What Education Was Meant To Be

Classical education is the system of education that came from the ancient cultures of Greece and Rome. Classical education begins with a high view of mankind and originates in the ancient belief that the fundamental purpose of education is to cultivate human excellence or virtue (arete) in young people, in order to achieve full human flourishing and a life of happiness (eudaimonia).

Classical education is also the model by which history’s greatest minds were educated, and was the predominant method in the United States before the advent of compulsory public education in the 19th century. There are varying models of classical education today, but they are similar in philosophy and methodology.

In this sense, it is not new, but a return to the authoritative, traditional, and enduring liberal arts education, begun by the Greeks and Romans, developed through the medieval and Renaissance periods, and now being renewed and recovered in the 21st century.

Cultivating Virtue

Classical education is education for character, to include personal conduct, discipline, and living by a core set of virtues. Our quest for the pursuit of virtuous character is anchored in the four cardinal virtues of temperance (self-control), prudence (wisdom), fortitude (courage), and justice. We offer students enduring examples of virtue and vice to look to when asking, “How then should I live?” Great conversations are fostered in the classrooms. Virtue is exemplified by faculty and expected from the students.

A Standard of Excellence

Classical education is education for excellence. Excellence is expected in everything, from academic work to behavior throughout the school day. Excellence is expected in everything our students do; from their penmanship, to the way they wear their uniform, to the way they speak and act. Students who learn the habit of excellence are constantly striving to do their best and are prepared to be successful at whatever they do. We believe students will rise to the challenge when there is an expectation of excellence.

Civic-Mindedness

American classical education emphasizes first principles and educates for citizenship. This creates wise and virtuous students capable of engaging in the very type of civic discourse, rooted in a love of liberty, that our founders knew to be one of the cornerstones of an enduring constitutional republic. Students will read and understand both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. They will also learn to cherish America’s founding principles including unalienable rights, natural law, American constitutionalism, and the free market system.

A Long View of Life

Classical education does not denigrate or ignore the past. Instead it seeks to instill deference of the former generation in the present. Students take a long view of life, looking backward to their ancestors and forward to their posterity with an understanding that they do not know everything and that commencement is only the beginning of a lifetime of learning.

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“We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”

— Aristotle