Training Course for Teachers in Classical Schools

Including Homeschooling Parents and Autodidacts

This is the introductory guide (Teacher's Manual) for a seven year programme using Classical Christian Education (CCE) according to the Trivium and Quadrivium, intended, at the earliest age, for ages 14 to 21 but, given the dark times (in terms of education) that we live in, may well have to be 'taken' much later in life.

We begin at the 'Dialectic and Rhetoric' phase of the Trivium, and therefore 'Grammar School' in the Primary and Elementary years will be covered in a different series.

The reason for creating a series of Teacher's Manuals rather than curriculum materials for direct use, is that we cover three use cases:

1. Teachers in a Classical School, using the Traditional 'Lost Tools of Learning' for the Liberal Arts.

2. In home-based instruction, similarly, we cover what the Parent-Teacher needs to know about the Trivium.

3. Autodidacts interested in giving themselves a 'Classical Education' by this method, can read the Teacher's Guide and instruct themselves.

For those who want a quick start, for this introductory chapter (course), we will be reviewing Grammar -- probably English Grammar unless you happen to already have Latin, Greek, or both. Then, we will proceed to describe the Trivium (Grammar, Logic/Dialect, Rhetoric) as both subjects and methods.

If you want to skip this 'Introductory Course' and just read the materials for yourself, it is simple enough:

1. Read or Re-Read Dorothy L. Sayers' 1947 essay, _The Lost Tools of Learning_

https://classicalchristian.org/the-lost-tools-of-learning-dorothy-sayers/

2. Obtain a copy of Sister Miriam Joseph's _The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric_

This book goes into all the depth you need to complete this preparation and begin your instruction, by correctly locating how the Trivium functions within the framework of Scholastic Philosophy, in terms intelligible to those educated in the second half of the 20th century (including most parents, still, though not all now).

You may examine a copy here: https://archive.org/details/meletemataselec00unkngoog

3. Retain these links outlining Scholastic Philosophy, which will be referenced throughout the Trivium phase of the Course. They are short and easy to read, esp. the Coppens book on Moral Philosophy, so feel free to do so now.

Father Coppens:

https://www3.nd.edu/~maritain/jmc/etext/lamp.htm

https://www3.nd.edu/~maritain/jmc/etext/mp.htm

Brother Louis of Possy:

https://www3.nd.edu/~maritain/jmc/etext/cp.htm

Cited here: https://www3.nd.edu/~maritain/jmc/aristotl.htm

4. Have handy a copy of an English Handbook that *covers sentence diagramming* such as the McGraw-Hill (Diagramming at section 102)

https://ia802804.us.archive.org/14/items/mcgrawhillhandbo00shaw/mcgrawhillhandbo00shaw.pdf

More concise if you need help with English Grammar (but no diagramming - mid 1800s, Confederate school text):

https://docsouth.unc.edu/imls/smythe/smythe.html

5. You will want to have handy, for Rhetoric, Fowler's _King's English_

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_King%27s_English

## Review of Grammar and introduction to Dialectic and Rhetoric

I am assuming in this section that you have read or re-read the Sayers essay and thus know the terminology she uses, which I will use here without further explanation.

Those who remember their Early Modern European History will recall that there was an episode in Italy called 'The Rennaissance' in the 1400s (the Quattrocento in Italian, or Fifteenth century in English), followed by 'The Reformation' in the Sixteenth Century (1500s).

In England, the Reformation took place in two phases -- the 'Henrician Reformation', in which Henry VIII broke with Rome and declared himself the 'Head of the Church', confiscating Church lands and, in the 'Great Dissolution', destroying all the monasteries. He continued, however, to adhere to sort of National Catholicism, since he had previously opposed Luther's Reformation in Germany on theological grounds.

This 'Henrician Reformation' was followed by a full-on Protestant one under his son, Edward VI. The Great Dissolution had gutted the 'Medieval School system' -- which was based initially on Cathedral Schools but soon got farmed out to monastic foundations. King Edward founded the 'King Edward Grammar schools', of which there were six (still extant as well), to feed into Oxford and Cambridge.

The Great Dissolution ended the 'First Scholastic' by destroying its educational system, though it lingered on at Oxford and Cambridge (the Great Dissolution almost destroyed the Public schools like Eton and Harrow as well as the monastic institutions, but pulled back at the last moment).

At this point, the Second Scholastic emerged, with Scholasticism now broken into two factions, Catholic Scholasticism and Protestant Scholasticism, but of which continued into the 19th century (1800s).

Why does this matter to Americans, and more generally to English-Speakers in 'Former British North America' (US, Canada, and some Carribean nations)? It is because our education system dates from the 'King Edward's Schools' era and was stable in that sense during the entire 300 year period from the mid 1500s to the mid 1800s. Thus, it is the school system that the American Founding fathers knew -- and assumed would continue, since by 1800 it had been around 250 years without substantive change.

The flagship King Edward's school in London (St Paul's) had such men as Sir Thomas More and Erasmus on staff. Their work, Catholic though they both were, was to turn the Medieval emphasis on 'Divine Letters' (Scripture, 'The Divine Law' as written) to Secular studies in Greek and Latin ('Humane Letters'). This is called, in European History 'The Northern Renaissance'. The curriculum they established set the pattern in English, and later in the British Colonies in North America.

A colleague of More and Erasmus, William Lyly, wrote the dominant grammar. There are conflicting stories about whether it was the only authorised Latin Grammar in the 250-300 year period being discussed, on the British side. A summary of that question seems to be 'yes, according to the Church of England, but not ratified by the Crown'. Whether or not the 'other' grammars were illegal, it was certainly the dominant one, throughout the entire period.

Because this is a Teacher's guide, we will occasionally allude to the 'History of Pedagogy' which is important for teachers to know, but not necessarily their students while they are first learning. In any event, you can and should inspect Lyly's grammar, here in an 18th century form with English added in, the exact way a student would recite it back to the School-master:

https://books.google.com/books?id=lE9gAAAAcAAJ

We cannot revive the institutional system that created the Founding Fathers, but the educated among them, to a man, would have recognised this text and been able to make jokes about it among themselves -- jokes we fail to understand because we are not Classically Educated in the English/British tradition, like they and pretty much everyone from the mid 1500s to the end of 1700s was.

It is enough to know, for now, that as of 1776, both Protestants and Catholics, despite their religious differences, used the Trivium and the Scholastic Philosophy in their schools. Survivals beyond the mid-1800s of this tradition are rare, though Dorothy Sayers and the Inklings have one strand of it, and Sister Miriam Joseph (relating the work of the 'Third Scholastic' in English to a mid-20th century audience) another.

If you understand the above is just a hard-sell to make you go read Sister Miriam Joseph now, you would be correct. Even you Protestants.

(to be continued)