Time Capsule #179
On the trivium & modern education.
Greetings,
I hope this email finds you well on this wintery Wednesday night (at least in Canada).
The highest endeavour of the mind, and the highest virtue, is to understand things by intuition.
—Baruch Spinoza
✏️ Bring back the Trivium
Having been a student for the vast majority of my life [and having applied myself to varying degrees of seriousness along the way], I have developed some thoughts about the modern education system and whether it delivers on its promise and purpose.
The modern education system, at least as I have experienced it and perceive it, has essentially become a vocational training program. The modern-day young adult, if he has any sense, knows that to get adequate return on investment in his education, he should probably choose some program or field of study that will lead to a well-paying, “skilled” position in the work force. The educational system has realized this and has adapted accordingly: across the world we are seeing the death of the liberal arts and humanities, which had hitherto represented the pinnacle of educational training and was for many centuries a respected an viable path to professions of all types. They are no longer seen as degrees with any vocational utility. And so away with them.
But there was once time when education served a different purpose, and perhaps a more nobler one. “Getting an education” wasn’t a practice in grades-maxxing and working towards the next stage of a professional career. An education was meant to provide you with the skills to think, to express yourself, and to communicate your thoughts to others. The trivium, which was for centuries the dominant educational paradigm in classical society, represents that with its focus on logic, grammar and rhetoric. To be productive was not the end goal of a classical education. The goal of a classical education was to create individuals who were capable of thinking for themselves, discerning truth from falsehood, convincing their fellow man of the truth, and of teaching the next generation to do the same. There is no better way to do that than studying the great books, the history of mankind, and the various schools of philosophy which together represent what it means to be virtuous, true, and original — to be human, in all its forms.
It is a great shame that modern-day education has become so transactional and materialistic. These skills — the ability to think, articulate, and communicate — are still some of the most important skills one can learn in life. And there is no better way to learn these skills than engaging in the very things that we are actively trying to eradicate from human experience: reading, writing, thinking, speaking.
So let us bring back the trivium.
Fabio liberos ex liberis libris libraque
I make free men of children by means of books and a balance [scientific experiment]
💡 Food for Thought
To look to the end, however far, close or dark the road may appear, with gratitude and a gaily eagerness to meet one's fate.
That is the attitude that will provide the strength to go on when the going gets tough and the road gets rough.
That, and a love for mankind, and above all, God.
🔗 Sunday Best
Kendrick Lamar — How to Push Yourself to Be Great
A great inspirational video for all artists and non-artists — on how to continue to strive for excellence in one’s art and life.
I was not designed to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest.
—Henry David Thoreau
Yours Truly,
AT