Classic Response

February 01, 2007

Though the nation's educational darkness is great, there is in fact a renaissance under way. This revival bodes well for the future of freedom in America.

By now we're all familiar with the bad news in American education. Students assaulting teachers. Teachers having sex with students. High school graduates who can't read their diplomas or place the American Civil War in the correct century. If you've seen Jay Leno's "Jay Walking" segment, you get the idea.

But amid all this darkness, there are pockets of light. All across America, there's an educational renaissance under way.

In Chicago, for example, inner-city minority children at the Marva Collins Preparatory School are studying poetry and classical literature. At Providence Hall, a classical Christian school in Edmond, the second-graders can tell you about the pharaoh Menes and about Egypt's fall to Roman rule. At Ridgeview Classical School, a public charter school in Fort Collins, Colorado, first-graders are learning the history of world religions. And in classical home schools nationwide, fourth-graders are finding missing variables and conjugating Latin verbs.

All across the country, schools are popping up that are devoted to the educational content and methodology that are the foundation of Western civilization: classical education. Native Oklahoman Gene Edward Veith, co-author of Classical Education: The Movement Sweeping America, says "classical education is breaking out all over. It's hard to keep up with it. Not only new schools but new associations of classical schools have been organized."

This, of course, is good news for the students fortunate enough to receive this kind of education. They are learning to appreciate truth, goodness, and beauty. But beyond that, this educational revival can make a great difference in America's future, as it made a profound difference in our past.

A classical education is truly an education for freedom. The classics educate for the awesome responsibility of self-government. It is an education intended to make us better - better as individuals, better as citizens of a free republic.

That is how the Founders of our country viewed the legacy of Greece and Rome, which is the essence of a classical education. Whether Harvard-educated men like John Adams or self-educated like George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, the Founders of the United Sates drew upon the lessons of classical antiquity. This was a uniquely successful generation of statesmen. They declared our independence from the greatest empire of the day, won that independence on the field of battle, and then went on to establish a Constitution that still gives us liberty and prosperity more than two hundred years later. There is nothing comparable in history.

This is no accident. The Founders had been educated for freedom by the study of the classics. Greece and Rome gave them an inexhaustible storehouse of lessons, virtues to be emulated and vices to be avoided. In declaring our independence, we founded our country on the unalienable right of all men to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, invoking principles that hearken back to the Antigone of the Athenian playwright Sophocles and to the work On Moral Duties by the Roman lawyer and patriot Cicero. Our Constitution was crafted to reflect the wisdom of the Roman Republican constitution, with its balance of powers.

Above all, a classical education taught the Founders to think historically. They used the lessons of the past to make decisions in the present and to plan for the future. A classical education also taught them the moral dimension of history. History, for the Founders, was no matter of trivial pursuit. History was a stern judge, and all political decisions had moral consequences.

That remains the goal of a classical education: to teach us to learn from history and to understand that there is a universal set of moral values that have been embraced by all peoples in all times.

So take heart. Even though a recent Zogby poll found that more than 60 percent of Americans can name Homer's son on "The Simpsons" while only 21 percent can name one of Homer's epic poems, all is not lost.

"There are few causes more important, or having longer-lasting and ever-widening cultural influence, than rebuilding America's educational infrastructure and recovering the educational heritage that built Western - and American - civilization," Veith says. "This is a cause that, literally, equips the next generation, training them in the disciplines of liberty, so that they can put right so much that has gone wrong."

---

Dr. Fears Accepts OCPA Fellowship

Renowned scholar and historian J. Rufus Fears has been named the Dr. David R. and Ann Brown Distinguished Fellow for Freedom Enhancement at OCPA. Dr. Fears (Ph.D., 1971, Harvard University) is the first to receive such an appointment from the state's premier conservative think tank.

"Dr. Fears is one of the most profound minds and treasures in this state," said OCPA founder and chairman Dr. David R. Brown, who also serves as board chairman of the Washington, D.C.-based Heritage Foundation. "To add his voice to ours is a victory for our organization and our entire state."

Dr. Fears is David Ross Boyd Professor of Classics at the University of Oklahoma, where he holds the G.T. and Libby Blankenship Chair in the History of Liberty. He is a fellow of many distinguished organizations, such as the American Academy in Rome, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, and the Guggenheim Foundation.

"I have tremendous admiration for Dr. and Mrs. Brown and their effort to create a policy center that helps achieve enduring freedom," remarked Dr. Fears. "The role of OCPA in educating the public is vital to the prosperity of the state and nation, and I am proud to be associated with such a fine organization."

A 24-time award winner for outstanding teaching, Dr. Fears has three times been named "Professor of the Year" by the University of Oklahoma. In 2006 he received the Medal for Excellence in College and University Teaching from the Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence.

"Dr. Fears possesses an overwhelming talent for lecturing, and his grasp of history and the importance of freedom will bolster the work of our center," added Dr. Brown. "Dr. Fears and I believe that freedom is one of our most precious commodities and therefore needs to be guarded carefully."

Send This Article to a Friend

Your E-mail Address

Your Friend's E-mail Address(es) (Up to 5, Separate each address by a comma ','.)

Message to Recipient

< Go Back