The crisis in education

Restoring Western Education

Part One - The crisis in education
by Fred Hutchison, May 2006

The crisis in public education is well known. High dropout rates, low test scores, deficits in reading, math, and history, and inarticulate young people who do not read books are so frequently reported in the news that we have almost come to expect bad news about education. Why are these chronic problems so difficult to fix?

Answer: the stubborn adherence by the public education establishment to ideas about education that do not work. Today's post-Christian culture has produced false world views that have spun out false ideas about human nature and about learning and knowledge. As a result, bad educational models built upon these broken foundations now permeate our tax-supported education system.

When educators do not understand the nature of learning and knowledge, both the teacher and the student are trapped in a futile struggle. No matter how much money the taxpayers spend and no matter how many quick fixes are tried, the chronic failure will continue until the false educational theories are jettisoned.

Intellectual decadence in academia

One aspect of the growing educational crisis is intellectual decadence in academia. Whereas Western universities came into being during the twelfth century as groups of scholars in pursuit of truth, the modern university classroom systematically denies the existence of truth. Unfortunately, if there is no truth, then reason is dethroned from its exalted tasks, and is degraded to merely pragmatic calculations. By saying that truth does not exist, the education of reason becomes merely a pragmatic and utilitarian exercise, devoid of its noble calling. That is our current dilemma. Modern academia has lost respect for reason, knowledge, and the human mind.

Virtue was once almost as highly exalted as truth in Western establishments of education. The powers of reason were vigorously employed to understand and define moral virtue. In contrast, modern academia is propagating ideas of moral relativism and situational ethics. Reason is debased when it is used only for the calculations of self-seeking pragmatism or in the rationalization of vice.

The classical tradition in literary scholarship was highly honored by academia until the twentieth century. Today, many contemporary universities are following a multicultural fad that is hostile to the Western cultural and literary tradition. Many scholars are cutting themselves off from the great Western thinkers and writers, and are therefore languishing in intellectual and literary mediocrity and shallowness.

How did we get into this predicament? During the last two centuries, seven waves of bad ideas have swept over the educational establishment.

Seven historical waves of bad ideas

The seven waves of bad education theory in historical sequence are as follows:

Rousseau's educational theories (1762).
The progressive education movement of the late nineteenth century.
William James' pragmatic theory of knowledge (1907).
John Dewey's instrumental approach to education (1916).
"Soft postmodernism": a collection of enduring liberal myths developed by a series of twentieth century "social scientists" who jumped to hasty conclusions from sketchy research.
Determinism, Structuralism, and "Hard Postmodernism" (emphasized from 1950–1970). An intellectual counter-culture of Existentialism flourished at this time.
Multiculturalism (current fad).

Strains of all seven waves of educational fallacies are discernable in the contemporary classroom. All seven sets of bad ideas work against reason and virtue and a culture of human flourishing. Due to space limitations, this essay will concentrate upon the first four waves of bad educational theory.

Seven historical waves of good ideas

In contrast with the above detrimental influences, we should note that there are seven historical waves of good educational theory that are a gold mine for digging up tried and true ways of reviving and reforming education. They are:

Alcuin of York and the Seven Liberal Arts (800 A.D.).
From Anselm to Aquinas: The Medieval university and the search for truth (1100–1400).
From Petrarch to Castiglione: The Renaissance project: A classical education to prepare the Christian gentleman for leadership in government, society, and culture (1350–1520).
The Reformation educational program (1530–1650).
Private and parochial schools (17th--20th century)
Noah Webster, William McGuffey, Horace Mann, and public education (19th century).
Home schooling, Christian academies, Bible colleges, the Great Books movement, and the revival of Christian philosophy (twentieth century).

The high culture of the Western past was in no small measure the fruit of great education. The seven waves of good ideas that led to these impressive educational achievements will be offered in a future essay. Stay tuned!

Rousseau's subversion of education

The author of the first wave of bad educational theory was Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778). He wrote his educational treatise in literary form in the book Emile (1762).

Rousseau did not want to expose his fictional young student Emile to any formally structured or disciplined program of education. He felt that a systematic approach to instruction would crush Emile's sensitive spirit and inhibit his natural goodness, wisdom, and potential. He insisted that Emile be sheltered from the pressures of institutions, peers, family, and society so as to avoid stunting his development.

Emile--as a sheltered, self-absorbed, and pampered boy--was Rousseau's prized student. Emile resembles a spoiled modern rich kid in a progressive school. Perhaps he also resembles the unschooled Rousseau of late adolescence, addicted to romance novels and seductively coddled and pampered by his mentor, who was a rich, aristocratic, elegant, and flirtatious French woman.

Rousseau wanted Emile to learn naturally from experience, nature, and his inner self. For example, he proposed that Emile should learn science from workshop crafts instead of from textbooks. Instead of teaching knowledge and wisdom to Emile, the teacher would be a facilitator as he and Emile walked hand in hand in a serendipitous process of discovery. Learning would not primarily come from information assigned to Emile to study and digest, but would mainly come from the lessons from experience or insights welling up from within himself. Rousseau and Emile would hold hands and waltz through a neverland of self-discovery and enjoy the magical education of serendipity. Instead of the teacher inculcating in Emile the accumulated knowledge of the past, Emile would start from scratch, like the "noble savage" in a "state of nature"--an imaginary concept that was Rousseau's favorite fantasy.

Emile, filled to the brim with Rousseau's self-indulgent and magical thinking, would be right at home with the New Age Movement, the human potential movement, the self-esteem movement, self-actualization psychology, and self-help cults. In his narcissism and scanty knowledge, Emile would resemble the intellectually shallow graduates of modern public schools.

Obviously, a scholar in a classical Christian institute would be miles ahead of Emile in edifying knowledge, salutary discipline, intellectual competence, and moral character. Emile, as a self-absorbed, undisciplined student and an unsocialized cultural barbarian, would cut a poor figure in comparison to a young classical scholar. He would be lacking the disciplines and social restraints of formal schooling and would be ignorant of classical works that stimulate the mind and instruct and inspire youth in the virtues. Emile's mind would be innocent of serious intellectual challenge, his aesthetic pallette would be misdirected and undeveloped, and his character would be untested by instruction in moral standards.

The progressive education movement

The American progressive educational movement in the late nineteenth century took Emile for its inspiration. Instead of attending classrooms, reading books, and performing assigned studies, the modern Emile participated in "laboratories of learning" involving arts, crafts, projects and workshops, and other fluff activities to actively involve him in the serendipitous process of learning.

The intellectual, social, cultural, and moral damage done to countless Emiles in expensive progressive schools could be somewhat fixed by rich parents through private tutors. Tragically, the progressive education nonsense slowly leaked into the public schools, where the parents could not afford tutors to undo the damage.

To this day, a significant fraction of the elementary student's day is wasted in the fluff activities of crafts, projects, workshops, multicultural arts, drumming sessions, and entertainment posing as education. The more time wasted in fluff activities, the more test scores decline.

Public school teachers have been trained to cherish the little "Emile moments" of a child's self-discovery. Therefore, all these unstructured fluff activities lack direction and discipline. They are little more than playtime with crafts and self-entertaining individual or group amusements. However, most children get plenty of these frolics at home and on the playground. School should have the serious mission of developing the mind, instead of being a more elaborate version of the playground, romper room, game room, den for hobby crafts, or Sesame Street on TV.

At the college level, the core curriculum has been abolished and students are obliged to select many of their courses as one would select a sampler of food from a smorgasbord. Knowing nothing about many of the course offerings, students select many of their classes by impulse and whim as one would select a tidbit of cheese from a buffet. The modern Emile, as a college student, hopes that the fortunes of serendipity will transform his whimsical sampler of classes into to something agreeable, if not useful.

Bad theology leads to bad education

A tradition in American liberal theology began with Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) was carried forward and developed by William James (1842–1910), and was elaborated and hollowed out by Paul Tillich (1886–1965) and Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971). The latter two are sometimes called "neorthodox," but there is nothing orthodox about them. Pragmatic, modernist, minimalist, and heterodox are better adjectives for these theological liberals. The successors to Tillich and Niebuhr in this tradition of anti-orthodoxy were Richard Rorty (1931 to present) and Stanley Fish (1938 to present).

One can plausibly argue that Emerson's spiritual declension was decisively influenced by Rousseau, who Emerson often quoted. Therefore, we can stretch our chronicle of heretical theology and false world views from Rousseau to Rorty and Fish, an expanse of time stretching more than two hundred and forty years.

The purpose of sketching this lineage of American theological liberalism is to illustrate a general principle that theology, like the engine of a train, goes off the rails first and the other cars are subsequently derailed. Education is like the caboose at the end of the train that is carried off the tracks by cars ahead of it.

Bad theology is the engine of false world views, which in turn spin out bad educational ideas. Good theology leads to a true world view that bears the fruit of good educational ideas that yield positive results in the classroom.

The "seven good ideas" in educational theory summarized above led to educational programs that were highly successful in educating the mind of Western man. These ideas were based on world views emanating from good theology. The truth of Christian orthodoxy is vindicated by her fruits.

The present failure of the education establishment was inevitable because of the bankruptcy of educational theory. Ideas flowing from false world views that emanated from junk theology have hindered the process of education.

Emerson and the roots of heresy

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) was the young pastor of a Boston Unitarian church. Unitarianism is heretical because it denies the Trinity. Interestingly, this is a significant fact in our chronicle about what went wrong with education.

The Unitarian cult, posing as Christianity, gained a foothold in New England after the Puritan movement burned itself out during the period 1692–1720. Unitarianism lost ground during the "new light" movement of the Great Awakening (a pietist spiritual renewal and a period of spectacular revivalist preaching: 1720–1750). The "new lights" gradually faded (1750–1790), and Unitarianism and Deism surged. Unitarianism lost ground again during the Second Great Awakening (the founding of Christian colleges and sawdust revivals in rural areas: 1790–1800). By the time Emerson began his ministry in Boston, Unitarianism was recovering once more from its malaise because the quasi-spirituality of the English romantic movement in poetry, literature, and art was compatible with the quasi-spirituality of Unitarianism.

The Christian colleges founded during the Second Great Awakening were responsible for much that was right about education in the nineteenth century. Unitarianism, through its influence on Emerson, was indirectly responsible for some of what went wrong with education in the twentieth century.

In 1832, Emerson resigned from the clergy to become a lecturer for his heretical pantheistic philosophy/theology of "transcendentalism." He became the undisputed leader of the transcendental cult. Transcendental poetry and essays of Emerson, Whitman, and Thoreau gradually became favorites in college literature departments.

The poisoned apple of pantheism was at the core of Transcendentalism. Pantheism denies the distinction between Creator and creation. Emerson started with the heresy of Unitarianism and moved into the pagan infidelity of pantheism.

One of Emerson's positions that deeply influenced William James was his rejection of authority concerning universal truth, if that authority came from the past or from above a person. Truth, according to Emerson, must come from human experience as interpreted from within a man himself. Since the inner man was part of the pantheistic godhead, man must be his own oracle.

Never before had pantheism been so individualistic or subjective. The ancient pantheism of Stoicism was rational, social, and cosmopolitan. However, both Emerson and the Stoics agreed upon the existence of a universal moral law. But Emerson insisted that the moral law must be discerned by personal intuition.

Emerson's mystical pantheism of nature vaguely resembled the cosmology of English poet William Wordsworth (1770–1850), with whom Emerson was personally acquainted. Wordsworth's concept of learning and knowledge had similarities to the ideas of Rousseau. Emerson himself was a part of the Western Romantic movement (1750–1920).

Emerson passes his mantle

Only twenty-five years separated the death of Rousseau (1785), the founding father of the Romantic movement, and the birth of Emerson (1803). Rousseau was already an oracle of wisdom to romantics and progressives when the young Emerson was educated.

In 1842, Emerson visited Henry James, Sr., who had invited Emerson to admire his infant son William in the cradle. Emerson invoked his blessing upon the child who was to become his intellectual heir. That was the very year that Emerson wrote Experience (1842), which inspired William James after he grew up. The historical and intellectual continuity from Rousseau to James followed tight generational links of succession.

Interestingly, Emerson almost became the broken link in the chain. Only two decades after Emerson wrote Experience, he warned about the illusory nature of subjective experience. "Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion.... [L]ife is a train of moods like a string of beads." Experiences are lenses of many colors that "paint the world their own hue, and each shows only what lies in its focus." As Emerson aged, he became more aware of the limitations of man and more accepting of the status quo of the human community.

If only James had realized that by the time he read Experience, Emerson had already become disillusioned with the utility of subjective experience for seeking truth. Such a realization might have broken the chain of intellectual succession coming down from Rousseau--and the realm of education would have been spared a lot of mischief. Unfortunately, the disciples of heretics often cherry pick what pleases them from their master's works and turn a blind eye when those heresies lead their masters to shipwreck.

William James and pragmatism

William James wrote Pragmatism (1907), which was extremely popular in America because of the Anglo-Saxon cultural preference for practical action. James developed a theory of knowledge based upon practical experience. If a bit of knowledge guides one in an action, and that action leads to a desirable outcome, the knowledge is to be valued. One's inner subjective experience is to be the judge of whether the outcome of the action is good or bad. The subjective approach for valuing experience seems to have been learned by James from Emerson's book Experience (1842). As already noted, Emerson got the idea from Rousseau and from pantheism.

If one is pleased with the outcome of an action, the idea that guided the action has what James calls "cash value." James is following the stick and carrot approach for valuing ideas. An idea that leads to an action that offers the reward of good feelings must be a good idea, according to James. An idea that leads to the punishment of bad feelings is a bad idea. Bad feelings are the stick, and good feelings are the carrot. The use of stick and the carrot is an effective way for training a donkey, but a faulty way for educating a man about good and bad ideas.

In America, James' concept of cash-value pragmatism is still widely praised, even in Christian circles. The Christians I know who have adopted their own version of cash-value pragmatism all have an anti-intellectual bias. Their favorite line is, "I don't want to learn any more until I have acted upon everything I already know."

Unfortunately, the concept of cash-value pragmatism, which seems sensible at first glance, is loaded with many short-sighted fallacies. Among them are these:

Feelings are--in reality--an unreliable means of judging outcomes. Many fallacies are sustained by short-term outcomes that bring momentary good feelings.
True knowledge might yield short-term negative results for reasons unique to the situation.
Sometimes a negative short-term experience with an action is the necessary prelude positive long term outcomes.
A fallacy put into action can yield seemingly positive results by accident.
One can feel good in the short-term about a morally-questionable action if one gets what one wants.
A good idea can be applied at the wrong time or in the wrong situation or in the wrong way.
Understanding how to correctly apply a bit of knowledge does not come ready-made with the knowledge itself. Years might pass before the opportune situation and the understanding of how to apply a fragment of knowledge line up.
Some of the deepest, truest knowledge might require a lifetime to bring fully to tangible fulfillment expressed in action.
Some knowledge has no direct practical application but changes a person inwardly for the better. One might be enriched for a lifetime by insights about life and human nature after reading a great novel or poem, and never once think about practical applications.
Sifting a piece of literature for practical applications while one reads might ruin the salutary effect of the literature.
As one sifts through knowledge cherry-picking the tidbits that can easily tested with concrete actions, one invariably skims off the shallowest ideas and leaves the deeper treasures untouched.
The bias for action that cash-value pragmatism engenders can make people impatient with the slow process of serious study, and may lead to a contempt for knowledge. Wisdom grows slowly like an oak tree. Cash-value pragmatism is billed as a short cut to wisdom, bypassing arduous study and deep reflection.

The fallacious concept of cash value pragmatism is inherently adverse to substantive knowledge, deep learning, and wisdom, yet has become a cornerstone of modern educational theory, as we shall see.

Free will, reason, and education

William James was eager to rescue free will from the clutches of the determinists in academia. However, to achieve this desirable end, James thought it necessary to deny universals, which are things that are eternally true in every place and in all times. He posited that if the world is fragmented and has no universals, a place for free will can be found. Notice how he had the temerity to invent a cosmos that would line up with his ideas, instead of conforming his ideas to the cosmos. When men stop believing in a creator, they try to usurp the role of creator for themselves. Their educational theories designed for an imaginary cosmos that they dreamed do not work in the real world. In contrast, when men conform their ideas to the world created by God, their educational theories make sense.

Unfortunately, if there are no universals, as James theorized, there is nothing for the higher powers of reason to rise up to apprehend. Man finds in himself faculties that have no use in the artificial cosmos he has created. Only if a God created the world is there elbow room on earth for man to possess reason and free will and to pursue universals.

Free will can be a great blessing in a world of reason, order, and harmony. However, free will is an unmitigated curse in a fragmented world of flux and chaos such as James imagined. In a world inhabited only by the will, the feelings and constant flux would be a nightmare. Chaos is the worst of all possible conditions in this present world.

William James contributed to the revolt against reason by academia, which in turn brought forth chaos in the campus revolts of the late sixties and early seventies.

Prior to James, scholars and educators relied upon informed reason to evaluate ideas. After James, feelings and pragmatic calculations would gradually become the standard for evaluating ideas. This was to be an intellectual and educational catastrophe for the Western world. As a result of this cataclysm of the mind, the education establishment is now intellectually hollowed out. They lack the intellectual resources to evaluate their own theories and programs.

Interestingly, the campus rebels of the late sixties and early seventies used James' cash value pragmatism as their basis for declaring that courses not to their liking were "irrelevant." Incredibly, the stupefied professors had no answer to this crude and illogical critique.

John Dewey's Instrumentalism

John Dewey (American philosopher of education and psychology, 1859–1952) adopted William James' philosophy of pragmatism--and James reciprocated by applauding the papers that Dewey and his associates wrote. The ideas of James thus influenced educational theory through the pen of Dewey, his younger contemporary.

Like James, Dewey liked to experiment to see what works. He used the "cash value" test that he learned from James. He was interested in whether a theory can be put into action and whether outcomes of the action could be observed and measured. Dewey's pragmatic theory of "Instrumentalism" posits that ideas are instruments that function as guides for action, their validity being determined by the success of the action. The ideas that are practically workable are discovered through experimentation. Ideas are tools for the solution of problems arising from the environment.

If the solutions work, the ideas are true--recognizing that a different environment might require different solutions. Instruments of thought are thus tailored to a particular environment. Furthermore, since society is in a constant state of flux, and a particular instrument may soon become obsolete, solutions of the past are to be disregarded, and present solutions remain relevant for only a short while.

Dewey's central idea about knowledge was the diametrical opposite of the thesis of Edmund Burke (1729–1797), the father of modern conservatism. Burke believed that the wisdom of past generations was woven into the social fabric that is our most precious heritage. Dewey theorized that the wisdom of the past has no bearing on modern problems. Time and flux changes man and society so decisively that the solutions of old problems are worthless today.

Dewey built into educational theory the notion that the Western intellectual, cultural, and moral heritage is of no value to modern students. Dewey wanted to throw the accumulated wisdom of the centuries overboard. The educational crisis will continue until we throw Dewey overboard, and recover from the sea of forgetfulness the golden treasures which he threw overboard.

Unlike Emerson, Dewey denied the universal moral law and universal truth. Dewey thought that morality is a social construct created to deal with the human needs of particular times and places. Since society is constantly changing, moral concepts are in continual evolution.

If morality is merely an adaptive, collective response to social needs of the moment, there is no sense of right and wrong involved. All social morality become rules of pragmatism. It is not surprising that the tax-supported education establishment promotes moral relativism and situational ethics. It can be argued that John Dewey is the founding father of the culture war, because he did more than any other man to convince students that morality is a cultural illusion.

The psychology of muddling through

A new school of psychology arose from Dewey's Instrumentalism. The psychologist diagnoses his client not as neurotic, but as "maladapted." The goal of therapy for the client is not healing, but learning to cope with daily life. The patient is offered instrumental guides to help him learn to adapt. It sounds fancy, but it is not much different than learning what works through trial and error, a skill every adult teaches himself in order to navigate through the world he encounters every day. The practical English call it "muddling through."

The psychology of muddling through has parallels with Dewey's educational theory. Classical educators regarded muddling through as outside the mission of formal education, and they were right. Just as children do not need to be taught fluff activities, adults do not need to be taught how to muddle through.

Dewey, who misunderstood the mission of education, proposed the creation of an institutional environment to shape good habits among students that presumably will lead to intellectual achievement. For Dewey, forming "good habits" is more important than teaching knowledge. Under Dewey's influence, therefore, educators began to forsake tried and true methods of teaching conceptual and factual knowledge. If a student is shallow in knowledge, he can still muddle through if he has good habits, or so thought Dewey.

Dewey wrote extensively about all the things that students can be doing other than acquiring knowledge. Dewey was interested in active group projects as a means of socializing students, teaching them "democratic values," helping them to adapt to their environment and to acquire practical "real world" problem-solving skills. The fallacy of this approach is that one is handicapped in solving problems if he has a scanty stock of knowledge of concepts and facts in his mind.

Dewey's intellectual wilderness

Prior to Dewey, students had access to a rich heritage of intellectual resources. Mortimer Adler's Synopticon summarizes 102 "great ideas" that he distilled from 517 works of 130 great authors from the Western tradition. There once was a time when students read a generous sample of these great works and thereby had a working knowledge of many the 102 great ideas. Thus, they had a wealth of powerful ideas for their minds to employ for critical thinking.

Dewey wanted to teach the students to think critically, but his methods prevented that from happening. Modern students have a mental cupboard almost bare of the great ideas and of important historical and cultural information, and therefore lack the intellectual resources for critical thinking. Thinking techniques are not enough. One must have something to think about and a stock of ideas to use, The student, deprived of his intellectual heritage, gropes through the empty shelves where learned concepts were supposed to be. Finding nothing useful for the task, he must reinvent the wheel as though he grew up in a savage tribe.

Dewey has created an intellectual desert and then calls for critical thinking. He is preaching to the scorpions. Those in a desert do not have the luxury of critical thinking. They only have ears to hear messages of survival such as Dewey's pragmatic instrumental guides. Dewey took a world of educated, cultivated adults, furnished with a rich intellectual culture that features the 102 great ideas of Western thinkers, and turned the people into mere survivors in an intellectual wasteland. Instead of being the lavish spenders of a rich intellectual treasure, Dewey's scholars must live hand to mouth.

The only goal of survivors is to get through the day. Perhaps it was Dewey's atheism that caused him to view life as an ordeal of mere daily survival.

Dewey's false theory of knowledge

According to Dewey, all we can know of relevance is solutions applicable to a particular place at a particular moment in time. If this alarming notion is true, authentic learning is impossible. Anything you learn today is just as well forgotten tomorrow, because it will have no use or value in any future moment. Therefore, we cannot increase our stock of useful knowledge in a way that will be profitable all our lives.

We are reduced to an intellectual hand to mouth survival like a savage who must find his daily food today or go hungry. The savage is illiterate, so he cannot write down and accumulate knowledge beyond the frail embrace of memory.

Reading and writing have brought an accumulating treasury of knowledge to the world and made civilization possible. But Dewey tells the students that all they can know of relevance is practical techniques for getting through this day. New tricks will have to be learned tomorrow because of the endless flux of existence. Dewey's program, if carried to its logical conclusion, would wipe out the knowledge base of civilization.

But this is all a lie. We can only authentically learn, retain what we learn, and apply what we learn in the future if there are enduring principles for life, the individual, the family, and the community which will continue to exist long after we are dead. Pragmatism in a state of flux does not work. Pragmatism only works in a world that is stable enough in its properties that what works today will work tomorrow and can be written down in books for future generations to learn.

Conclusion

It is not surprising that test scores are falling or that many students do not read well, think rationally, write properly, or speak clearly. Considering John Dewey's theory of education, it is surprising that the educational crisis is not far worse.

Recovery from the educational crisis will not be possible until the ideas of Rousseau, Emerson, James, and Dewey are relegated to historical footnotes of antiquarian interest. These men are a product of the false world views spun off from heretical theology and from the delusions of the Romantic movement.

The romantic revolt against reason that began with Rousseau had a subversive effect upon students and dampened their interest in ideas and knowledge. This revolt against reason has assumed many guises. Instrumentalism, Postmodernism, and Multiculturalism are merely the latest dreary fads for rebelling against reason. When I was in college, the depressing cult of non-conformist Existentialism was the anti-intellectual fad of the moment.

In contrast to the dreariness of the rebellion against reason, the search for truth is an exciting life-enhancing venture. The solid foundation for this search is found in the key doctrines of Christian orthodoxy and in "Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." (Colossians 2:3)

Part Two - A cure for the educational crisis: Learn from the extraordinary educational heritage of the West
by Fred Hutchison, June 2006

In my first essay, I described seven historical waves of bad ideas for education that are responsible for the American educational crisis. In this essay, I will outline seven historical waves of good ideas that are a gold mine for digging up tried and true ways to revive education.

Seven historical waves of good ideas

The seven best waves of educational ideas in the Western tradition are the following:

1) Alcuin of York and the Seven Liberal Arts (800 A.D.).

2) From Anselm to Aquinas: the Medieval university and the search for truth (1100–1400).

3) From Petrarch to Castiglione: the Renaissance project: A classical education to prepare the Christian gentleman for leadership in government, society, and culture (1350–1520).

4) The Reformation educational program (1530–1650).

5) Private and parochial schools (17th--20th century).

6) Noah Webster, William McGuffey, Horace Mann, and public education (19th century).

7) Home schooling, Christian academies, Bible colleges, the Great Books movement, and the revival of Christian philosophy (Twentieth Century).

The high culture of the Western past was in no small measure the fruit of great education. These seven waves of good ideas led to impressive educational achievements that resulted in the blossoming of Western intellectual, moral, and aesthetic culture.

Due to space limitations, I will concentrate on the Seven Liberal Arts and the Renaissance project. Brief comments about the Medieval university, the Reformation program, and American public schools of the nineteenth century will be included to the extent they are relevant to the discussion.

Now let us consider the historical setting in which the drama of European education begins.

Foundations for the recovery of civilization

During the Dark Ages (circa 500–1100 A.D.) the light of education almost went out in Europe. In many precincts, only the monks cloistered in their fortress-like monasteries could read and write.

Interestingly, during the exact chronological mid-point (800 A.D.) of the Dark Ages, educational foundations were laid that would prove essential for the revival of civilization in the West. Partly because of these solidly laid educational foundations, European civilization revived with amazing speed during the years 1050–1100 A.D.

During the period 1100–1120 the scholars at the brand new University of Paris were debating metaphysics with such passion, alacrity, and sophistication as would astound a modern university debate coach. Europe was intellectually and culturally impressive by 1150 A.D., when a complex new literature was popular and the universities were producing significant numbers of world-class philosophers and theologians. The arts and architecture were also blossoming, as witnessed by the resplendent and glittering Saint Denis, the first church in the Gothic style.

These triumphs of mind and spirit were built upon the foundation of Christian education.

The Christian King as educator

During the second half of the eighth century, Charlemagne (also called Karolus Magnus, Karl der Grosse, and Charles the Great, 742–814) was king of the Franks, a German tribe situated in northern Gaul and the Rhineland. He conquered about two-thirds of Europe and ruled over an empire of many tribes, cultures, and languages.

Charlemagne was a devout Christian, and could read and speak Latin. When he took power, many of the cathedral schools that were established by the Frankish King Clovis in the late fifth and early sixth century had fallen into ruin. Charlemagne decided to sponsor a revival in education. This necessarily meant Christian education, because almost all of the men in the West who were capable of teaching were clerics.

Charlemagne gathered scholars from many nations at his palace at Aachen (Aix la Chappelle). The greatest scholar in this august company was the English-Saxon monk, Alcuin of York (735–804), Headmaster of the Cathedral School of York. In 782, Alcuin came to Aachen, and was installed as the Master of the Palace School. He became a key advisor and spiritual guide to Charlemagne and a teacher of his children.

Alcuin, esteemed by some scholars as the most learned man in the West, was a product of the remarkable revival of scholarship in Yorkshire and Northumbria in the seventh and eighth centuries. This English renaissance of learning was led by the world-famous scholar, the Venerable Bede (672–735).

Alcuin of York and the Seven Liberal Arts

Alcuin decreed that all Cathedral Schools should teach the seven liberal arts. Since the time of Clovis, a cathedral, which was the seat of a bishop, was supposed to have a school. This made the bishop the honorary school superintendent. In some places, education survived in the Dark Ages because bishops occasionally had more power and wealth than the war lords. Bishops were often the product of cathedral or monastery schools and therefore were sometimes advocates of education.

The seven liberal arts were the core of the curriculum of Roman-Christian schools for boys of the late Roman empire. The instruction materials for these subjects for use in the cathedral schools were revised and improved by four generations of scholars--namely, Saint Isidore, the Venerable Bede, Archishop Egbert, and Alcuin.

The Seven Liberal Arts consisted of the Trivium (set of three studies) and the Quadrivium (set of four studies). The Trivium included: 1) grammar, 2) rhetoric, and 3) logic. The Quadrivium included: 1) arithmetic, 2) geometry, 3) music, and 4) astronomy.

The Trivium was regarded as a set of elementary studies that had to be mastered before advancing to the Quadrivium. From the Trivium we get our words "grammar school," "elementary school," and "trivia." The phrase "arts and sciences" was based upon the idea that the Trivium deals with arts and the Quadrivium deals with sciences. Alcuin wrote a manual on the Trivium, and Hraban--a protege of Alcuin--wrote a manual on the Quadrivium.

Grammar concerns the art of reading, writing, and speaking. In Alcuin's time this meant reading and writing in Latin. Alcuin compiled and edited the volume Epistola de Litteris Colenda (785), through which his scholars argued that the right faith and the right thoughts must be clothed in appropriate language, lest it be falsified. Hence, every student in every cathedral school must be taught to read, write, speak, and think in precise Latin.

All students had to read the Roman classics, the fathers of the church, the creeds, and the Vulgate Bible in Latin. They were required to be fluent writers, readers, and speakers of Latin in order to communicate with other scholars from many nations and tribes. In that politically, culturally, and linguistically fragmented world, Latin, the language known to every educated man, was essential for communication and for civilization itself. Alcuin made Latin the lingua franca of Europe.

Due to the British Empire and America's rise to solo superpower status, English is today becoming the lingua franca of the world. Unfortunately, we have no great educator like Alcuin to restore our now-decadent language of English to its former glory--for the benefit of all mankind.

Building on a solid foundation

Alcuin wisely insisted that students gain proficiency in reading and writing before advancing to any other disciplines. Becoming literate is the key to learning every subject.

In contrast, the modern public schools foolishly try to teach a variety of elementary studies all at once. As a result of this lack of focus in the early grades, some students remain permanently deficient in reading and writing. For all the remainder of their dismal time in school, their poor reading skills cripple and frustrate them in their efforts to learn. The solution is not remedial reading. The solution is to teach nothing but reading, writing, and grammar during the first two years of classes.

Educational theory of 800 A.D. was wiser than it was in 2000 A.D. The wisdom of laying a solid foundation of literacy and then building on that foundation is proven by the good fruits it bore through many centuries.

Grammar as the key to rhetoric, logic, and philosophy

Mastery of grammar made it possible to learn rhetoric, the art of spoken word--and the second liberal art. Roman education emphasized the oratorical rhetoric that an aristocrat could use in a speech to the Senate. Alcuin emphasized the academic aspect of rhetoric, instead of the social and political aspect. He was an expert in a subset of rhetoric called dialectics, a back and forth discussion between two scholars in which they would explore, sift, and debate a topic.

Alcuin used dialectics as a teaching tool, in his many scholarly writings, and even in personal letters. In doing so, he laid the foundation for the study of science, philosophy, and theology. Training in dialectics explains why the scholars in medieval universities of the twelfth century were such outstanding debaters. Many European essays in science, philosophy, and theology were written in dialectical form until the seventeenth century. (Galileo got in trouble with the pope, not because of his heliocentric theory, but because he wrote a dialectic in which he put the pope's favorite argument in the mouth of a fool.)

Skillful dialectics required expertise in logic, which is the third liberal art. As the two members of a dialectical conversation ventilated an issue, the ideas best supported by logic would win the debate.

Mastery of logic is the foundation for the study of philosophy. Interestingly, correct grammar is just as vital to philosophy as are rhetoric and logic. Formal logic is impossible without precise language that depends upon correct grammar. One is unlikely to understand Aristotle's syllogism (a method of logic) without literary competence in language.

Furthermore, grammatically correct speech embodies several essential principles of metaphysics. For example, the correct use of the verb "to be" provides key insights into ontology, or the study of the nature of being. One is not likely to understand Aristotle's distinction between "existence" and "being" without crisp language skills. However, we unknowingly make these distinctions every day if we speak with good grammar.

The correct use of the verb "to know" provides important clues for epistemology, the study of what we can know and how we know it. One is unlikely to comprehend Aristotle's distinction between our knowledge of "essences" and "accidents" if he flunked grammar in school. But those who speak with good grammar unknowingly make these distinctions every day.

Alcuin and the rise of universities

Alcuin's insistence upon crisp, correct Latin laid the foundations for the explosive developments in philosophy in the decades following the year 1100 A.D. During the early decades of the twelfth century, the new universities gave their greatest honors to philosophers who were champions in public debate before cheering fans. The honors were more than a prize for the champion of debate as a sporting event, or mere fascination with ideas and the display of genius. The pursuit of truth had a nobility that transfixed the debaters and their public audience.

Philosopher Peter Abelard (1079–1142), the champion debater of Europe, was unequaled in rhetorical powers and incisive logic. He reigned supreme in academic glory until personal scandal and heresy brought him low.

Theology soon supplanted philosophy in the seats of highest honor at the universities, and theology became known as "the queen of the sciences." St. Thomas Aquinas (1224–1142) was perhaps the greatest theologian of all time, and was the absolute master of the logic of the syllogism.

Alcuin's view on church, state, and school

Alcuin's genius was to find the best ideas of past thinkers, to learn and master their works, and to brilliantly disseminate them to students. His attitude was similar to John of Salisbury (1115–1176), who said, "We are as dwarves standing on the shoulders of giants." John thought Alcuin was one of those giants.

Alcuin, as an indispensable advisor to Charlemagne, had a respected voice in the councils of government. On matters of policy, Alcuin deferred to Eusebius of Caesaria (275–339) who said the task of Emperor Constantine was to ensure the religious well-being of his subjects. He said that divine grace provides reformatio and renovatio, but that the Christian King supplies correctio, admonitio, and emendio. The order, correction, guidance, discipline, right thinking, and right living that comes through the supervision of a wise and just prince provides the communal context in which spiritual grace is to operate and bear its fruits.

One of the means that the king has for this task of correction and instruction is education. Eusebius carried forward the idea of the Roman Stoics that learning and wisdom help to bring about an improvement of public morality. There is a link between disciplined clarity of thought by citizens and social order. American public education of the nineteenth century involved instruction in basic social morality, on the assumption that a virtuous citizenry is essential to the survival of Democracy. Freedom and order cannot subsist within a democracy unless the citizens have an education that improves the mind and the character.

The kind of supervision that Eusebius called for was too authoritarian for a modern democracy. Therefore, the task today falls all the more heavily upon the churches as moral guides and upon the schools as trainers of the mind. However, Eusebius had an insight we might profit by. He said that the intellectual, social, and moral order of a society deeply influences the ability of the church and the schools to carry out their missions. When social order is lost, the church and the schools are thrown into a state of emergency and their mission is at risk.

Saint Isidore, Archbishop of Seville (560–636), said rulers are useful if they establish norma recte vivende--meaning norms of correct living, or norms of living with rectitude. "He who does not correct, does not govern," said the saint. Interestingly, Isidore himself wrote texts on the seven liberal arts. This demonstrated his conviction that education is an indispensable means by which kings and bishops rule.

The Venerable Bede, who was inspired by Isidore, wrote that the king should ensure that there is an educated and disciplined clergy as a means of teaching and correcting the greater populace. Like Isidore, the Bede created scholarly materials for teaching the seven liberal arts. Echoing Eusebius, he noted that education is necessary because it is difficult to instruct unlearned and ignorant people in wisdom and righteousness.

Interestingly, this principle of the Bede was also a principle of the Reformation program of education. Another principle of Reformation teachers was that the education of ordinary people is necessary, so that everyone can read the Bible.

The contributions of Alcuin and his scholars

Alcuin left a significant legacy to Western leaning. Among his immense accomplishments were:

1) The renovation of the cathedral schools and the revival of education.

2) The teaching of the seven liberal arts.

3) Making Latin the lingua franca of the West.

4) The perfection of the copyist's art and the preservation of the Latin classics.

5) Hundreds of precise copies of Bible books. These new copies were made from older copies made at the time of Constantine. Alcuin's copyists ensured the survival of the New Testament. All the major Bible translations that followed depended upon the massive textual foundation they laid--until older manuscripts were discovered in the twentieth century.

6) A major revision of Saint Jerome's Vulgate bible. The new version was an important, heavily copied, and widely distributed edition of the Bible in the Latin Language. It was of high literary quality, set a standard for precise Latin, and was heavily furnished with marginal notes by leading scholars.

7) The development of the Caroline minuscule, a new book hand for copyists. Our lower-case letters were developed from the Caroline mimiscule and our uppercase letters are Roman.

8) The standardization of the liturgy.

The Republic of Letters

Petrarch (1304–1374) and Boccaccio (1313–1375) were arguably the two greatest men of letters of the fourteenth century. Both men were native to Florence, Italy; were personal friends; and had extended conversations about the future of education. They were among the few men who understood that the age in which clerics provided much of the civic leadership was coming to an end and that a new era in which Christian gentlemen would provide leadership was near at hand. True to their prophesy, the period 1400–1800 would prove to be the age of the gentleman par excellence.

Petrarch and Boccaccio corresponded during the years 1350 to 1375 to discuss their ideas for classical scholarship, including the question of how a Christian gentleman should be educated. A little group of scholars formed in Florence, centered around these two great men. Many of the scholarly and educational achievements of the early Renaissance realized the hopes and dreams of this little circle. Therefore, one might denote this twenty-five year period as the Florentine proto-Renaissance.

Petrarch was mentor to two great proteges. Boccaccio was partly a protege of Petrarch and partly his intellectual associate. Coluccio Salutati was a much younger protege of Petrarch who was groomed for political glory. Salutati (1331–1406) was the first of three great Chancellors of Florence. Leonardo Bruni (1369–1444) was the second great chancellor, and Poggio Braccioli (1380 -1459) was the third. These men were the founding fathers of the Florentine "Republic of Letters." Kenneth Clark said:

studia humanitas

Actually, the era of the three great Chancellors ran eighty-four years (1375–1459), which includes gaps when lesser men served. We might define this period as the Early Renaissance. The three premier Italian schools for Christian gentlemen were founded during this period. Without excellent institutions of education, there will be neither studia humanitas, nor "the application of free intelligence to public affairs."

Salutati, Bruni, and Braciolini were pioneer scholars of classical letters, and innovative political leaders, an exotic combination that is exceedingly rare in history. All three were serious Christians, and all at some point were directed by the pope to perform scholarly services that were vital to the church. All made important contributions to the program of the education for the Christian gentleman who was to be groomed for political and cultural leadership.

Salutati, a master of philosophy and textual criticism, was a collector of classical manuscripts, an obsession of Florentine humanists. Salutati and other humanists accumulated one of the greatest collections of classical manuscripts in the Library of San Marcos in Florence. The revolution in education would not have been possible without great libraries.

Bruni, who was arguably the greatest of the three chancellors, was an advocate of studia humanitas, or education in the classical humanities, which earned him the title of the leading Renaissance "humanist." Bruni believed human nature is malleable and can be perfected through education.

The goals of Bruni were political, intellectual, and cultural. He sought to use education to train a generation of gentleman leaders who would oversee civic improvement and cultural renewal. Bruni stressed the importance of practical experience and historical studies. He insisted that the thoughts and deeds of great men of history be taught to students.

In On the Study of Literature, Bruni enumerated the principles for a literary education. The student is to read the "authorities," presumably commentaries by literary masters on classical literature. The students should read classical texts aloud, to poetically taste the words and hear their lyrical music. Aesthetic taste must be nurtured by experiencing great literature. In order to conceptually understand the text, the student must analyze what he reads, so that he can clearly and eloquently express its meaning.

Bruni said that excellence comes from the width and breadth of knowledge. The gentleman is to be well-rounded and widely cultivated--a versatile polymath. This idea was given its fullest expression in Castiglione's The Courtier (1528). The versatility of gentlemen-leaders was a distinguishing feature of the culture of the Europe during the period 1400–1800.

Poggio Bracciolini, the third great chancellor, was a leading recoverer of classical texts and a scholar of classical antiquities. His most important discovery was a complete copy of Quintilian's Instutio Oratio, a classic on rhetoric, educational theory, and curriculum. Bracciolini personally recommended the study of Quintilian to the founding headmasters of the first two elite schools for Christian gentlemen.

Quintilian

Marcus Quintilian (35–96 A.D.) was Rome's leading teacher under emperors Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian. Quintilian educated a generation of Roman aristocrats, many of whom followed the Stoic philosophy-religion of virtue. Quintilian's reform of Roman education led to a Renaissance of intellectual culture and civic virtue in the second century A.D.

Although Quintilian's Intitutio Oratio was ostensibly about rhetoric, it is a comprehensive work that encompasses a major part of the Renaissance concept of a liberal education. The humanists of Florence had a complete manuscript in hand seven years before the first new school of the humanities was founded. This was enough time to build Quintilian's ideas into the study plans for the new schools.

In spite of Quintilian's masculine Roman-stoic quality, Renaissance education shifted away from the Latin-centered approach of Alcuin of York to a more Greek-centered emphasis. The seven liberal arts of the Renaissance were grammar, rhetoric, poetry, moral philosophy, history, music, and mathematics. In keeping with the Greek emphasis, poetry replaced logic, moral philosophy replaced geometry, and history replaced astronomy. The enlightened new education combined Roman discipline and virtue with the Greek humanities.

Schools for the Christian gentleman

Vittorino da Feltre (1378–1446) was the greatest humanist schoolmaster of the Renaissance. He was invited to come to Mantua in 1423 by the heir of the Marquess of Mantua. A beautiful palace with gardens and fountains was provided for the new school, which da Feltra called La Giancosa, meaning "The House of Joy."

The splendor of La Giancosa glowed in the imagination of every humanist with images of how agreeable a classical education can be. The arduous process of educating a gentleman can be sweetened and beautified with splendid settings and aesthetic and moral illumination. Learning and maturing can be an aspect of the pursuit of happiness. To the humanists, the good life requires the full development and use of human faculties. Therefore, education can be the glory of culture and civilization, and the crown of a life well lived.

La Giancosa was the first school to employ the humanistic educational program in all its universality and diversity. The goal was to train young men to become Christian gentlemen of the highest and best kind. Rigorous studies in Latin and Greek literature were required for every student. The school placed a heavy emphasis on history and rhetoric. Plutarch's Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans offered biographic examples of the manly virtues.

Da Feltre followed the Greek view of education that involved the training of mind and body. La Giancosa was one of Europe's first elite boarding schools and was complete with playing fields for sports. It was the precursor to schools like Eton and Harrow in England.

The students at La Giancosa were deeply aware of their master's earnest care for their welfare. His nurture of young Christians in the faith played a part in the bonding of teacher and student. Da Feltre trained future Italian rulers and scholars, who retained nostalgic memories of their splendid school days and were easily persuaded to sponsor educational programs.

The second great elite school for gentlemen was established in 1429 by Guarino da Veronese (1374–1460) at Ferrara. Da Veronese went to Constantinople to study Greek and the classics. He returned with a valuable collection of Greek manuscripts. He helped to bring Renaissance mastery of Greek to the level at which Alcuin's students mastered Latin.

Da Veronese's son, Battista da Veronese (1434–1513), was a premier Renaissance scholar in his own right. Battista wrote an account of his father's school, De Ordine Docendi et Studendi (Concerning the Order and Method to be Observed in Teaching and Reading Classical Authors, 1459), which became a indispensable text for humanist educators.

Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499) became headmaster of the Platonic Academy of Florence in 1462, the third great humanistic school. The academy was founded by Cosimo Medici (1389–1464). The Medici family, the Platonic Academy, and the library of San Marcos made Florence the center of scholarship and creative thought during the early Renaissance.

Ficino distinguished himself in philosophy, theology, and linguistics. He was a great scholar of the Greek classics, especially the works of Plato. His commentaries on Plato and Roman Neoplatonism stimulated a Platonic revival in Florence that influenced European culture for two centuries.

Ficino attempted to reconcile Plato with Christ and produce a Christian Platonism--or perhaps a Platonic Christianity. He sought to build a philosophical foundation for Christianity using Neoplatonism. Ficino's Christianized Platonism led to the concept of "platonic love" in poetry and literature.

Platonism is doctrinally problematical for the Christian, but it has a powerful stimulus on culture. For example, the artist Michelangelo was apprenticed under the Medici family in Florence, where he absorbed Ficino's Neoplatonism. Michelangelo's art and poetry was powerfully influenced by Christian Neoplantonism.

As one of the most religious of the Renaissance humanists, Ficino wrote Liber de Christiana Religione (Book on the Christian Religion). Ficino said that the highest form of human love and communion is based upon the soul's love of God.

The limitations of Renaissance elitism

One reason why the Italian Renaissance did not last long by historical standards was that it was built on too narrow a base. Only a minuscule percentage of boys could attend the elite schools. There was too wide a gap in knowledge, intellect, and spirit between the brilliantly educated gentleman and the butcher and the baker.

In contrast, the Reformation program of education had an enduring influence for five centuries because it brought literacy to the child of every church member. American public education of the nineteenth century, which was built upon the foundations laid by the Reformation program, was offered to every young citizen.

The decisive influence of a few

Twenty-five years of discussion between Petrarch, Boccaccio, and their small circle inspired the three great chancellors who founded of the Republic of Letters at Florence and set the agenda for a new kind of school. Boccaccio's Decameron and Castiglione's The Courtier were essentially the record of brilliant discussions of small circles of intelligent men and women. The Decameron was the prologue to the Italian Renaissance, and The Courtier was the magnificent closing act of the Renaissance as the curtains were coming down. The French Enlightenment was built upon the discussions of an incredibly small circle of brilliant individuals. In each case, intelligent conversation of a small circle of intelligent people turned the cultural tide of history.

If American education and culture is to be decisively renovated, it must begin with intelligent discussions by small groups of people who are worried about the dismal condition of American education and culture. My two essays on education are designed to facilitate such discussions.