What is classical liberal education?
Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle searched and successfully discovered and uncovered much truth about the universe and the human condition, but their belief in gods and deities--paganism--limited them. As Christians, our heritage began with God's revelation of Himself to the Hebrew people. The pagans did not have the advantage of this starting point. Despite Christ revealing Himself to the ancient world, many rejected him, thus thwarting their efforts to seek the truth. We, as Christians, benefit significantly from the work of the great philosophers in the seven arts to understand even better than they did: who God is, who we are, why we are here, and why it matters. As Christians, this is our aim in life. Education is how we get there. In classical Christian education, the knowledge of Jesus Christ guides students through an authentic classical curriculum of study with theology as the golden thread of truth that holds the entire curriculum together.
"How did the coming of Jesus Christ advance thinking about liberal education? For one thing, it provided Christians with moral certainty that there need be no conflict between reason and revelation. The material world, as an ordered expression of the mind of God, was worthy of esteem and study …the Incarnation gave to study a new focus. Learning should rightly serve our temporal welfare; most of all, it should promote our eternal good: happiness with God." (Ryan Topping, Renewing the Mind p. 3)
Adopting a classical model of education--the education of the ancient and medieval Christian philosophers--is more precisely aimed at learning about the meaning of life. It is an education rightly ordered to our eternal end, not only our existence in the material world. In Classical Christian education, we order all of these subjects to the ultimate truth: God himself.
The classical method originates as a method and system of education in the Middle Ages; traditionally, the seven liberal arts comprise the study of all things living and material. These arts have been studied from ancient times to understand the nature of reality with the ultimate goal of answering the questions of who we are and why we are here. From Augustine to Aquinas and beyond, our great doctors in the Catholic tradition have carried on this classical study method as it has served humanity and Christianity well. This method brings together reason and divine revelation, both individually and as applied to mans' life and the material world, through the study of philosophy and theology.
When we employ classical education methods, we engage in the study of the very "substance" of God and His creation: "The Word became flesh..." Considering what education is, one realizes that it is an exercise in opening a child's mind to all of creation and how God reveals Himself to us. Everything in life and the universe consists of "word" and "number." In the classical education model, all reality is composed of "word" and "number"; hence, one can say that a classical education leads to truth.
The Trivium and the Quadrivium make up the original seven arts; together, these make up the classical education curriculum. The Trivium is the three arts of grammar, logic, and rhetoric:
Grammar is the art of learning the rules of language.
Logic is the art of intellectual reasoning.
Rhetoric is the art of persuasion.
The Quadrivium, in the classical sense, is the four liberal arts of number, Geometry, music, and cosmology (astronomy).
Number, in itself, is an abstract study of concrete measurement.
Geometry is "number" in space.
Music is "number" in time.
Cosmology expresses "number" in space and time.
Trivium accounts for understanding the inner workings of the mind; it is the three subjects of "word." Quadrivium accounts for the truths of the physical realities of the universe, the four subjects concerning "number."
Over time, classical education has expanded to include history, literature, languages, various hard sciences, and mathematical subjects. Categorically, all subjects still fall within the original seven arts of "word" and "number."
