Dear Readers,
What was once common practice in our schools has now become somewhat of a relic. The tradition that brought up our parents’ parents is long gone. The tradition that formed the great minds of the West, including the founders of this great nation and countless other intellectuals, is now often viewed as elitist or inappropriate for the collective good. Yet I, along with many others, would argue that in recent decades, the steep decline of academic success and overall reduction in interactions with bright individuals is a byproduct of the public education system.
This problem is not new, and it is not exclusive to the United States.
Dorothy Sayers, an influential English writer and thinker, famously called for the reintroduction of the Trivium in British schools in 1947 with “The Lost Tools of Learning.” She contends that reviving the medieval trivium of grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric in modern education would restore students’ ability to think critically and learn independently, something that has only compounded in the three-quarters of a century since her call to action.
The Lost Art of Grammar
The first of the three language arts, the Trivium, is grammar; the least appreciated and least utilized in modern schooling. Not just the use of commas and apostrophes, but an overall understanding of language. Grammar is the foundation on which all knowledge and education are built. Our society’s current lack of communicable skills can be directly linked to its lack of literacy and, ultimately, its lack of foundational knowledge in language itself.
A vast vocabulary and the ability to use different grammatical structures (phrases, clauses, etc.) are vital not only for communicating a point, theory, or argument, but also for understanding the former. Grammar is a structure through which we can think, learn, and communicate with one another. Yet, a major focus in modern classrooms is preparation for a state-mandated exam, with minimal emphasis on the fundamentals in the language that all students will spend the rest of their lives using.
Without a proper understanding of our language and the structure it employs, we risk mistaking jargon for insight. Yet the solution is not as simple as a comprehensive vocabulary list.
A Basis of Knowledge
To return to the wise words of Dorothy Sayers, a return to the Trivium, to Grammar, is a return to knowledge as a tool for thinking. She, correctly, points out that even in the late 1940s, schools spent far too much time teaching students subjects and not enough time teaching them how to think. Sayers outlines a program, quite thoroughly, of the benefits of a Trivium-based system. A system where students build upon knowledge that they learn, not just memorize facts ahead of a test, to forget them the very next day.
The mental calisthenics of an exercise as simple as diagramming a sentence is just the force to push the young human mind toward the critical thinking modern education desires. The translation from Latin to English or from Greek to Latin is just another fantastic way for students to build a framework in language. The reason translation is such a valuable tool for developing the young mind is that it requires the translator to be precise, which in turn requires a solid foundation of knowledge in the language being translated to. This precision in English translates to all subjects across time and domains.
Making a (Great) Case
The latter two parts of the Trivium are the arts, where the user appropriately applies the knowledge they have gained to make concise, compelling arguments based on facts. Dialectic (modernly known as Logic) and Rhetoric are the fulfillment of the initial stage of Grammar. Logic teaches individuals how to think, specifically by identifying fallacies and employing deductive reasoning; rhetoric, on the other hand, involves making a case by using compelling language alongside the facts previously outlined using Logic.
Yet, none of this is possible without Grammar, the ins and outs of a language; from vocabulary and all of its denotations and connotations, to how adjectives, adverbs, and prepositions change the meaning of a sentence depending on where they are placed within it.
An Education that Works
The real selling point of a Trivium-based education is its lifelong application. Students who learn through the guise of Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric are given a gift better than knowledge, but the skill of learning itself.
Because that is the true goal of an education, is it not?
To teach young men and women how to learn for themselves.
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Interested in reading Dorothy Sayers' full call to invoke the Trivium in Education? Click here.
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Thanks for reading!
I appreciate you taking the time to engage with these ideas. I hope this newsletter gave you something to think about.
If you want to go deeper, check out my reading list, where I share the books that have radicalized me.
Also, I have a podcast called The Modern Republic. On this podcast, I see how many times I can say "um" or "you know" in a thirty-minute window. It's a great time.
This week's episode:
Ep. 018: The Lost Art of Language
In this episode, I explore the importance of wise decision-making in education, the impact of federal funding on local schools, the flaws in teacher development and after-school programs, and the need to return to a focus on grammar and independent thinking through greater local control.
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Watch on YouTube.
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See you next time!
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