E. Christian Kopff was a special guest on today's . He's in Rockford for the annual Rockford Institute Summer School. Dr. Fleming was not on the program initially but joined host Paul Youngblood, Dr. Kopff, and Aaron Wolf later.
In the second hour of the program Drs. Kopff and Fleming were talking about the importance of the classics and of the Latin and Greek languages.
A caller asked about the Great Books
Dr. Fleming - Dr. Kopff mentioned Mortimer Adler, and the two classicists mentioned some Great Books schools, St. John's College and TAC. Dr. Fleming had one criticism to make of the curriculum at TAC - he thought 2 years of Latin was insufficient, and that they should bere 4 years of Latin plus 4 years of Greek.
I'd agree, or advocate this sort of preparation at the "secondary" level, along with the trivium/quadrivium. I wish I could be paid to study Greek and Latin. Sarge is off in Rome studying Latin in a 4-week intensive course. While I still have some affinity with the Chinese classics, they don't are not equal to the Western classsics or to the Christian theological and philosophical traditions. (Editing a book on the history of Chinese philosophy just makes this clear to me once again.) Besides, most Chinese don't care, and it has very little relevance to their lives (except in so far as the classics can be used to justify their being good followers in an empire) .
It's days like this that lead me to dream about teaching in some way at a classical school. But good Uhmericans are up-to-date, and we don't need a classical education any more! We just need to be taught "science" and "math" and maybe the "humanities," along with "critical thinking skills."
Traditional conservatives should do what they can to maintain and pass their Western/Anglo-American/Catholic intellectual patrimony on to the next generation. While there may be some on the left who are interested in classical education and the like, this should be one of the things that sets traditional conservatives/communitarians apart from them.
Familiae Sancti Hieronymi is still around. I checked a while ago and their learning materials are now available in CD format. (I don't think this was true the last time I wrote a post about the organization.)
It's days like this that lead me to dream about teaching in some way at a classical school. But good Uhmericans are up-to-date, and we don't need a classical education any more! We just need to be taught "science" and "math" and maybe the "humanities," along with "critical thinking skills."
Traditional conservatives should do what they can to maintain and pass their Western/Anglo-American/Catholic intellectual patrimony on to the next generation. While there may be some on the left who are interested in classical education and the like, this should be one of the things that sets traditional conservatives/communitarians apart from them.
Familiae Sancti Hieronymi is still around. I checked a while ago and their learning materials are now available in CD format. (I don't think this was true the last time I wrote a post about the organization.)
See Dr. Koppf's Is American Unconservative?, in which he discusses Kevin Gutzman. He writes:
The importance of pre-Lockean traditions, British, Christian and Classical, has been made over and over again for generations after Hartz by scholars including P. G. A. Pocock, Bernard Bailyn, Gordon Wood, Carl Richard and many others. The importance of the Classical Tradition for the Constitution has been documented just last year by David J. Bederman, The Classical Foundations of the American ConstitutionTAC: Celebrating 40 Years with the Founders(2008). Catherine Winterer’s The Culture of Classicism: Ancient Greece and Rome in American Intellectual Life, 1780-1910
(2002) has shown that the classical tradition continued to be influential for generations after the founding.
(Dr. McArthur addresses the Students of Thomas Aquinas College)
Related:
Familiae Sancti Hieronymi Cenaculum Miamiense
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