In the 1940’s the British author, Dorothy Sayers, wrote an essay titled The Lost Tools of Learning. In it she not only calls for a return to the application of the seven liberal arts of ancient education, the first three being the “Trivium” – grammar, logic, rhetoric, she also combines three stages of children’s development to the Trivium. Specifically, she matches what she calls the “Poll-parrot” stage with grammar, “Pert” with logic, and “Poetic” with rhetoric (see The Lost Tools Chart). At Logos, the founding board members were intrigued with this idea of applying a classical education in a Christian context. Doug Wilson, a founding board member explained the classical method further in his book, Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning. Logos School has been committed to implementing this form of education since the school’s inception. An excerpt from Doug Wilson’s book, Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning:

“The structure of our curriculum is traditional with a strong emphasis on “the basics.” We understand the basics to be subjects such as mathematics, history, and language studies. Not only are these subjects covered, they are covered in a particular way. For example, in history class the students will not only read their text, they will also read from primary sources. Grammar, logic, and rhetoric will be emphasized in all subjects. By grammar, we mean the fundamental rules of each subject (again, we do not limit grammar to language studies), as well as the basic data that exhibit those rules. In English, a singular noun does not take a plural verb. In logic, A does not equal not A. In history, time is linear, not cyclic. Each subject has its own grammar, which we require the students to learn. This enables the student to learn the subject from the inside out.

The logic of each subject refers to the ordered relationship of that subject’s particulars (grammar). What is the relationship between the Reformation and the colonization of America? What is the relationship between the subject and the object of a sentence? As the students learn the underlying rules or principles of a subject (grammar) along with how the particulars of that subject relate to one another (logic), they are learning to think. They are not simply memorizing fragmented pieces of knowledge.

The last emphasis is rhetoric. We want our students to be able to express clearly everything they learn. An essay in history must be written as clearly as if it were an English paper. An oral presentation in science should be as coherent as possible. It is not enough that the history or science be correct. It must also be expressed well.”

-Wilson, Douglas 1996. Understanding By-laws, Policies, and Guidelines. In Repairing the Ruins: The Classical and Christian Challenge to Modern Education, ed. Douglas J. Wilson, 199-208. Moscow, ID: Canon Press. (All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission from Canon Press.)

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“But I thought you didn’t believe in the Horn, Trumpkin,” said
Caspian. “No more I do, your Majesty. But what’s that got to do
with it? I might as well die on a wild goose chase as die here. You
are my King. I know the difference between giving advice and
taking orders. You’ve had my advice, and it’s the time for orders.”1

FOR A NUMBER OF HISTORICAL AND THEOLOGICAL REASONS, Americans have a distorted perception of how biblical authority works. We received a large measure of this distorted view in the process of our education. Consequently, identifying the problem is a matter of great importance, so that we do not pass the problem on to our children in the process of their education. Christians must seek to understand the nature of authority, and must understand this task to be a central aspect of recovering a truly biblical education.
Authority works two ways, and, unfortunately, many who set out to recover “authority” only recover one half of it – the half that lets them give orders to someone else. But it may be taken as axiomatic that someone does not have a biblical view of authority if he takes any less delight in receiving instructions as he does in giving them. Submission is required of all Christians, and of course someone who does not know how to submit is someone who is not to be entrusted with leadership.

There are some additional subtleties, however, which bear directly on the task of education. Most Christian schools operate under plural leadership – usually under the authority of a school board. Now Jesus taught that no man can serve two masters. How can this be reconciled with plural leadership? The pattern of plural, corporate leadership is certainly bibilical (it is required in the church, for example). So how is it possible for administrators, teachers, staff and students under this plural authority to keep from being pulled in different directions, and all by people equally “in charge”? Tragically, in many schools this pulling in different directions is a pulling apart.

In order to remain biblical, all forms of plural leadership must speak with a single voice. Several examples should serve to illustrate the principle. Suppose a school board is in the process of selecting a line of textbooks. Suppose further there have been vigorous and thorough debates in the board meetings about the value of this publisher versus the value of that one. The day comes, however, when the vote is taken, and the school board has made its decision. Now, the board member in the minority must not only submit to the decision (which he obviously has to do anyway), he must also support it.

This idea horrifies us. So in order to maintain our unbiblical approach to authority, we immediately rush to “worst case scenarios.” “But,” we argue, “suppose the textbooks in question are put out by Satan & Sons – ‘We make humanism palatable for Christian schools!’?”

The answer here of course is that this is a school board from which godly Christians must resign. There are times when submission to human authority does constitute disobedience to God. No human authority is absolute; no human authority legitimately commands unquestioning obedience. But if it is impossible to submit to a school board, then it is impossible to stay on that school board. If it is legitimate to stay, then it is required to submit. We cannot take a middle ground and say that this is a big enough issue to allow us to be noisy and unsubmissive and small enough to allow us to remain.

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- Wilson, Douglas J. 1996. Introduction to Antithesis in Education. In Repairing the Ruins: The Classical and Christian Challenge to Modern Education, ed. Douglas J. Wilson, 13-27. Moscow, ID: Canon Press. (All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission from Canon Press.)
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THE PHRASE “WORLDVIEW CHRISTIANITY” IS CAPABLE OF producing quite a comfortable glow, specially when used frequently in conversations with other Christians. But what does it mean?

When we undertake the task of relating the biblical faith to the world around us (which really is what Christian education is), we are confronted with at least four different relationships between our faith and the great wide world. Obviously, only one of the four relationships can be that taught by Scripture itself, but the other three have had, over the years, many well-meaning advocates within the Christian faith.

Tertullian asked, “What does Jerusalem have to do with Athens?” The pattern which produces this reaction is a familiar one. In a compromised age, many find it easy to react to the general compromise by running in what they think is the other direction. Because many of the early church fathers attempted to bring Jerusalem into subjection to Athens, Tertullian reacted by saying they had nothing to do with one another.

This reaction has been repeated countless times since. In this, modern fundamentalists show their basic affinity with the monastic movements of early Catholicism. In Scripture, worldliness is an attitude; in all such mystic pietism, worldliness is in the stuff – gotta stay away from the stuff. This is the pattern followed by all reactionary Christian academies – schools populated by refugees from condoms, knife fights, drug deals, racial tension, overtly atheistic teaching, etc. But a reaction against the world is not the same thing as a positive biblical vision for education.

For the second option, we may add our faith to the body of knowledge we acquired elsewhere – added on as sort of a condiment. Autonomous knowledge is a gray, pasty oatmeal, available to everyone, while each person’s religion of choice provides the catsup, mustard, sugar, whatever works for them in their own personal space. This is the view taken by many Christian parents of kids in the government schools. The school is supposed to teach all the “neutral subjects,” and the parents add the flavoring at home. But of course, neutrality is impossible. And, as more and more parents have been discovering recently, somebody has been lacing this neutral oatmeal, for a century or so, with the Cocaine of Rank Unbelief. The modern evangelical world has the theological acumen of a pile of wet sponges, but even we are starting to catch on that something is amiss. “Hey!” we argue.

Some Christian schools take this same basic approach by using the same fundamental curriculum as do the government schools, but then adding prayer, a Bible class, or chapel. Christian education is seen as distinct because of the addition of a new planet to the preexistent solar system of knowledge. But true Christian education is a Copernican revolution which comes to see Scripture as the sun, which sees Scripture at the center. And that sun, that light, provides the light in which we see everything else. Without that sun, we do not have objectivity; we have darkness.

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- Wilson, Douglas J. 1996. Egalitarianism: The Great Enemy. In Repairing the Ruins: The Classical and Christian Challenge to Modern Education, ed. Douglas J. Wilson, 79-87. Moscow, ID: Canon Press. (All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission from Canon Press.)
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EGALITARIANISM IS SIMPLY “EQUALISM,” AND IN ITS VARIOUS GUISES it represents the most potent ideological threat to the Christian faith in modern times. The threat is most certainly directed at genuinely Christian education.

Now of course the belief that “all men are created equal” represents a profound scriptural truth, but the distortion of this truth represents a cultural calamity of the first order. Christians of course hold to a scriptural sense of justice which has often been confused with egalitarianism. God does not show partiality (1 Pet. 1:17), and prohibits us from doing so (Jas. 2:1,4,9; 3:17). In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave or free, male or female (Gal. 3:28). But the equality of all men before the Judgment Seat of Christ, and the reflective and derivative equality of all men before our law courts, and in our worship, is very different from the “equalism” of modernity. Biblical justice requires the same standard be applied equitably to very different men. Humanistic egalitarianism insists that a multitude of standards be applied to men who are assumed by faith to be the same. The ramifications for education are immediate and obvious. Speaking of the sin of envy which drives egalitarianism, C.S. Lewis remarked, in the voice of Screwtape:

“It begins to work itself into their educational system. . . . The basic principle of the new education is to be that dunces and idlers must not be made to feel inferior to intelligent and industrious pupils. That would be “undemocratic.” These differences between the pupils – for they are obviously and nakedly individual differences – must be disguised. This can be done on various levels. At universities, examinations must be framed so that nearly all the students get good marks. . . . The bright pupil thus remains democratically fettered to his own age group throughout his school career, and a boy who would be capable of tackling Aeschylus or Dante sits listening to his coeval’s attempts to spell out A CAT SAT ON A MAT. . . . Of course, this would not follow unless all education became state education. But it will.”1

The influence of egalitarianism can be felt in our reaction to some of the words Lewis uses here – dunces, idlers, intelligent, industrious, bright, etc. Our aversion to such words in the educational realm goes far beyond a question of good manners; in fact, by now such expressions are probably illegal. But until we learn to address the egalitarian root cause of our educational crisis, we will not find our way out.

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