One of my Seminary professors once wisely remarked: “He who controls the definition controls the fight.”
And for well over a hundred years the definition of education in America has essentially been controlled by the federal government, perhaps via the proxy of the Department of Education. So, it is clear who’s been controlling the fight.
In 1845 Horace Mann argued before the Massachusetts governor that “the Board of Education has been established...to submit the views of men who have thought much [on how to improve education] to men who have thought but little.”1 I’m not sure we can really quantify the harmful ramifications of this line of reasoning. Mann essentially believed that “untrained” parents ought to be forced by the Board to submit their children to be reared by the “educated” professionals. And that was in 1845, in the neighborhood of 200 years ago.
The long-term effect upon the American public by the establishment of such a public education ruling caste is vividly described by Neil Postman in his book, Technopoly: “All experts are invested with the charisma of priestliness. Some of our priest-experts are called psychiatrists, some psychologists, some sociologists, some statisticians.”2 Some also are those who pull the levers in the American public education system.
In response to the modern secularist defining of education, many concerned citizens have joined their voices in a call to return educational efforts to what was classically established in our nation—not in the 1950s or even in the 1850s, but rather all the way back in the 18th century (and earlier). It’s almost as if R.L. Dabney’s call to question/reject state-run education (Discussions, published in 1897) has finally been heeded, and in greater and greater numbers now in the early 21st century. Yet the reclaiming of the definition of education away from the Department’s “experts” cannot come without a fight, and it’s a fight which will require time in the quantities of generations. The fight will also require precision, clarity, and unity of message—all of which I believe the classical education movement is currently working hard to find.
Some parents/teachers enter into the classical education bubble because they were pushed in as a reaction against something appalling in their experience with the modern public school. Their definition of classical education, therefore, takes on the flavor of simply being the opposite of whatever really bad thing the local public school was. For others, classical schooling is a refreshing stroll through the forests of academic orderliness—an oasis away from the chaos of the student-directed norms of post-modern classrooms. And then for some, the content-rich rigors of classical curriculum are the driving motivation for jumping on the bandwagon. At the end of the day, we’re all glad that we’re together at the classical school, yet the reasons which brought us together are more eclectic than the competencies of a Renaissance man. This is all the more reason why a firm and clear declaration regarding what a particular classical school believes itself to be is of utmost importance. Real life anecdotes can attest to the fact that dissonance in definition of what makes a school “classical” can be lethal.
And all this to introduce my operating definition of classical education. Clarity at this fundamental level (the level of the defining of a thing) will prevent a host of conflicts and conundrums later down the road. It might start them now, but I’d rather do the rewarding work of getting on the same page at the beginning than do the heartbreaking work of cleaning up a mess in the future. It’s my belief that definitions should be clear and specific and distinguishing and informative, that they should leave little doubt as to where one stands on an issue, and that they should equip others to function properly within the scope of their responsibilities. In other words, good definitions yield a sense of freedom—freedom to think and to interact and to work.
Almost to my definition. One more thing to clarify.
There’s a growing and strong movement in the West of classical (but not Christian) education. This “non-religious”3 brand of classical education has many overlapping sympathies with classical Christian education, but it is actually a different thing. Our friends at Hillsdale, for example, are building a classical educational force to be reckoned with, but they are not building a Christian classical educational force. This is going to be a very important distinction to keep in mind. I’ll address it at length in time as needed.
With all that said, I’ll now provide a a working definition for classical education. It’s worded actively, in the sense that I’m not describing what it is so much as I am indicating what it does. The reason for this is to both to emphasize the vigorous activity that education is, and also to be as precise as I can be. If you Google “what is classical education,” you’ll actually find a host of complementary descriptors and metaphors for it. But what you’ll find wanting are statements which actually set the limits for (i.e. define) what the thing is.
The hope is that my stab at a definition provides clear boundary (to indicate what classical education isn’t) and helpful insight for the purpose of putting it into action.
So, here’s a definition of classical education:
Classical education rejects modern and post-modern approaches to education by embracing and pursuing three classical roots: the existence of objective truth, the manifestations of order, and the teleology of goodness.
In the newsletters to follow, I’ll break down each element in further detail. And I’ll also explain how it is that from this definition we can build a deeper sense of what classical Christian education is. That’s the thing I’m really after anyway.
Mann, Horace. Lectures on Education. United States: W.B. Fowle and N. Capen, 1845. 50.
Postman, Neil. Technopoly. New York: Random House, 1992. 90.
I put this in “quotations” because I’d argue that all forms of education are inherently religious in that they all presuppose an idea of morality and truth which must be pinned upon a foundational idea of God (either with him at the center, or at the fringe, or in the gutter, or just plain dead). But that’s for another newsletter.