalize critical thinking techniques. This method is widely used to teach both philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

and law

Law

Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...

. It is currently rare in other contexts. Basically, the teacher referees the students' discussions, asks leading questions, and may refer to facts, but never gives a conclusion until at least one student reaches that conclusion. The learning is most effective when the students compete strongly, even viciously in the argument, but always according to well-accepted rules of correct reasoning. That is, fallacies

Fallacy

In logic and rhetoric, a fallacy is usually an incorrect argumentation in reasoning resulting in a misconception or presumption. By accident or design, fallacies may exploit emotional triggers in the listener or interlocutor , or take advantage of social relationships between people...

should not be allowed by the teacher.

By completing a project in each major field of human effort, the student can develop a personal preference for further education and professional training.

Tertiary education

Tertiary education was usually an apprenticeship to a person with the desired profession. Most often, the understudy was called a "secretary" and had the duty of carrying on all the normal business of the "master." Philosophy

Philosophy

and Theology

Theology

Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

were both widely taught as tertiary subjects in Universities however.

The early biographies of nobles show probably the ultimate form of classical education: a tutor. One early, much-emulated classic example was that Alexander the Great was tutored by Aristotle

Aristotle

Modern Interpretations of Classical Education

There exist a number of modern groups and professional organizations which take the classical approach to education seriously, and who undertake it in earnest.

Classical Christian Education

Within the classical Christian education

Classical Christian education

movement, the Association of Classical and Christian Schools

Association of Classical and Christian Schools

The Association of Classical & Christian Schools is an organization founded in 1994 to encourage the formation of Christian schools using a model of classical education...

, and the CiRCE Institute play a leading role. Much of this modern renaissance of classical education is owed to the Dorothy Sayers essay "The Lost Tools of Learning", in which she describes the three stages of the trivium—grammar, logic and rhetoric—as tools by which a student can then analyze and master every other subject. Sayers' perspectives were popularized in the United States by the 1991 publication Douglas J. Wilson's Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning
which inspired establishment of a number of classical Christian primary and secondary schools, and even a classical Christian college in 1994 (New Saint Andrews College

New Saint Andrews College

New Saint Andrews College is a classical Christian college located in Moscow, Idaho. It was founded in 1994 and modeled in part on the curriculum of Harvard College of the seventeenth century. The college offers no undergraduate majors, but follows a single, integrated classical liberal arts...

), that organized as the Association of Classical and Christian Schools

Association of Classical and Christian Schools

The Association of Classical & Christian Schools is an organization founded in 1994 to encourage the formation of Christian schools using a model of classical education...

in 1997. These schools combine teaching a "Biblical Worldview" (see Ch. 4 of Repairing the Ruins) with "classical teaching methods"(see Ch. 7 of Repairing the Ruins). As proposed by Sayers, the trivium is then viewed as three stages of learning which are linked to child development:

Grammar: The fundamental rules of each subject (see Ch. 8 of Repairing the Ruins)
Logic: The ordered relationship of particulars in each subject (see Ch. 10 of Repairing the Ruins)
Rhetoric: How the grammar and logic of each subject may be clearly expressed (see Ch. 14 of Repairing the Ruins)

A more detailed discussion linking child development to these three stages of learning may also be found in The Lost Tools Chart or An Introduction to Classical Education, A Guide for Parents.

Classical Secular Education

Within the classical secular education movement the Society for Classical Learning and Core Knowledge Foundation

Core Knowledge Foundation

The Core Knowledge Foundation is an independent, non-profit, non-partisan educational foundation founded in 1986 by E. D. Hirsch, Jr. The Foundation is dedicated to excellence and fairness in early education.-Ideals of Core Knowledge:...

play a leading role. There exists a number of classical schools in the public/secular sector. These schools, primarily charter schools(e.g., classical charter school), structure their curricula and pedagogy around the trivium and integrate the teaching of values (sometimes called "character education") into the mainstream classroom without involving any particular religious perspectives. Many of these schools are involved with the Core Knowledge Foundation

Core Knowledge Foundation

.

Methods of classical education have also often been integrated into homeschooling, particularly due to the publication of:
"The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home," by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer

Susan Wise Bauer

Susan Wise Bauer is an American author, English instructor of writing and American literature at The College of William and Mary, and founder of Peace Hill Press....

(W.W. Norton, 1999), is a modern reference on classical education, particularly in a homeschool setting. It provides a history of classical education, an overview of the methodology and philosophy of classical education, and annotated lists of books divided by grade and topic that list the best books for classical education in each category.

No discussion of modern classical education could be complete without mentioning Mortimer Adler

Mortimer Adler

and Robert Hutchins

Robert Hutchins

Robert Maynard Hutchins , was an educational philosopher, dean of Yale Law School , and president and chancellor of the University of Chicago. He was the husband of novelist Maude Hutchins...

, both of the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

, who set forth in the 1930s to restore the "Great Books" of Western civilization to center stage in the curriculum. St. John's College

St. John's College, U.S.

St. John's College is a liberal arts college with two U.S. campuses: one in Annapolis, Maryland and one in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Founded in 1696 as a preparatory school, King William's School, the school received a collegiate charter in 1784, making it one of the oldest institutions of higher...

is an example of this type of classical education at the college level. Although the standard classical works—such as the Harvard Classics

Harvard Classics

The Harvard Classics, originally known as Dr. Eliot's Five Foot Shelf, is a 51-volume anthology of classic works from world literature, compiled and edited by Harvard University president Charles W...

—most widely available at the time, were decried by many as out of touch with modern times, Adler and Hutchins sought to expand on the standard "classics" by including more modern works, and by trying to tie them together in the context of what they described as the "Great Ideas," condensed into a "Syntopicon" index and bundled together with a new "five foot shelf" of books as "The Great Books of the Western World

Great Books of the Western World

Great Books of the Western World is a series of books originally published in the United States in 1952 by Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. to present the western canon in a single package of 54 volumes. The series is now in its second edition and contains 60 volumes.-History:The project got its start...

." They were wildly popular during the Fifties, and discussion groups of aficionados were found all over the USA, but their popularity waned during the Sixties and such groups are relatively hard to find today. Extensions to the original set are still being published, encompassing selections from both current and older works which extend the "great ideas" into the present age and other fields, including civil rights, the global environment, and discussions of multiculturalism and assimilation.

Other Resources on Classical Education

"Wisdom and Eloquence: A Christian Paradigm for Classical Education" by Robert Littlejohn and Charles T. Evans was published in 2006 (Crossway Books), affirming Dorothy Sayers' contribution to the conversation about classical education, but challenging her assertion that the trivium is applicable as a developmental paradigm. Littlejohn and Evans emphasize the importance of curriculum over pedagogy and the liberal arts' 2500 year history of responding and adapting to current educational needs.

The Tapestry of Grace curriculum, by Marcia Somerville et al. (Lampstand Press, Ltd.), enables homeschooling parents with children on multiple levels to implement a full classical education by offering lesson plans and helps, and recommending and selling classical books.

"The Grammar of Our Civility: Classical Education in America," by Lee T. Pearcy (2005) provides a theoretical and historical account of classical education in the United States and suggests the need for a distinctly American approach to ancient Greece and Rome.

"A New Trivium and Quadrivium", an article by Dr. George Bugliarello (Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, Vol. 23, No. 2, 106-113 (2003)). In it, he argues that the scope of the classical liberal education
Liberal education
A Liberal education is a system or course of education suitable for the cultivation of a free human being. It is based on the medieval concept of the liberal arts or, more commonly now, the liberalism of the Age of Enlightenment...

is inadequate for today's society, and that people should also be conversant with the basic facts of science and technology, since they now form a much more important part of our lives than did the tertiary studies of antiquity. He argues for a new synthesis of science, engineering, and the humanities in which there is a balance between what can be done and what ought to be done, between human desires and earthly consequences, and between our ever-increasing power to affect our surroundings and the ever-present danger of destroying the ecological and environmental systems which allow us to exist.

The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric by Sister Miriam Joseph Rauh, C.S.C., Ph.D. (ISBN 978-0-9679675-0-9)

Universities or Colleges in the United States using a Classical Education Approach

George Wythe University
George Wythe University
George Wythe University is a non-profit classical liberal arts school in Cedar City, Utah which offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in the liberal arts, education and political philosophy. GWU's curriculum is centered on the Great Books of the Western World published in 1952 by Britannica...

in Cedar City, UT
St. John's College
St. John's College, U.S.
St. John's College is a liberal arts college with two U.S. campuses: one in Annapolis, Maryland and one in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Founded in 1696 as a preparatory school, King William's School, the school received a collegiate charter in 1784, making it one of the oldest institutions of higher...

(two campuses, one in MD and one in NM)
Thomas Aquinas College
Thomas Aquinas College
Thomas Aquinas College is a Roman Catholic liberal arts college offering a single integrated academic program. It is located in Santa Paula, California north of Los Angeles. It offers a unique education with courses based on the Great Books and seminar method...

in Santa Paula, CA
New Saint Andrews College
New Saint Andrews College
New Saint Andrews College is a classical Christian college located in Moscow, Idaho. It was founded in 1994 and modeled in part on the curriculum of Harvard College of the seventeenth century. The college offers no undergraduate majors, but follows a single, integrated classical liberal arts...

in Moscow, ID
The Torrey Honors Institute at Biola University
Biola University
Biola University is a private, evangelical Christian, liberal arts university located near Los Angeles. Biola's main campus is in La Mirada in Los Angeles County, California. In addition, the university has several satellite campuses in Chino Hills, Inglewood, San Diego, and Laguna Hills.-...

, in La Mirada, CA
Gutenberg College
Gutenberg College
Gutenberg College is a private, four-year Great Books college in Eugene, Oregon. The curriculum centers on the most influential primary texts of Western Civilization, which students study with “tutors” in round-table discussions...

in Eugene, OR
The College at Southeastern in Wake Forest, NC
Shimer College
Shimer College
Shimer College is a very small, private, undergraduate liberal arts college in Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. Founded by Frances Wood Shimer in 1853 in the frontier town of Mt. Carroll, Illinois, it was a women's school for most of its first century. It joined with the University of...

in Chicago, IL
The Honors College at Baylor University
Baylor University
Baylor University is a private, Christian university located in Waco, Texas. Founded in 1845, Baylor is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.-History:...

in Waco, TX
Imago Dei College
Imago Dei College
Imago Dei College is an Evangelical Classical Christian Liberal Arts College in the ‘Great Books’ tradition. It is located in the community of Oak Glen, California in the San Bernardino mountains. The college curriculum, pedagogy and style are reminiscent of the classical educational paradigm...

in Oak Glen, CA
St. Mary's College of California in Moraga, CA
Wyoming Catholic College
Wyoming Catholic College
Wyoming Catholic College is a private, Catholic liberal arts college in Lander, Wyoming. It is the only private four-year institution of higher education in the state.-Accreditation:...

in Lander, WY
The King's College, NY, NY

At each of these institutions some variation of the Canon of Western Great Books is used as the primary course material, and tutor-led "Socratic discussions" are the primary vehicle for ingestion and digestion of the selected works.

Not an Education in the Classics

A more traditional, but less common view of classical education arises from the ideology of the Renaissance, advocating an education grounded in the languages and literatures of Greece and Rome. The demanding and lengthy training period required for learning to read Greek and Latin texts in their original form has been crowded out in most American schools in favor of contemporary subjects.

The revival of "Classical Education" has resulted in Latin being taught at Classical Schools, but less often Greek. It is worth noting that the Association of Classical and Christian Schools

Association of Classical and Christian Schools

The Association of Classical & Christian Schools is an organization founded in 1994 to encourage the formation of Christian schools using a model of classical education...

does require Latin for accreditation and New Saint Andrews College

New Saint Andrews College

requires both Latin and Greek to graduate with a 4-year degree.

Such an approach—an education in the classics

Classics

—differs from the usual approach of the Classical education movement, but is akin to an education on "The Great Books" followed by St. John's College.

Parallels in the East

In India the classical education system is based upon the study and understanding of the ancient texts the Vedas

Vedas

The Vedas are a large body of texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest scriptures of Hinduism....

, a discipline called Vedanga

Vedanga

The Vedanga are six auxiliary disciplines traditionally associated with the study and understanding of the Vedas.#Shiksha : phonetics, phonology and morphophonology #Kalpa : ritual#Vyakarana : grammar...

, and subjects based upon that foundation, referred to as Upaveda and incorporating medicine (Ayurveda

Ayurveda

Ayurveda or ayurvedic medicine is a system of traditional medicine native to India and a form of alternative medicine. In Sanskrit, words , meaning "longevity", and , meaning "knowledge" or "science". The earliest literature on Indian medical practice appeared during the Vedic period in India,...

), music, archery

Archery

Archery is the art, practice, or skill of propelling arrows with the use of a bow, from Latin arcus. Archery has historically been used for hunting and combat; in modern times, however, its main use is that of a recreational activity...

and other martial arts

Martial arts

Martial arts are extensive systems of codified practices and traditions of combat, practiced for a variety of reasons, including self-defense, competition, physical health and fitness, as well as mental and spiritual development....

.

Similarly, in China the fulcrum of a classical education was the study and understanding of a core canon, the Four Books and Five Classics

Four Books and Five Classics

The Four Books and Five Classics are the authoritative books of Confucianism in China written before 300 BC.-Four Books:The Four Books are Chinese classic texts illustrating the core value and belief systems in Confucianism...

For Further Consideration

For more on Chinese education see:

Imperial examination
Imperial examination
The Imperial examination was an examination system in Imperial China designed to select the best administrative officials for the state's bureaucracy. This system had a huge influence on both society and culture in Imperial China and was directly responsible for the creation of a class of...
Scholar-bureaucrats
Scholar-bureaucrats
Scholar-officials or Scholar-bureaucrats were civil servants appointed by the emperor of China to perform day-to-day governance from the Sui Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty in 1912, China's last imperial dynasty. These officials mostly came from the well-educated men known as the...

For classical Islamic education see:

Madrasah
Madrasah
Madrasah is the Arabic word for any type of educational institution, whether secular or religious...
Ijazah
Ijazah
An ijazah is a certificate used primarily by Sunni Muslims to indicate that one has been authorized by a higher authority to transmit a certain subject or text of Islamic knowledge...

Three Phases of Modern Education Linked to Classical Education

Primary education

Grammar

Logic

Rhetoric

Secondary education

Tertiary education

Modern Interpretations of Classical Education

Classical Christian Education

Classical Secular Education

Other Resources on Classical Education

Universities or Colleges in the United States using a Classical Education Approach

Not an Education in the Classics

Parallels in the East

For Further Consideration

External Links

See also