Robert George writes about a positive education trend.
A disturbing trend I have observed over the course of my academic career is the general decline in classical education. The slow demise of classical learning—particularly in core liberal arts fields—has hit our universities hard, damaging an entire generation’s understanding and embrace of civic thought and classical wisdom.
The 2023 decision of my home state’s flagship academic institution, West Virginia University, to join other universities around the country in jettisoning entire departments, dismantling programs, and cutting faculty in the liberal arts was distressing. Even our nation’s so-called “elite” institutions—such as Princeton University, my own academic home—have moved away from classical education. Most strikingly, Princeton’s Classics Department eliminated bedrock Latin and Greek language requirements for students majoring in classics as part of an effort to become more interdisciplinary and “inclusive.”At the same time, signs of hope are emerging—especially in the past few years.
Around the country, academic centers committed to civic thought and the cultivation of civic virtue and classical wisdom are springing up at the university level. At the secondary-education level, too, we see newfound progress. Julia Steinberg of The Free Press described the trend in secondary education as a “new wave of classical education”—schools committed to reading the great books, delving deep into the liberal arts, inculcating virtue in their students, and forming faithful citizens. Some of these secondary schools are not religiously affiliated, while others are Catholic, Evangelical, or Jewish. What they share is an abiding commitment to the pursuit of truth—considered as something good for its own sake, and not merely as a means to other ends—and classical wisdom. …
… Jefferson said that he simply stated “common sense,” and gave voice to what he described as “the harmonizing sentiments” of the American people, as expressed, for example, “in conversation, in letters, printed essays, or in the elementary books of public right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, etc.”
