Among the goals of the classical liberal arts curriculum is to honor our creation as human beings by using the faculties God has given us to their full potential.  Among these faculties are Reason and Language. 

In the past, Grammar was called the janua artium ("Gateway of the Arts") because without language mastery, students have no access to entire fields of learning.  We do not simply mean language for conversation or business, but language that enables us to express the full range of human thoughts, experiences and emotions.  The study of Grammar was one of the rites of passage for all Christian schoolboys and a part of the common culture of Christians for centuries.  In our day, no such educational culture is known as the books and lessons change with every teacher, every year.  There are no stable rules, no certain examples, no timeless truths among modern lessons.  This must be corrected in Christian communities.

As modern schools have been secularized and the needs of the body set above the possibilities of the mind and soul, the advanced arts are removed from school curricula, and the true value of language studies is obscured.  Schools today produce no poets, no novelists, no historians like those we see in past generations.  Not until the education received by writers like Virgil, Augustine, Dante, Shakespeare, Tennyson, Dickens, Austen and Chesterfield is restored will we see their likes rise from among our children.

The Classical Liberal Arts Academy's Grammar program course provides students with language skills necessary for the study of Logic, Rhetoric, Philosophy and Theology.  This raises the bar far beyond the normal focus of language studies and leads children to consider not only the meaning of words and phrases, but their power to be used in self-expression. 

Only in the Classical Liberal Arts Academy will you find a Grammar program that allows children to achieve a level of language mastery necessary for advanced literary and philosophical studies.  As Plato says,Youth is the time for extraordinary work. 

As you hedge round your vineyard with thorns, set barred doors over your mouth;  As you seal up your silver and gold, so  balance and weigh your words.  Take care not to slip by your tongue and fall victim to your foe waiting in ambush.          Sirach 28
 

COURSE OF STUDY

Classical Grammar requires at least three years for completion, which we break down into three courses:  Grammar I, Grammar II and Grammar III. 

Each level consists of the systematic study of classical Grammar and readings in Latin and Greek.  The Grammar rules and exercises have been employed in the instruction of Christian students for centuries and we neither add to them nor take away from them. It is important to understand that the contents of our Grammar manuals are written by scholars who were among history's masters of classical literature.  Their instructions are reliable not only in beginning but throughout the students' entire course of studies. 

Students begin reading the Latin New Testament in Grammar I, being familiar with the stories and able to concentrate on the language alone.  After making progress in the Gospel of St. John, students move on to classical literature, beginning with the letters of Cicero and progressing through the classical poets and historians.  Greek is studied in greater depth in Humanities and Rhetoric.

Language studies do not end when students complete Grammar.  Students move into Humanities and Rhetoric where, by diligent theoretical study and imitation of the greatest writers, they continue to develop their powers of communication, while imitating the best writers as they study every form of writing.

CLASSICAL VOCABULARY

We strongly recommend that Grammar students also enroll in our Classical Vocabulary course.  This course provides students with hundreds of important Latin and Greek vocabulary items, as well as English vocabulary exercises that help students understand recognize their Latin and Greek vocabulary in English words.  To learn more about this course, click here.