Classical Languages: When and Why?

It seems a generally agreed-upon tenet in certain circles that teaching your children Latin (and possibly Greek as well) is a Good Idea. This fits pretty well with my own inclinations, having been a Classics major and being fairly pleased with my time studying Greek and Latin.

However being currently possessed of rather young children, one of the things I'm less sure of is when to start these languages. My own learning of Latin had a number of false starts and eventually kicked-off for real in high school where I spend a couple years working through Wheelock's Latin, and then Caesar's Gallic Wars and a bit of the Aeneid. All very good stuff, and what grasp I have of formal grammar is definitely attributable to Wheelock. (No blame to my good mother and other teachers -- it's just that I successfully paid fairly little attention to grammatical terminology up to that point since my instincts were generally sound enough to face it.)

However, one of the sources to which I attribute the limits of my mastery of these languages (other than my own failure to apply myself further) is the fact that I started studying them so late, and when I was already very much locked into thinking via English grammar and (especially) vocabulary. (I managed to think in Latin grammar pretty well, but I could never seem to see Latin words as meaning things in their own right so much as "mean this, or sometimes this" sets of translational equivalents. Well, "never" is a strong word, but in most cases my vocabulary was shallow and unnatural.)

A lot of classical education writers seem to suggest kicking off with Latin quite young, perhaps around seven or eight. I can see this as being a good idea in many ways, but I do find myself wondering a bit: where do you go from there? I imagine that it still takes a good two to four years to reach the point where you can read most classical literature with ease, but if you have an eleven-year-old who is fully equipped to read Virgil, Horace and Ovid, that still leaves you with the question of whether a eleven-year-old is well equipped to appreciate those authors.

Maybe its because I came to these authors so late, and thus associate coming to understand them with coming into intellectual adulthood, but I do sort of wonder if having solid Latin and Greek skills at too young an age simply leaves on all dressed up with no where to go. Or, perhaps more likely, in St. Augustine's situation of having been brought to the point of being able to read the classics, but being bored by them and so writing them off more or less permanently.

I fear that much of Classical literature is a rather adult taste, both artistically and intellectually, so it seems like the challenge would be to come up with readings that would make classical languages interesting and rewarding to a younger child. (I suppose one could focus more on religious texts early on. The vulgate and Koine Greek are both fairly easy examples of their language, and there's a great deal in the scriptures which is quite readable at a young age.)

Some writers don't seem too worried about this because their primary interest in Latin and Greek is expanding one's vocabulary and mastering logical/grammatical concepts. But in our case, I'd definitely like to give our children at least a good chance of enjoying real Classical literature in the original language, whether that actually becomes their specialty or merely a background cultural literacy that they bring to the rest of their lives.

Multum Non Multa

My wife sent me a link to another book about using a classical curriculum The Latin Centered Curriculum, by Andrew Campbell. One of Campbell's big points is multum non multa or "much, not many". He's concerned at the length of the reading lists that many classical curriculums suggest. He make the point (I think in some cases valid) that the curriculums that advise the reading of countless juvenile historical novels are effectively requiring that the student churn quickly through lots of not terribly deep writing.

However, he's also very down on long reading lists of "great books". For instance, he's rather shocked that one seventh grade reading lists gives students five weeks to read the Iliad while simultaneously reading "a work of theology, a study on ancient cities, the Epic of Gilgamesh, and a challenging adult novel by C. S. Lewis."

Well, I'll admit that I'd hold off on Gilgamesh (and indeed the Iliad) until high school, but at the same time I'm a bit amused at his indignation over reading a "challenging adult novel by C. S. Lewis" quickly while reading other things as well. I love C. S. Lewis' novels, but all of them can be read quickly and easily. They may be morally or intellectually challenging, but they're not challenging to read.

As it happens, though, I've been working through the Iliad at one book a day at lunch time. It's been six or seven years since I last read Homer, and I've really been enjoying it. One of my purposes, however, was also to decide how much time needed to be scheduled for reading the Iliad and the Odyssey in the High School Humanities Program. I've been finding that a slow, careful reading of one book (anywhere from 450 to 900 lines - 10 to 20 pages) of the Iliad runs me an average of 30 minutes. Still, it's dense reading, and you want to pay good attention, so I don't think you'd want a student powering through too quickly and losing detail. I'm thinking I'll recommend reading two books a day, three to four days a week, thus finishing the Iliad and Odyssey in 3-4 weeks each. This strikes me as a pretty slow, steady pace. Now, I'm talking about a ninth grader instead of a seventh grader, but I still don't know of Campbell would approve.

Three Times the Charm?

Dorothy Sayers' essay "The Lost Tools of Learning" has achieved near sola scriptura standing among a certain stripe of homeschooler, with a number of curriculums or curriculum suggestions based upon it's grammar, logic, rhetoric thrice-through structure. It's been a while since I'd read the essay (as opposed to books on how to implement the essay's suggestions) so I took a copy along on our recent family vacation and read it over to see how off-shoots fit the original.

Rereading Sayers, I found her essay refreshing, incisive and engaging. She's also, however, much vaguer in some of her recommendations than I had imagined. Although she's quite clear about the stages of grammar, logic and rhetoric (and that the general approaches of these three disciplines should be applied to all subject-matter studied) she doesn't give specific prescriptions on what should be studied in each stage at a subject level. (Indeed, part of her point is that the idea of "subjects" is unfortunate.)

This leaves me still sitting with one of my concerns about several of the "classical education" curriculums that I've looked over. The general approach seems to be to do everything three times. So for instance, you go through world history one time each at a grammar, logic and rhetoric level.

Now, repetition is often good when learning things, but I wonder if this rule of three is actually the way to go. Part of me wonders if the logic stage would lend itself well to a number of 1-3 month intensive unit studies which dug into how exactly particular events or trends came to be, and what their results were. If you've already laid down a good chronological foundation in the grade 1-4 level, you should be able to do a lot of unit studies at the grade 5-8 level (and perhaps a year of strictly American History) and then come back at the high school level to put it all together with another four year run through world history, this time focusing on primary source material.

Thinking back to my junior high years, I certainly consumed huge numbers of straight history and biography (the Landmark Books were a big favorite of mine in grades 4-6) but I also thrived on digging into analysis topics that would lend themselves well to applying logical structure to a unit study such as "Why the South lost the Civil War" or "Why the French Revolution Happened" or "How the Tsar Fell".

In Defense of Humanism

Looking at the rather slow rate of visitors here and on the main Humanities Program site, I got to thinking it was time to start trying to get up to speed on classical education and great books influenced homeschooling sites. Google and other site owners tend to agree: if you want to receive links you need to give links.

So I was reading around on a few "classical education" sites and immediately came across this on a site called Trivium Pursuit:

Is Classical Education reading Homer and Plato, or Caesar and Cicero? Many classical educators would say yes – reading such literature is an essential part of a classical education. But, does an unbridled focus upon classical – Greek and Roman – literature lead us toward Christ?

We define a Classical Education differently. We pursue a classical model and a classical method for education – namely, the Trivium – but we have only an incidental interest in the classical humanist literature. We do not want to pursue these three tools of learning – classical languages, skill in thinking, and skill in communication – so that we can really read Homer and really think like Aristotle and really speak like Demosthenes. As Christians, we want to learn languages, logic, and rhetoric so that we can really read, and think, and speak – period! We want to master these useful tools, but we do not want to use these tools as the ancient Greeks and Romans used them. They used these tools to serve everything except the true and living God. We want to use them to serve nothing but the true and living God. The Greeks and Romans took these tools and used them to pursue their own purposes. We are only reclaiming what is rightfully the inheritance of the godly, cleaning them up, and turning them back to serve our Lord. The Scriptures contain everything we need to test every word of man, and to convert what is redeemable to godly use. Before we can use anything – including classical literature – we must sift it through the critical screen of the Scriptures.

We choose to limit our meaning of "classical" to include only what is of good form and lasting value (= classical), and which conforms to a Biblical standard within a Biblical worldview (= Christian). We must carefully sift everything which is classical in the humanist sense through the critical screen of the Scriptures, and we must give whatever passes that screening a new meaning within the Biblical worldview. So, by "classical," we do not mean all culture and literature of ancient times, or of mediaeval times, or of renaissance times, or even of colonial American times. We do not want to revive some previous period of supposed glory. We are not bound to the classical humanist literature or tradition. We focus instead upon what – out of all of these cultures and times – is redeemable for Christ. We want to sort through the rubble and redeem only what we can bring into conformity to Christian order and under the rule of God’s law.

It strikes me as indicative of the overwhelming success of Sayers' essay "The Lost Tools of Learning" that even someone who lacks interest in much of what Sayers considered the purpose of education to be nonetheless is trying to craft a curriculum in tune with her summation of the scholastic approach to education.

Still, there's something very wrong with the above view, and I say this not only as an intellectual and homeschooling parent but also as a Christian.

We should read the classics, both pagan and Christian, because through reading the words that people have put down throughout the centuries we come to understand better what it is to be human. Our modern understanding of the world is scientifically advanced, but it is certainly not the last word culturally. Through coming to understand how the ancient Greeks and Romans, the Medievals and the people of the Renaissance saw the world, we come to better understand who we are as human beings and how we relate to the world around us.

Nor should this sort of humanism be off limits for Christians. If humanity is made in God's image, then through coming to understand man we come to understand God. Though the scriptures may be the divinely inspired word of God, they are certainly not the only thing worth knowing. If Christians believe that God looked on creation and saw that it was good, then knowledge of the world is never sought in vain.