"Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another."
- G.K. Chesterton
Fire spreads rapidly with proper conditions but when it lacks oxygen, heat and fuel, it dissipates quickly. In the last century, the long flame of classical education was nearly extinguished. It was seemingly on its last ember and dampened by frost and lack of energy; however, the fire has been rekindled, and the flame has been growing and spreading across the American landscape among homeschooling families, in private schools, and in charter schools. It continues to gain energy, rapidly. Alleluia!
As the title of this essay suggests, I aim to share some ideas about the fundamentals of classical education and to delve into an important question for our time: Who can provide such an education to today's children? However, before jumping into the heart of classical education, I will start by offering some definitions and then say a little something about the origins, decline and revival of classical education in our day.
In a July 3, 1776, letter to his wife Abigail, John Adams voiced his hope for future celebrations of the Declaration of Independence and the birth of their nation: “I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnised with Pomp and Parade, with Shows, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”
Adams closed his letter soberly, for he knew the cost of American freedom would be great: “You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will triumph in that Day’s Transaction, even if We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.”
The spectacular rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been ardently welcomed as well as anxiously feared.
In so many fields, including education, there are hopes that AI will vastly extend human capacity and the range of understanding. The power of Large Language Models (LLMs) to capture and summarise existing knowledge may provide a platform for finding new solutions to long-standing problems, and extend freedom for all kinds of creative breakthroughs in the arts and sciences. But there are also worries that AI could replace human intelligence in many areas, resulting in job dislocations and depersonalised services as well as academic cheating and bogus qualifications. The energy demands of the new data centres needed to power AI are also likely to have major social and political repercussions.
Fifty years ago anyone hearing the term "classical education" would take it to mean the rigorous study of the most important Greek and Latin authors - poets, dramatists, historians and philosophers - in their original languages. Traditional school curricula long focused closely on those studies. Until well into the nineteenth century the sciences and mathematics were comparative neglected, and (amazingly) English was not regarded as a proper subject for study at all! There could be no better evidence of the prevalence of this kind of education than the unofficial name given to the most prestigious degree at Oxford - Greats! The very word speaks of a world which specially revered the achievements of the great thinkers and writers of past ages almost above all else.
It’s common today to equate rhetoric with the ability to sustain a coherent oral argument. Within contemporary education, particularly as part of higher education certificates, students are routinely expected to articulate and defend a position on a given topic through reasoned and persuasive discourse and, to varying degrees, they are schooled in the techniques necessary to accomplish this task. Yet, such a conception of rhetoric is certainly too simplistic.
For much of Western intellectual history, rhetoric has occupied a far more significant place within a standard education. As the culminating stage of the Trivium, it represented not merely the art of public speaking but the integration of a student’s disciplined thought, moral formation and linguistic mastery, demonstrated through their clear and precise reasoning, critical judgement and sensitivity to audience and context. Of course, these skills were not isolated but embedded within a broader understanding of virtue, civic responsibility and inherited culture.
Modern education tends to underestimate the breadth and sophistication of the classical approach to rhetoric, and it is doubtful whether many secondary school or university graduates could be truly described as accomplished orators in the traditional sense. However, if our goal as educators is to foster the full intellectual, moral and social development of young people, there is much to recommend revisiting one of the most enduring pedagogical practices of antiquity: the progymnasmata.
In a 1980 article titled “Minds, Brains and Programs”, the American philosopher John Searle engaged with the question of whether “strong” artificial intelligence is possible, that is, could computers become truly sentient, conscious and rationally thinking creatures? In tackling this idea, he provided an illustrative thought experiment: “the Chinese room”.
With the growing interest in classical education in Australia, amongst educators and parents, it is only fitting to revisit Mortimer Adler’s seminal work, The Paideia Proposal. Published in 1982, The Paideia Proposal is Adler’s educational manifesto as a solution to America's education system. While referring to the American educational landscape, Adler’s proposal can help to serve the Australian context.
It’s common today to equate rhetoric with the ability to sustain a coherent oral argument. Within contemporary education, particularly as part of higher education certificates, students are routinely expected to articulate and defend a position on a given topic through reasoned and persuasive discourse and, to varying degrees, they are schooled in the techniques necessary to accomplish this task. Yet, such a conception of rhetoric is certainly too simplistic.
