Trivium 1
Introduction to the Rhetoric Years
The 'Rhetoric Years', in the sense of Dorothy Sayer's _Lost Tools of Learning_, are approximately ages 14 to 17, or what Americans call 'High School'. These follow the 'Grammar phase' (ages 6-9) and the 'Dialectic/Logic Phase' (ages 10-13, give or take), if the American 'Elementary School'.
The terminology is both ancient, and in its modern form a bit confused. No matter -- since everyone knows what a 'High School Diploma' and 'A 4-Year College Degree' are, and what ages of children are involved in obtaining them.
The reason for the bizarre and exact duplication of 'College' and 'High School' (even down to the sequence of the years -- Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, Senior), is that that originally they were alternatives. Either you went to a College, starting possibly at age 14, to finish learning the Trivium, or else to one of those New-Fangled English language schools, which evolved into our High School. At the time of the American Revolution, these were *just* beginning to get off the ground. A third alternative, a short '2-year college' was latter propose for a vocational, trade school course, comparable of course to *its* duplicate, a 2-year community college ending in an 'associates degree', often with vocational emphasis.
We will leave the story of how three alternatives and their continuations (Junior High School, High School, College, University) ended up stacked on one after the other in mandatory public education for a later time. What concerns us now is the Rhetoric phase of the Trivium, in the sequence of the Classical Liberal Arts.
Why begin in the middle, with Rhetoric? Partly it is because teaching Grammar and Logic, on the Sayers plan, is a matter for teaching children in elementary school or a home school. Most adult learners (and teachers!) will, I think, be impatient of relearning Grammar, Spelling, Writing Composition, and basic reasoning. Consequently, I will just do a very brief review of Grammar, for those who feel the need, then proceed to Logic and Rhetoric, following closely the order in Sister Miriam Joseph's _Trivium_.
There is also the fact that High School is well-timed to teach children the crucial mathematical sequence (typically Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry and Analytic Geometry, the Calculus). This is essential for the Enlightenment's 'Scientist pipeline' -- which creates what C.P. Snow famously called 'The Two Cultures' (in academia)[1]. One of the primary reasons for both extending the timeline of education and dropping the Classical Languages (and thus the traditional Trivium and Quadrivium among other subjects) is to accommodate the need for having as many Mathematicians and Scientists as possible to serve the military ends of the State -- to put it bluntly.
[1]:
One of the key purposes of this series of mine is to put the Mathematics (Quadrivium) back into Humanities (Trivium) part of the Liberal Arts, and to make clear that Modern Science does *not* need to be discarded just because you have a Classical Education. In fact, that properly presented, a Classical Liberal Arts education is more *efficient* at getting to Mathematics and Science, if that is your chosen career path.
Remember, the series aims to Teach the Teachers -- whether those teachers are '"actual" teachers in an elementary or high school', or more likely homeschooling parent-teachers, or simply adult autodidacts who aim to teach themselves. Notice that Sayers in her essay 'The Lost Tools of Learning', aims primarily to reform institutional education (cottage schools or Traditional parochial schools, say), and that the homeschooling version was later adapted by Douglas Wilson[1] and Wise and Bauer[2], ca. 2000. Sayers then went on to lament that
[1]:
[2]:
This 'savings' in time, and efficiency in presentation, is because when subjects are compartmentalised and given 'different faculties' or departments to teach them, each 'field' ends up with its own version of what is in fact common material needed to discuss and reason (discourse) on _any_ academic subject. So, in teaching their own tradition, each subject in fact adds unnecessary duplication in the form of 'distribution requirements', because the teachers do not coordinate among themselves, nor do they share a COMMON tradition that can be assumed.
Although this 'Rhetoric Phase' introduction to the Trivium will be paced as a four-year course, which is suitable timing for ages 14-17, adult learners may console themselves that 'older young adults' -- what we call 'college' age -- and thus older adults as well -- can routinely breeze through the 'High School' material at twice the original pace. Partly this is because they have seen a lot of the material before, if not in exactly the 'college level' form, and partly because they have learned how to learn more efficiently, and each bit of learning reinforces the other bits.
-----
## introduction to our text
[The trivium : the liberal arts of logic, grammar, and rhetoric : understanding the nature and function of language : Miriam Joseph, Sister, 1898-1982 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive](
https://archive.org/details/triviumliberalar0000miri
)
[The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric - Kindle edition by Joseph, Sister Miriam, McGlinn, Marguerite.
https://www.amazon.com/Trivium-Liberal-Logic-Grammar-Rhetoric-ebook/dp/B007XHIUJG
Wikipedia article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sister_Miriam_Joseph
Please note that Sister Miriam Joseph (Rauh)'s name is, in keeping with custom for monastics, is her given (Christian) name from her vows. Joseph is not her last name.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortimer_J._Adler
Next post will discuss this:
Fragment: Sayers then went on to lament that no school would adopt her programme.