“Beauty in the Word”: A Brief Review

A reprint of my post for the CiRCE Institute.

Stratford Caldecott’s 160-page new book Beauty in the Word has proven difficult for me to finish, and I mean that as a sincere compliment.

Serving as a sequel to his 2009 work Beauty for Truth’s Sake, in which Caldecott offered a study of the mathematical arts of the Quadrivium and called for an education that reintegrates the arts and sciences, Beauty in the Word examines the Trivium – the foundational arts of grammar, logic, and rhetoric – and calls for their application in ways that recognize and honor the human nature of both child and teacher.

Far from a simple (and all-too-familiar) regurgitation of the Trivium as three “stages” of learning that corresponds to natural child development, Caldecott’s work examines the Trivium in more human terms – as Remembering, Thinking, and Communicating.

He argues that “education is not primarily about the acquisition of information.  It is not even about the acquisition of ‘skills’ in the conventional sense, to equip us for particular roles in society.  It is about how we become more human (and therefore more free, in the truest sense of that word)…Too often we have not been educating our humanity.  We have been educating ourselves for doing rather than for being.”  His exploration of the Trivium in that light is truly inspiring.

Beauty in the Word is an inspiring, challenging and even convicting book.  Perhaps that’s why it has proven so difficult to finish.  Stratford Caldecott has done us a great service.  It’s my hope that Beauty in the Word will be widely, but slowly, read by many others.

Culture-Makers or Culture Warriors?

Part One

My journey into classical education mirrors the story of so many others.  I came across a catalog from a Christian classical publishing house, which led me to Dorothy Sayers’s essay “The Lost Tools of Learning,” which led me to internet searches, which led me to The Abolition of Man, and so on.  I was quickly drawn into the world of C.S. Lewis, including and beyond Narnia, to Middle Earth, to G.K. Chesterton, and so on.  Such are the nostoi (“return stories” or homeward journeys) of so many in the classical renewal.

Sayers, Lewis, Tolkien, and a few others have ushered many into the renewal, and have come to be viewed as the “founding fathers” of the movement. Their works rightly garner wide readings, their lives become the subject of conference talks, and they have inspired many young men to twill coats and pipe-smoking.  And while they are deserving of the high praise they receive in many classical school circles, there may be a downside to their elevation. As Gregory Wolfe observed in Beauty Will Save the World:

Among Christians who care about the arts, there are many who cling to the works of a few figures, such as J.R.R. Tolkien, T.S. Eliot, and Flannery O’Connor, who have forged a compelling religious vision in the midst of a secular age.  But the danger in celebrating these Christian artists is that we isolate them from their cultural context, from the influences that shaped their art.  There is a large body of believers who have essentially given up on contemporary culture; they may admire a few writers here or there, but they do not really believe that Western culture can produce anything that might inform and deepen their own faith.  One might almost say that these individuals have given in to despair about our time.  For me, the most depressing trend of all is the extent to which Christians have belittled or ignored the imagination and succumbed to politicized and ideological thinking.

A couple of things need to be pointed out directly.  First of all, Wolfe is not downplaying the marvelous contributions of those artists.  In fact, he goes on to specifically praise the influence of both Eliot and O’Connor later in the book.  It should also be noted that Wolfe’s argument against “politicized and ideological thinking” is far more developed than what I shall present here.  So read his book.

But with these qualifications in mind, let me say that Wolfe’s point must be taken seriously, and applied by both Church and school.  For too many in the classical renewal, Sayers, Lewis, Tolkien, Chesterton, Eliot, and so on, have been a very ineffective gateway drugs; that is, while these culture-making giants have drawn us to the threshold of a whole new world, too often we have not stepped through.

Classical education, unlike forms of modern education, aims at the nurturing of the soul, the cultivation of wisdom and virtue.  This stands in contrast to arming students with ready-made answers – the problem of “ideology,” according to Wolfe.  We claim our desire is for students to know how to think, not just what to think; yet we seem to fall short of that reality.

For example, in many Christian classical schools, the teaching of logic and the growing emphasis on apologetics courses belies a truly defensive slant, the courses being taught as a way of protecting students from an ungodly culture. And, while there is nothing wrong with arming students for defense, it does not stop there. Even rhetoric has been reduced to the mere production of persuasive essays and speeches, rather than developing (as Aristotle said) the “faculty of discovering in any given case the available means of persuasion” – an art that could include story-telling, creative writing, poetry, and more.

The result is that classical educators are preparing culture warriors but not “culture-makers.”  In holding up the works of Lewis, Tolkien, Chesterton, et al, then, we hold up museum pieces because rather than stressing the need for great artists, musicians, songwriters, poets, and authors, we merely equip our students to argue.  We have called them to uphold truth and, perhaps, goodness, but beauty has been left out of the equation.

To be continued…

Past Dorothy & the Doorway (Part 1)

This is reposted from my Circe column (8/29/12).  Hopefully, the beginnings of an interesting narrative…  

Part 1

The solid darkness of the spires stood in subtle contrast against the moon light.  Our hearts lifted slightly at the knowledge of the place,  so, wearily we put forth what energy we could to reach the gates.

We escaped the Plague, but no one left the gruesome scene  unscathed; nearly half our city had fallen to the disease.  Yet, for some time, it seemed we had stolen away only to die in the wilderness.  Cutting through the face-high weeds and grass, we entered the clearing in front of the castle moat.

Our eyes, first illumined with torchlight, were greeted with still more horrors – corpses littered the small yard, the slope of the moat, and the filthy water.  Yet, strangely, the castle felt warm, even from where we stood.  Light beamed from inside; the sounds of laughter and singing greeted our ears, long used to the screams of death.  And bread.  The faint smell of bread wafted to us, flying from the windows, crossing the moat, and sweeping through our weary band.  The stench of death was quickly replaced with the scent and our hunger pangs expectantly revived.  We smiled at one another, a skill nearly forgotten, and stepped towards the castle.

The heavy creak of the drawbridge drowned our chatter and the din from the castle.  It lowered slowly, coming to rest with a heavy thud.  From the other side called the voice of a lady, “Come.  Enter through this door and leave the death behind.  Cross the bridge and come home.”  She stood in a simple, bright dress, and extended a small lantern in one hand.

We began to walk slowly, the bridge complaining with every step.  “My Lady,” I called, assuming the uncomfortable role of the group’s leader, “we have never seen this castle.  We come from another place quite far from here.  Why do you say we are coming home?”

Smiling, she replied, “Ah, my friends, this is a castle your people and mine left long ago.  I only invite you to return.  Come and stand with me.”

Looking down at my feet, my eyes were drawn to the bodies that littered the moat.  “Look not to them,” the lady’s sweet voice called.  “Their story is too long for you to hear now.”

“Pray, tell me, my Lady, but who are they?” I asked with a shudder I hoped she wouldn’t see.

She sighed, not a sigh of frustration but of compassion, and spoke once more, “They are many.  Some fled from this castle, believing they would find new worlds without the graces found here.  Some are those who tried to batter down this castle’s old walls.  They have done damage, but still we are here.  Still more fell just short of here, never able to bring themselves across the bridge.”

Our pace slowed, uncertain of each step, drawn further only by the sweetness of her voice and the warmth and smells of the castle.  We stepped gratefully from the drawbridge and looked to our gracious and mysterious hostess.  She held her empty hand to us and said, “You may call me Dorothy.”