Maria Steen
The View
How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? What (if you will pardon the pun) could be more pointless than debating a question like this? Why anyone could ever have wasted time in such an exercise is now – and for a long time has been – unfathomable to many.
When something is not understood, there is a strong temptation to get rid of it. GK Chesterton cautioned against this sort of thinking: if at first you don’t understand something, better to go away and try before you scrap it. It is possible that someone before you – maybe even someone better informed or more intelligent – did see the point.
In an essay published in 1947, Dorothy Sayers, the famous novelist, reminded us that – if a little hackneyed – the problem of angels and pins was a debating exercise, intended to explore “the nature of angelic substance: were angels material, and if so, did they occupy space?”
Those who wish to learn Mrs Sayers’ answer to the question may consult her essay, which is widely available online. The thrust of her argument, however, is that the medieval scheme of education had, by the time she was writing, achieved a very undeserved bad reputation.
Although the article did spark a renewed interest in certain quarters in what is often referred to as a ‘classical’ education, based on the medieval model, the reputation of this form of education has not improved much since, at least in society at large.
Prejudice
In Ireland this takes the form of a, frankly, baseless prejudice that a traditional Catholic education of bygone days was somehow anti-intellectual or discouraged pupils from thinking for themselves. The evidence is otherwise. Central to the idea of a classical education, on which traditional Catholic intellectual development and education was founded, was the idea of man as a rational creature.
This idea, which grounded the thinking of the great philosophers of antiquity, was confirmed and developed by Christianity: that man is endowed by God with natural reason and will be held accountable for his thoughts and actions, precisely because – unlike other animals – he has the capacity to reason, to judge, to choose between good and evil, beauty and that which is vile, truth and falsehood.
A classical Catholic education teaches pupils not only to think for themselves, but to be responsible for their own thoughts and deeds.
Throughout the pejoratively named ‘Dark Ages’, it was monastic Catholic communities that kept not just Faith alive, but learning and scholarship, intellectual development, and an appreciation – and development – of the arts and sciences.
In her essay, Mrs Sayers drew attention to the fact that, even in the post-war era, many very highly educated people appeared to be unable to think. That also is a state-of-affairs that has not improved much in the intervening period.
How much more is it the case now than then, that attending university produces an “artificial prolongation of intellectual childhood and adolescence into the years of physical maturity”?
Or that “when the proportion of literacy throughout Western Europe is higher than it has ever been, people should have become susceptible to the influence of advertisement and mass-propaganda”?
Those who oppose a classical education, which promotes debate and rational thinking, are very likely to have some hidden motive for doing so, for as CS Lewis’ Screwtape said: “By the very act of arguing, you awake the patient’s reason; and once it is awake, who can foresee the result?”
Perhaps this explains the Irish establishment’s reluctance to engage in or encourage honest public debate about any topic of importance.
Thinking and debate was central to the syllabus for education of the medieval student, which was divided into two parts: the Trivium (school-age education) and the Quadrivium (University education). The second consisted of ‘subjects’, while the first had three parts, namely grammar, dialectic and rhetoric, in that order.
As Mrs Sayers explained, these were not ‘subjects’ in the sense in which we understand the term today. Their purpose was to give the pupil the tools of learning; to teach each one how to learn, before asking them to learn or study any particular subject.
Even in the post-war era, many very highly educated people appeared to be unable to think”
Each stage corresponds to the developmental stage of the child, from the memorisation stage, to the analytical and argumentative stage, to finally being able to express their own thoughts and analyses in a reasoned and eloquent manner, debate being central to this.
One person who has been at the forefront of reviving classical education in more recent times is Laura Berquist, a major figure in the home-schooling movement, and she is coming to Dublin this weekend. Mrs Berquist is the founder of the Mother of Divine Grace school, a California-based independent distance education programme which helps parents implement a Catholic classical education at home, and now serves over 4,500 students.
Those who oppose a classical education, which promotes debate and rational thinking, are very likely to have some hidden motive for doing so”
Her late husband, Marcus R. Berquist, was one of the founders of Thomas Aquinas College, California, founded in 1971 and offering a classical liberal arts education in the Catholic tradition.
Having home-schooled her own six children, Mrs Berquist subsequently was asked to prepare curriculum recommendations for other home-schooling families. This morphed into a very popular book, Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum. She is also editor of The Harp and Laurel Wreath: Poetry and Dictation for the Classical Curriculum. Both are published by Ignatius Press, and form the basis of the Mother of Divine Grace curriculum, the aim of which is to give children the education every educated person in Western Civilisation once received: a classical or liberal arts education.
A one-day conference this weekend will address both the aspirational and practical aspects of home-schooling with a classical curriculum.
Laura Berquist will be speaking on Sunday, November 10 in the Creidim centre, Leopardstown, Dublin.