, David hicks quotes another book that I enjoyed: The Rector of Justin: A Novel
by Louis Auchincloss. In that novel, the headmaster of a classical boys' school, Frank Prescott, thinks about his philosophy of education. Hicks says:Prescott's dream, no mere nineteenth-century show of "rugged individualism" or :muscular Christianity," embodies the teacher's ancient and perennial desire to connect the wisdom of the past with man's present and future actions: to educate the young to know what is good, to serve it above self, to reproduce it, and to recognize that in knowledge lies this responsibility. But Prescott fails. [His school] refuses to produce uniform paragons of virtue, and Auchincloss leaves his readers to ponder some disturbing questions: Is Prescott's failure inevitable-- a flaw of conception, personality, or circumstance? What does his failure teach about the devastating influence of a materialistic and democratic society on education? What is the solution to the paradox between educating for the world's fight and for the soul's salvation?
~David Hicks, Norms and Nobility: A Treatise on Education
This reminds me a movie we recently viewed: The Emperor's Club (Widescreen Edition)
. It also has no easy answers for the educator, because there is something intangible at work to secular educators: the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of students to bring change. A teacher can only fulfill his or her calling before God and pray to inspire his students.If you would like to think about the philosophy of education this summer, Gentle Reader, I recommend any or all of these resources for thoughtful consideration. Hicks' book is my favorite on the subject of classical education, but no easy read. The Auchincloss is an excellent little novel, fun if you want to ponder in a lighter way, and a good story. And The Emperor's Club is not a great movie, but a good movie with lots of food for thought.
1 comment:
This makes me doubly glad that my copy of Norms and Nobility is on its way! What a thought-provoking quote.
It (the idea that education cannot produce virtue) makes me think of something I read in Bonhoeffer, that is, that morality could not solve the problem of evil. Germany showed quite well that a rich Christian heritage of Lutheran Protestantism was powerless to combat national socialism, Hitler, and Nazism.
We need Jesus!
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