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CALL IT WHAT YOU WISH
A COMMENTARY ON 'THE LOST TOOLS
OF LEARNING"
by William C. Michael,
June 10, 2009
Classical Liberal Arts Academy
When we hear programs and schools outside of
the CLAA using the phrase "classical education", they usually mean that they're
implementing ideas found in Dorothy Sayers' essay "The Lost Tools of
Learning". The ideas of Sayers have nothing to do with
classical education as a careful reading of her essay proves.
Dorothy Sayers may have some ideas that differ from modern schools, but
they differ as much from classical ideas. Call it what you wish,
Dorothy Sayers is not an advocate of classical education.
Rather than take the lazy route and merely
pull quotes and beat up a straw man, we provide nearly*
the entire text of Sayers' essay with detailed commentary on each point. Ms. Sayers'
words are in black with our comments in red.
Part I. Sayers' Criticism of Modern
Education
Part II. Sayers' Proposed Solution
Summary
* A few
paragraphs were omitted because they had no effect on the actual message
of the essay and made the reading tiresome. The places where the
omissions were made are marked.
THE LOST TOOLS OF LEARNING
by Dorothy Sayers (1947)
Part I.
Sayer's Criticism of Modern Education
 That I, whose experience of teaching is extremely limited, should
presume to discuss education is a matter, surely, that calls for no
apology. It is a kind of behavior to which the present climate of
opinion is wholly favorable. Bishops air their opinions about economics;
biologists, about metaphysics; inorganic chemists, about theology; the
most irrelevant people are appointed to highly technical ministries; and
plain, blunt men write to the papers to say that Epstein and Picasso do
not know how to draw. Up to a certain point, and provided that the
criticisms are made with a reasonable modesty, theses activities are
commendable. Too much specialization is not a good thing. There is also
one excellent reason why the veriest amateur may feel entitled to have
an opinion about education. For if we are not all professional
teachers, we have all, at some time or another, been taught. Even if we
learnt nothing perhaps in particular if we learnt nothing our
contribution to the discussion may have potential value.
Sayers
claims not to be an expert in education and that she has the same authority
anyone else has, since she, like them has been taught.
The attitude at the outset is one of independence and irreverence, as
she criticizes her society's ways and then does the same: airing
her own opinions about a topic she claims to be no expert in: education.
However, it is in the highest degree improbable that the reforms I
propose will ever be carried into effect. Neither the parents, nor the
training colleges, nor the examination boards, nor the board of
governors, nor the ministries of education would countenance them for a
moment. For they amount to this: that if we are to produce a society of
educated people, fitted to preserve their intellectual freedom amid the
complex pressures of our modern society, we must turn back the wheel of
progress some four or five hundred years, to the point at which
education began to lose sight of its true object, towards the end of the
Middle Ages.
Sayers
assumes her ideas are not to be implemented. This is a serious admission
because one would be far more cautious in suggesting a plan that
might be implemented. Obviously, she could have not considered
that these ideas just might be accepted as an actual plan for education.
She was wrong as the modern home school scene proves.
Before you dismiss me with the appropriate phrase reactionary, romantic,
mediaevalist, laudator temporis acti, or whatever tag comes first
to hand, I will ask you to consider one or two miscellaneous questions
that hang about at the back, perhaps, of all our minds, and occasionally
pop out to worry us.
When we think about the remarkably early age at which the young men went
up to the university in, let us say, Tudor times, and thereafter were
held fit to assume responsibility for the conduct of their own affairs,
are we altogether comfortable about that artificial prolongation of
intellectual childhood and adolescence into the years of physical
maturity which is so marked in our own day? To postpone the acceptance
of responsibility to a late date brings with it a number of
psychological complications which, while they may interest the
psychiatrist, are scarcely beneficial either to the individual or to
society. The stock argument in favor of postponing the school-leaving
age and prolonging the period of education generally is that there is
now so much more to learn than there was in the Middle Ages. This is
partially true, but not wholly. The modern boy and girl are certainly
taught more subjects but does that always mean that they actually know
more?
These are valuable
observations that few of us would not appreciate. There is no
question that (a) childishness is prolonged in modern schools and (b)
despite all the activity and resources, children seem to leave school no more
intelligent than in times past.
Has it ever struck you as odd, or unfortunate, that today, when the
proportion of literacy throughout Western Europe is higher that it has
ever been, people should have become susceptible to the influence of
advertisement and mass propaganda to an extent hitherto unheard-of and
unimagined? Do you put this down to the mere mechanical fact that the
press and the radio and so on have made propaganda much easier to
distribute over a wide area? Or do you sometimes have an uneasy
suspicion that the product might be at disentangling fact from opinion
and the proven from the plausible?
Another well received point:
Modern society (especially children) cannot distinguish fact from
fiction in today's advertising-driven media. (It's worth noting
that Sayers worked in advertising for some time, so she speaks from
experience and probably not without some guilt.)
Have you ever, in listening to a debate among adult and presumably
responsible people, been fretted by the extraordinary inability of the
average debater to speak to the question, or to meet and refute the
arguments of speakers on the other side? Or have you ever pondered upon
the extremely high incidence of irrelevant matter which crops up at
committee meetings, and upon the very great rarity of persons capable of
acting as chairmen of committees? And when you think of this, and think
that most of our public affairs are settled by debates and committees,
have you ever felt a certain sinking of the heart?
Have you ever followed a discussion in the newspapers or elsewhere and
noticed how frequently writers fail to define the terms they use? Or how
often, if one man does define his terms, another will assume in his
reply that he was using the terms in precisely the opposite sense to
that in which he has already defined them? Have you ever been faintly
troubled by the amount of slipshod syntax going about? And if so, are
you troubled because it is inelegant or because it may lead to dangerous
misunderstanding?
There is no question that
adults today cannot engage in debate comfortably or productively.
Do you ever find that young people, when they have left school, not only
forget most of what they have learnt (that is only to be expected) but
forget also, or betray that they have never really known, how to tackle
a new subject for themselves? Are you often bothered by coming across
grown-up men and women who seem unable to distinguish between a book
that is sound, scholarly, and properly documented, and one that is, to
any trained eye, very conspicuously none of these things? Or who cannot
handle a library catalogue? Or who, when faced with a book of reference,
betray a curious inability to extract from it the passages relevant to
the particular question which interests them?
"Are
you often bothered by coming across grown-up men and women who seem
unable to distinguish between a book that is sound, scholarly, and
properly documented, and one that is, to any trained eye, very
conspicuously none of these things?" This is an eerie
statement to read when we
consider that this essay has been embraced as a curriculum source
document upon which families are pinning their children's education.
We are persuaded that Sayers' essay is "very conspicuously none of these
things".
Do you often come across people for whom, all their lives, a subject
remains a subject, divided by watertight bulkheads from all other
subjects, so that they experience very great difficulty in making an
immediate mental connection between, let us say, algebra and detective
fiction, sewage disposal and the piece of salmon or, more generally,
between such spheres of knowledge as philosophy and economic, or
chemistry and art?
What is strange is that this
is true of the
schools and programs claiming to follow Sayers' model. It seems
that they all know no way of integrating subjects in a natural
way. We still find "classical" programs offering 7+ "subjects",
as hers does below.
[Several paragraphs offering
examples omitted for brevity.]
Is not the great defect of our education today a defect traceable
through all the disquieting symptoms of trouble that I have mentioned
that although we often succeed in teaching our pupils subjects, we fail
lamentably on the whole in teaching them how to think: they learn
everything, except the art of learning. It is as though we had taught a
child, mechanically and by rule of thumb, to play the Harmonious
Blacksmith upon the piano, but had never taught him the scale or how to
read music; so that, having memorized the Harmonious Blacksmith, he
still had not the faintest notion how to proceed from that to tackle the
Last Rose of Summer:. Why do I say, as though? In certain of the arts
and crafts we sometimes do precisely this requiring a child to express
himself in paint before we teach him how to handle the colors and the
brush. There is a school of thought which believes this to be the right
way to set about the job. But observe: it is not the way in which a
trained craftsman will go about to teach himself a new medium. He,
having learned by experience the best way to economize labor and take
the thing by the right end, will start off by doodling about on an old
piece of material, in order to give himself the feel of the tool.
Let us now look at the mediaeval scheme of education the syllabus of the
Schools. It does not matter, for the moment, whether it was devised for
small children or for older students, or how long people were supposed
to take over it. What matters is the light it throws upon what the men
of the Middle Ages supposed to be the object and the right order of the
educative process.
The syllabus was divided into two parts: the Trivium and
Quadrivium. The second part the Quadrivium consisted of subjects
and need not for the moment concern us. The interesting thing for us is
the composition of the Trivium, which preceeded the Quadrivium was the
preliminary discipline for it. It consisted of three parts: Grammar,
Dialectic, and Rhetoric, in that order.
Now the first thing that we notice is that two at any rate of these
subjects are not what we should call subjects at all they are only
methods of dealing with subjects. Grammar, indeed, is a subject in the
sense that it does mean definitely learning a language; at that period
it meant learning Latin. But language itself is simply the medium in
which thought is expressed. The whole of the Trivium was, in fact,
intended to teach the pupil the proper use of the tools of learning,
before he began to apply them to subjects at all. First, he learned a
language; not just how to order a meal in a foreign language, but the
structure of a language, and hence of language itself what it was, how
it was put together, and how it worked. Secondly, he learned how to use
language: how to define his terms and make accurate statements: how to
construct an argument and how to detect fallacies in argument.
Dialectic, that is to say, embraced Logic and Disputation. Thirdly, he
learned to express himself in language how to say what he had to say
elegantly and persuasively.
At the end of his course, he was required to compose a thesis upon some
theme set by his masters or chosen by himself, and afterwards, to defend
his thesis against the criticism of the faculty. By this time he would
have learned or woe betide him not merely to write an essay on paper,
but to speak audibly and intelligibly from a platform, and to use his
wits quickly when heckled. There would also be questions, cogent and
shrewd, from those who had already run the gauntlet of debate.
Everything is pretty good
through here, but we should never be impressed by criticism. It is
always easier to identify symptoms of disease than to diagnose them
truly and propose a remedy. Sayers' identification of the symptoms
is fine, but her diagnosis and proposed cure are absurd.
It is of course, quite true that bits and pieces of the mediaeval
tradition still linger, or have been revived, in the ordinary school
syllabus of today. Some knowledge of grammar is still required when
learning a foreign language perhaps I should say, is again required; for
during my own lifetime we passed through a phrase when the teaching of
declensions and conjugations was considered rather reprehensible, and it
was considered better to pick these things up as we went along. School
debating societies flourish; essays are written; the necessity for
self-expression is stressed, and perhaps even over-stressed. But these
activities are cultivated more or less in detachment, as belonging to
the special subjects in which they are pigeon-holed rather than as
forming one coherent scheme of mental training to which all subjects
stand in a subordinate relation. Grammar belongs especially to the
subject of foreign languages, and essay-writing to the subject called
English, while Dialectic has become almost entirely divorced from the
rest of the curriculum, and is frequently practiced unsystematically
and out of school hours as a separate exercise, only very loosely
related to the main business of learning. Taken by and large, the great
difference of emphasis between the two conceptions holds good: modern
education concentrates on teaching subjects, leaving the method of
thinking, arguing, and expressing one's conclusions to be picked up by
the scholar as he goes along; mediaeval education concentrated on first
forging and learning to handle the tools of learning, using whatever
subject came handy as a piece of material on which to doodle until the
use of the tool became second nature.
We will see below that
Sayers' proposed solution does nothing to remedy this problem. I would
even argue that it makes it worse, for she takes nothing out of the
modern curriculum, but proposes that we add more. Sayers
claims that the difference is not so much content as it is emphasis.
The CLAA argues that it is both the content and the emphasis that need
correction. The burden of content is what leads to the
deemphasizing of what is most important, just as an abundance of
material goods necessarily distracts one's devotion to spiritual duties.
Monks and nuns take vows of poverty for a reason.
Furthermore, before we get
to her proposal, I would argue that most of
the schools that claim to be following Sayers' ideas are still guilty of
the faults she criticized. Is not "Grammar" taught
primarily in foreign language classes (whether Latin or modern)?
Is "Writing" not still taught as a subject belonging to "English" class?
Is not Dialectic still absent from the curriculum? Though we do
not support her ideas, it seems she would be happier with the CLAA
than the programs that claim her as their guide. The CLAA teaches
an integrated Grammar, has no "English Writing" class and is the only
program that teaches Dialectic.
Subjects of some kind there must be, of course. One cannot learn the
theory of grammar without learning an actual language, or learn to argue
and orate without speaking about something in particular. The debating
subjects of the Middle Ages were drawn largely from theology, or from
the ethics and history of antiquity. Often, indeed, they became
stereotyped, especially towards the end of the period, and the
far-fetched and wire-drawn absurdities of Scholastic argument fretted
Milton and provide food for merriment even to this day. Whether they
were in themselves any more hackneyed and trivial than the usual
subjects set nowadays for essay-writing I should not like to say: we may
ourselves grow a little weary of A Day in My Holidays and all the
rest of it. But most of the merriment is misplaced, because the aim and
object of the debating thesis has by now been lost sight of.
[Paragraph omitted for
brevity.]
Scorn in plenty has been poured out upon the mediaeval passion for
hair-splitting: but when we look at the shame-less abuse made, in print
and on the platform, of controversial expressions with shifting and
ambiguous connotations, we may feel it in our hearts to wish that every
reader and hearer had been so defensively armored by his education as to
be able to cry: Distinguo. For we let our young men and
women go out unarmed, in a day when armor was never so necessary. By
teaching them all to read, we have left them at the mercy of the printed
word. By the invention of the film and the radio, we have made certain
that no aversion to reading shall secure them from the incessant battery
of words, words, words. They do not know what the words mean; they do
not know how to ward them off or blunt their edge or fling them back;
they are prey to words in their emotions instead of being the masters of
them in their intellects. We who were scandalized in 1940 when men were
sent to fight armored tanks with rifles, are not scandalized when young
men and women are sent into the world to fight massed propaganda with a
smattering of "subjects"; and when whole classes and whole nations
become hypnotized by the arts of the spellbinder, we have the impudence
to be astonished. We dole out lip-service to the importance of
education lip service and, just occasionally, a little grant of money;
we postpone the school-leaving age, and plan to build bigger and better
schools; the teachers slave conscientiously in and out of school hours;
and yet, as I believe, all this devoted effort is largely frustrated,
because we have lost the tools of learning, and in their absence can
only make a botched and piecemeal job of it.
Sayers recognizes the
important problem of rushing kids into skills whose purpose they cannot
yet understand. She says,
"Teachers
slave conscientiously in and out of school hours; and yet, as I believe,
all this devoted effort is largely frustrated, because we have lost the
tools of learning, and in their absence can only make a botched and
piecemeal job of it."
I would argue that this is now true of
home-school mothers who follow her advice just as it was true of school teachers in the
1940's. Is it nobler that mothers suffer this than teachers?
Are the 80+ page home school curriculum catalogs not evidence that a "piecemeal job"
is still being done despite it's now being called "classical"? Are
the so-called "classical" curriculum providers solving this problem or
simply re-packaging it?
What, then, are we to do? We cannot go back to the Middle Ages. That is
a cry which we have become accustomed. We cannot go back or can we?
Distinguo. I should like every term in that proposition defined.
Does "go back" mean a retrogression in time, or the revision of an
error? The first is clearly impossible per se; the second is a thing
which wise men do every day. "Cannot" does this mean that our behavior
is determined irreversibly, or merely that such an action would be very
difficult in view of the opposition it would provoke? Obviously the
twentieth century is not and cannot be the fourteenth; but if the Middle
Ages is, in this context, simply a picturesque phrase denoting a
particular educational theory, there seems to be no a priori
reason why we should not "go back" to it with modifications as we have
already "gone back", with modifications, to, let us say, the idea of
playing Shakespeare's plays as he wrote them, and not in the
"modernized" versions of Cibber and Garrick, which once seemed to be the
latest thing in theatrical progress.
Part II. Sayer's
Proposed Solution
Let us amuse ourselves by imagining that such progressive retrogression
is possible. Let us make a clean sweep of all educational authorities,
and furnish ourselves with a nice little school of boys and girls whom
we may experimentally equip for the intellectual conflict along lines
chosen by ourselves. We will endow them with exceptionally docile
parents; we will staff our school with teachers who are themselves
perfectly familiar with the aims and methods of the Trivium; we will
have our buildings and staff large enough to allow our classes to be
small enough for adequate handling; and we will postulate a Board of
Examiners willing and qualified to test the products we turn out. Thus
prepared, we will attempt to sketch out a syllabus a modern Trivium
with modifications; and we will see where we get to.
Note the: "Trivium with
modifications" distinction. This will be important below.
But first: what age shall the children be? Well, if one is to educate
them on novel lines, it will be better that they should have nothing to
unlearn; besides, one cannot begin a good thing too early, and the
Trivium is by its nature not learning, but a preparation for learning.
We will, therefore, catch em' young, re-quiring of our pupils only that
they shall be able to read, write, and cipher.
My views about child-psychology are, I admit, neither orthodox nor
enlightened. Looking back upon myself (since I am the child I know best
and the only child I can pretend to know from inside) I recognize three
states of development.
Here is where things fall
apart for Ms. Sayers. The philosophy of the Trivium (ancient) is
suddenly married and subordinated to Sayers' own opinions on child psychology (modern).
Here we find the "Trivium with modifications" distinction she made
above.
NOTE: FROM THIS POINT
ON, DOROTHY SAYERS IS NOT TALKING ABOUT THE TRUE MEDIEVAL TRIVIUM.
She is proposing a modernized program of study that borrows the
"progression" idea from the Trivium, but is re-oriented around "stages
of learning" and not specific knowledge and skills. Whereas the
Trivium consisted of three specific arts, she is now referring to
three different stages that resemble the Trivium by way of
analogy. This is
NOT classical education, but something she is inventing on the spot.
Moreover, they are not based on universal principles or broad
observations, but on her own experiences as a child.
These, in a rough-and-ready fashion, I will call the Poll-Parrot, the
Pert, and the Poetic the latter coinciding, approximately, with the
onset of puberty. The Poll-Parrot stage is the one in which learning by
heart is easy and, on the whole, pleasurable; whereas reasoning is
difficult and, on the whole, little relished. At this age, one readily
memorizes the shapes and appearances of things; one likes to recite the
number-plates of cars; one rejoices in the chanting of rhymes and the
rumble and thunder of unintelligible polysyllables; one enjoys the mere
accumulation of things. The Pert age, which follows upon this (and,
naturally, overlaps it to some extent), is characterized by
contradicting, answering back, liking to catch people out (especially
one's elders), and by the propounding of connundrums. Its nuisance-value
is extremely high. It usually sets in about the Fourth Form. The Poetic
age is popularly known as the "difficult" age. It is self-centered; it
yearns to express itself; it rather specializes in being misunderstood;
it is restless and tries to achieve independence; and, with good luck
and good guidance, it should show the beginnings of creativeness, a
reaching-out towards a synthesis of what it already knows, and a
deliberate eagerness to now and some one thing in preference to all
others. Now it seems to me that the layout of the Trivium adapts itself
with a singular appropriateness to these three ages: Grammar to the
Poll-Parrot, Dialectic to the Pert, and Rhetoric to the Poetic age.
Here we have the invention
of these three stages of learning: Poll-Parrot, Pert and
Poetic--terms coined right here by Sayers. She is not claiming to
be following the Trivium here--that was merely referred to for
illustration. This three stage theory is her own invention.
Let us begin, then, with Grammar. This, in practice, means, the grammar
of some language in particular, and it must be an inflected language.
The grammatical structure of an inflected language is far too
analytical to be tackled by any one without previous practice in
Dialectic.
[See Note 1] Moreover, the inflected languages interpret the
uninflected, whereas the uninflected are of little use in interpreting
the inflected. I will say at once, quite firmly, that the best
grounding for education is the Latin grammar. I say this, not because
Latin is traditional and mediaeval, but simply because even a
rudimentary knowledge of Latin cuts down the labor and pains of learning
almost any other subject by at least 50 percent. It is the key
to the vocabulary and structure of all of the Romance languages and to
the structure of all the Teutonic languages, as well as to the technical
vocabulary of all the sciences and to the literature of the entire
Mediterranean civilization, together with all its historical documents.
This underlined sentence makes no sense at all.
Sayers says that the Grammatical study of an inflected languages (e.g.,
Latin) is impossible until after Dialectic, then she says the best
foundation in learning is in Latin Grammar. If Dialectic belongs
to the "Pert" age and Grammar to the "Poll Parrot", how does Grammar
depend on Dialectic?
Note 1:
Donnie F. noted that there is another version of Sayers' text online
which reads differently here. In the underlined sentence above it reads,
"The grammatical structure of an uninflected language...".
This would make more sense of Sayers' words and would be a better
argument, but would add additional trouble for those studying English
Grammar in elementary school. Either way it causes trouble for
other "classical" programs.
Those whose pedantic preference for a living language persuades them to
deprive their pupils of all these advantages might substitute Russian,
whose grammar is still more primitive. Russian is, of course, helpful
with the other Slav dialects. There is something also to be said for
Classical Greek. But my own choice is Latin. Having thus pleased the
Classicists among you, I will proceed to horrify them by adding that I
do not think it either wise or necessary to cramp the ordinary pupil
upon the Procrustean bed of the Augustan Age, with its highly elaborate
and artificial verse forms and oratory. Post-classical and mediaeval
Latin, which was a living language down to the end of the Renaissance,
is easier and in some ways livelier; and a study of it helps to dispel
the widespread notion that learning and literature came to a full stop
when Christ was born and only woke up again at the Dissolution of the
Monasteries.
Here Sayers recommends
medieval Latin rather than classical, but notice that she anticipates
the disapproval of classicists in her audience. Rightly so! In this
proposal she is casting away the entire history of classical
education, which held Caesar, Cicero, Vergil and Horace to be the
masters of the Latin language. She forgets that the post-classical
and medieval Latin was learned through a course of study that focused on
the classical masters. Once again, she is blazing a new trail--one
that we have seen the harmful consequences of in many other areas.
She also is casting away the focus
of classical education, which is the cultivation of the arts of
learning. The classical masters were studied to nurture the
students' ability to speak and write well. Sayers is suggesting
that Grammar be studied for the sake of reading--which is yet another
inconsistency. Reading was not the goal of classical language
studies--speaking and writing was. Here we see the seeds of the
modern obsession with literature as an end in itself. Our aim
should not be to simply read the works of other authors but to become the authors of
our generation. The authors did not learn in the way Sayers
proposes and the classicists in the audience would have been just in their
disapproval of her unprecedented recommendations. Remember, she is
making these suggestions on her own authority, despite not having
much experience in education.
Latin should be begun as early as possible at a time when inflected
speech seems no more astonishing than any other phenomenom in an
astonishing world; and when the chanting of Amo, Amas, Amat is as
ritually agreeable to the feelings as the chanting of eeny, meeny, miney,
mo.
Here Sayers suggests blind
memorization of Grammar forms, which was never practiced by classical
schools. Students began with the rules of Grammar and learned the
forms within the context of the rules. After praising the Tudor
schools above, why would she abandon their methods? After all, the
students could be memorizing Grammar rules (which they can understand as
the CLAA proves daily), rather than forms. Children need to learn
Grammar--the art of speaking and writing well--not Latin declensions.
During this age we must, of course, exercise the mind on other things
besides Latin grammar. Observation and memory are the faculties most
lively at this period; and if we are to learn a contemporary foreign
language we should begin now, before the facial and mental muscles
become rebellious to strange intonations. Spoken French or German can be
practiced alongside the grammatical discipline of the Latin.
In English, meanwhile, verse and prose can be learned by heart, and the
pupil's memory should be stored with stories of every kind classical
myth. European legend, and so Fourth, I do not think that the classical
stories and masterpieces of ancient literature should be made the vile
bodies on which to practice the technics of Grammar that was a fault of
mediaeval education which we need not perpetuate. The stories can be
enjoyed and remembered in English, and related to their origin at a
subsequent stage. Recitation aloud should be practiced, individually or
in chorus; for we must not forget that we are laying the groundwork for
Disputation and Rhetoric.
Is anyone paying attention?
Earlier Sayers said that classical languages interpret modern languages
(which implies progression), yet now she proposes studying them
at the same time. Moreover, here she is dividing Spoken language class
from Grammatical language class and creating the multiplication of
subjects she condemned earlier. Let's attend to some logistics
here. We now have an 8-12 year old student learning: (1) Latin
Grammar, (2) Latin Vocabulary, (3) Spoken French/German along with (4) English
Prose and Poetry. She has created now four different language
classes all studied simultaneously after attacking the
compartmentalizing of subjects before.
Why? Because she has
assumed that there exists a "Poll-Parrot Stage" which recommends a
certain kind of learning. If memory is indeed strongest here, then
we must cram everything in now or risk never being able to memorize it
later when we move into the next stage and our memorizing powers wane. This is all false and
contrary in every way to classical education. The ability for
children to memorize is due to the fact that they enjoy the leisure and
routine to do so. An adult monk who lives without mental clutter
and enjoys a child-like routine can memorize far more than a child,
which proves the theory to be false. That our adult lives are too
busy and poorly prioritized does not justify the proposal of a new
theory of memory capacity in childhood. It is merely accidental,
for in medieval monasteries and among monks today, memorization was a
central part of education throughout life.
The grammar of History should consist, I think, of dates, events,
anecdotes, and personalities. A set of dates to which one can peg all
later historical knowledge is of enormous help later on in establishing
the perspective of history. It does not greatly matter which dates;
those of the Kings of England will do very nicely, provided that they
are accompanied by pictures of costumes, architecture, and other
everyday things so that the mere mention of a date calls up a strong
visual presentment of the whole period.
Here's
where the real goofiness begins: The
Grammar of History?! Now,
we've really gone over the edge if we accept this nonsense. Will
we also study the Arithmetic of Geometry or the Rhetoric of Logic?
Here, Sayers' modern psychology has completely confused the entire
curriculum into a mass of facts and figures. She goes ahead and
says, "It does not matter
which dates." What in the world can this produce? I
would argue that Sayers takes this position simply because she is not
interested in thinking through what information is necessary and in what
order. What master chef, about to teach a student to
cook, would say that the specific ingredients gathered don't matter
since they will focus on cooking and not the food itself? Anytime
she gets close to the ground and we can begin to see how impracticable
her ideas are she flies again into the clouds where anything goes.
All of this flows from her false premise that
the child is in a "stage" and must therefore gather up as many bits and
pieces of information before the "memory" stage ends.
Geography will similarly be presented in its factual aspect, with maps,
natural features, and visual presentment of customs, costumes, flora,
fauna, and so on; and I believe myself that the discredited and
old-fashioned memorizing of a few capital cities, rivers, mountain
ranges, etc., does no harm. Stamp-collecting may be encouraged.
Again, the notion is so
absurd it is painful to read: The Grammar of
Geography? To our study of (1) Latin Grammar (2) Latin
Vocabulary, (3) Spoken French/German, (4) English Poetry and Prose we
have added (5) random History memorization, and (6) random Geography
memorization.
This is classical
education? Who would be so naive to suggest that her goal is to
restore classical education?
Science, in the Poll-Parrot period, arranges itself naturally and easily
round collections the identifying and naming of specimens and, in
general, the kind of thing that used to be called "natural history, or,
still more charmingly, "natural philosophy. To know the names and
properties of things is, at this age, a satisfaction in itself; to
recognize a devil's coach-horse at sight, and assure one's foolish
elders that, in spite of its appearance, it does not sting; to be able
to pick out Cassiopeia and the Pleiades, and perhaps even to know who
Cassiopeia and Peliades were; to be aware that a whale is not a fish,
and a bat not a bird all these things give a pleasant sensation of
superiority; while to know a ring-snake from an adder or a poisonous
from an edible toadstool is a kind of knowledge that has also a
practical value.
Now, Sayers rushes into
Science hoping to treasure yet more trivia before the "Poll-Parrot Stage" ends.
Is the goal of learning to outdo one's elders in nature trivia?
Is this the remedy to the lack of skill among modern students--that they
become "smart" in things trivial?
Natural Philosophy is not
elementary information-gathering...it is Philosophy and is studied at
the highest level of the classical curriculum, after Analytics (Logic)
has been studied so that students can rightly name and classify things
according to their true definitions. Who will check to see that
the student's memory work is accurate? Perhaps that doesn't matter
since the goal is just to store up "stuff" to sort out later. This is a
plan?
What is worse is that Sayers
clearly doesn't understand the philosophical problems of modern
education. Encyclopedic learning entered the schools as a result
of the abandonment of the classical method. The "new method"
(observation & experimentation) promoted the gathering of as much
sensual information as possible and transformed the curriculum from an
efficient and simple study of seven arts into a mass of subjects and
information. Furthermore, it was the anti-Catholic spirit visible
is Francis Bacon's writing that taught men that "Knowledge is Power" and
encouraged men to trust no authority but turn every stone over for
themselves. That is a quite a different spirit from that of St.
Ignatius, who swore to believe the teaching of the Church even if it
contradicted what he could see with his own eyes. Sayers is
herself caught up in the flood rather than swimming against it.
The grammar of Mathematics begins, of course, with the multiplication
table, which, of not learnt now, will never be learnt with pleasure; and
with the recognition of the geometrical shapes and the grouping of
numbers. These exercises lead naturally to the doing of simple sums in
arithmetic. More complicated mathematical processes may, and perhaps
should be postponed, for reasons which will presently appear.
The Grammar of
Mathematics? Does she not know that the word Grammar refers to
letters (grammata in Greek)? How has she managed to turn
the word Grammar into a synonym for "Level I" and apply it across the
curriculum? Does anyone reading this believe that she is seeking
to restore classical education at this point?
So far (except, of course, for the Latin), our curriculum contains
nothing that departs very far from common practice.
Did you read that?
Sayers has produced a modern curriculum PLUS Latin.
The difference will be felt rather in the attitude of the teachers who
must look upon all these activities less as "subjects" in themselves
than as a gathering-together of material for use in the next part of the
Trivium. What that material is, is only of secondary importance; but it
is as well that anything and everything which can usefully be committed
to memory should be memorized at this period, whether it is immediately
intelligible or not.
After all of her complaining
she admits that what she has proposed is really not different at all.
She is forced to clarify that the difference is in the attitude of
the teachers. This is sounding more and more like the
Emperor's New Clothes. This is what happens when someone finds
that they can criticize but not remove faults. You've seen people
do this--they make broad and sweeping complaints but cannot give
specifics:
Mother: "You're
always selfish!"
Son: "When?"
Mother: "Like that time last month when you ate the last brownie."
Son: "That's not always selfish. It was one
time."
Mother: "It's not specific things, it's just the way you do
things."
Son: "Huh?"
In this paragraph we find the
plan
stated explicitly: we are memorizing random information that we'll
make sense of later. The
ultimate question is: Why are we not using the memory stage (if it
exists) to memorize the rules of systematic Grammar and Arithmetic
rather than for collecting unimportant trivia? The children should
be memorizing the rules that will guide their studies for the rest of
their lives as they did in the classical curriculum.
Sayers refuses to give any
guidelines or objectives for this trivia shopping spree, she pushes all
practical questions off until later...but you'll see she doesn't answer
them there.
The modern tendency is to try and force rational explanations on a
child's mind at too early an age. Intelligent questions, spontaneously
asked, should, of course, receive an immediate and rational answer; but
it is a great mistake to suppose that a child cannot readily enjoy and
remember things that are beyond his power to analyze - particularly if
those things have a strong imaginative appeal (as, for example, "Kubla
Khan"), an attractive jingle (like some of the memory rhymes for
Latin genders), or an abundance of rich, resounding polysyllables (like
the Quicumque vult).
What is strange is that
Sayers seems to imagine that she is defending the "old methods" when she
is, in fact, opposed to them at every turn. She is the one
recommending that children memorize random information because they
cannot study inflected languages until after Dialectic. The
classical schools directly oppose this whole idea of hers, yet she
pretends to speak with their applause.
This reminds me of the grammar of Theology. I shall add it to the
curriculum, because theology is the mistress-science, without which the
whole educational structure will necessarily lack its final synthesis.
Those who disagree about this will remain content to leave their pupils'
education still full of loose ends. This will matter rather less than it
might, since by the time the tools of learning have been forged the
student will be able to tackle theology for himself, and will probably
insist upon doing so and making sense of it. Still, it is as well to
have this matter also handy and ready for the reason to work upon. AT
the grammatical age, therefore, we should become acquainted with the
story of God and Man in outline, i.e. the Old and New Testaments
presented as parts of a single narrative of Creation, Rebellion, and
Redemption, and also with the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten
Commandments. At this stage, it does not matter nearly so much that
these things should be fully understood as that they should be known and
remembered.
Our
Dorothy Sayers curriculum now includes: (1) Latin Grammar, (2) Latin
Vocabulary, (3) Spoken French/German, (4) English prose & Poetry, (5)
Random History, (6) Random Geography, (7) Scientific Trivia, (8)
Mathematics and (9) Bible Stories, Prayers, the Creed, the Commandments.
Nine subjects, none of which are integrated. What exactly makes
this different from the flawed modern curriculum?
In yet
another mind-boggling statement, she refers to Theology as the
mistress-science, which means the "master" of sciences. This is why
it was studied at the end or top of the classical curriculum. It is this modern idea
that everything must be included now that undermines the order and
progression of the classical liberal arts curriculum, and Sayers can do
nothing more to undermine every part of it.
How,
practically, would such a study program be arranged and managed?
How would a teacher plan the instruction of random information--just to work on later in the
"Pert stage"? How would
mastery be assessed? What would the value of that assessment be?
If the exact content does not matter, how can the exact knowledge of it
matter? It is clear that Sayers has little experience in education
because these lecture thoughts are meaningless and impracticable.
Without any real-world accountability, she can propose anything--visits
to other planets, class trips to the middle of the earth--she dodges any
practical questions by promising they'll be resolved later...by someone
else.
Are you
seeing that this really isn't a plan for education?
It is difficult to say at what age precisely, we should pass from the
first to the second part of the Trivium. Generally speaking, the answer
is, so soon as the pupil shows himself disposed to pertness and
interminable argument. For as, in the first part, the master-faculties
are Observation and Memory, so, in the second, the master-faculty is the
Discursive Reason. In the first, the exercise to which the rest of the
material was, as it were, keyed, was the Latin grammar; in the second,
the key-exercise will be Formal Logic. It is here that our curriculum
shows its first sharp divergence from modern standards. The disrepute
into which Formal Logic has fallen is entirely unjustified; and its
neglect is the root cause of nearly all those disquieting symptoms which
we have noted in the modern intellectual constitution. Logic has been
discredited, partly because we have come to suppose that we are
conditioned almost entirely by the intuitive and the unconscious. There
is no time to argue whether this is true; I will simply observe that to
neglect the proper training of the reason is the best possible way to
make it true. Another cause for the disfavor into which Logic has fallen
is the belief that it is entirely based upon universal assumptions that
are either unprovable or tautological. This is not true. Not all
universal propositions are of this kind. But even if they were, it would
make no difference, since every syllogism whose major premise is in the
form "All A is B" can be recast in hypothetical form. Logic is the art
of arguing correctly; "If A, then B"; the method is not invalidated by
the hypothetical mature of A. Indeed, the practical utility of Formal
Logic today lies not so much in the establishment of positive
conclusions as in the prompt detection and exposure of invalid
inference.
Would we not need to
establish tests to discern the stage in which a student was working?
After all, if a students "Poll-Parrot Stage" lasted longer than
another's, would we want to do more memorizing? Sayers suggests
that when a student becomes argumentative he is no longer in the
"Poll-Parrot Stage" but has advanced to the "Pert" stage.
Here, Sayers recommends the
study of "Formal Logic". By this does she simply mean learning the
basic form of the syllogism? Does she understand that there is one
kind of reasoning used in Rhetoric and another in Philosophy? How
exactly would this study of "Formal Logic" be pursued? This is
idle talk.
Let us now quickly review our material and see how it is to be related
to Dialectic. On the Language side, we shall now have our vocabulary and
morphology at our fingertips; henceforward we can concentrate on syntax
and analysis (i.e., the logical construction of speech) and the history
of language (i.e., how we came to arrange our speech as we do in order
to convey our thoughts).
Dialectic is the study of
dialectical reasoning (i.e., Aristotle's Topics). Is this what she
refers to, or are Dialectic and Logic now synonymous? Sayers
prefers to think of Dialectic as another Stage, not a specific book as
the classicists knew it to be. Again, this is all her own invention.
In classical schools Syntax was a part of Grammar, not Dialectic!
Our Reading will proceed from narrative and lyric to essays, arguments,
and criticism, and the pupil will learn to try his hand at writing this
kind of thing. Many lessons - on whatever subject - will take the form
of debates; and the place of individual or choral recitation will be
taken by dramatic performances, with special attention to plays in which
an argument is stated in dramatic form.
Mathematics - algebra, geometry, and the more advanced kinds of
arithmetic - will now enter into the syllabus and take its place as what
it really is; not a separate "subject", but a sub-department of Logic.
It is neither more or less than the rule of the syllogism in its
particular application to number and measurement, and should be taught
as such, instead of being, for some, a dark mystery, and, for others, a
special revelation, neither illuminating nor illuminated by any other
part of knowledge.
History, aided by a simple system of ethics derived from the grammar of
theology, will provide much suitable material for discussion. Was the
behavior of this statesman justified? What was the effect of such an
enactment? What are the arguments for and against this or that form of
government? We shall thus get an introduction to constitutional history
- a subject meaningless to the young child, but of absorbing interest to
those who are prepared to argue and debate. Theology itself will furnish
material for argument about conduct and morals; and should have its
scope extended by a simplified course of dogmatic theology (i.e., the
rational structure of Christian thought), clarifying the relations
between the dogma and the ethics, and lending itself to that application
of ethical principles in particular instances which is properly called
casuitry. Geography and the Sciences will likewise provide material for
Dialectic.
Dialectic now merges with
Reading (does Latin continue or just disappear?), Writing, Debate,
Drama, Algebra, Geometry, History, Ethics, Politics, Theology, Geography
and the Sciences. While these are all separate subjects, Sayers
simply commands that they all be considered sub-departments of Logic.
Again, who teaches them? How are they to be studied?
Here, she continues to show
poor judgment. Any debate conducted according to her looseness and
lack of order would quickly break down into chaos and futility.
The students have no theory to reason with besides vague logical
concepts, which denies the use of Logic as a "tool" and will
lead only to the kind of fault-finding she herself is guilty of here.
We conclude the
essay with no solution at all--only wild opinions, contrary to all
tradition and hardly different from the system it pretends to rise
above. The reason for the random memory work was promised for
later, but not given.
SUMMARY
If we were to return to
Sayers' original mockery of her society and judge her by the questions
she asked of others, we will find her to be no different:
1. Sayers asked: "Have you ever, in listening to a debate among adult and presumably
responsible people, been fretted by the extraordinary inability of the
average debater to speak to the question, or to meet and refute the
arguments of speakers on the other side?"
Yes. I would say Ms.
Sayers is one of these debaters.
2. Sayers asked: "Have you ever pondered upon
the extremely high incidence of irrelevant matter which crops up at
committee meetings, and upon the very great rarity of persons capable of
acting as chairmen of committees?"
Yes.
Instead of remedying the problems of education by the restoration of the
medieval Trivium, we have been taught what pools our young children need
to gather information from. Why would a group assemble to hear
this lecture on education which claims to be (a) the opinions of a
non-expert and (b) unlikely to ever be taken seriously?
3. Sayers asked: "Have you ever followed a discussion in the newspapers or elsewhere and
noticed how frequently writers fail to define the terms they use? Or how
often, if one man does define his terms, another will assume in his
reply that he was using the terms in precisely the opposite sense to
that in which he has already defined them? Have you ever been faintly
troubled by the amount of slipshod syntax going about? And if so, are
you troubled because it is inelegant or because it may lead to dangerous
misunderstanding?
Yes. Like the use of
he word "Grammar" to mean "Elementary", the word "Dialectic" to mean
"General Logical Concepts" and the "Trivium" to mean a series of stages
based on age. I would have appreciated if Sayers defined any of
these terms rather than pretend that she uses them in a traditional way
in opposition to modern schools.
Yes. I am troubled
that this mess may lead to dangerous misunderstanding--a
misunderstanding I see hundreds, even thousands, of families buying into
blindly.
Unlike Sayers, the Classical
Liberal Arts Academy would pass these tests. Our program is truly
historical, consistent in its use of terms and not afraid to provide
real solutions for problems in modern education--not speaking vaguely of
them. There is no clutter or multiplication of subjects in the
CLAA. The entire curriculum is progressive and oriented toward
mastering the arts of learning. The program leads from the gateway
of Grammar to the court of Theology. Even more, we offer the
materials to study, the exams to assess mastery and practical
answers--not wild opinions.
Call it what you wish,
Dorothy Sayers' model is modern education with some Latin and Logic
tacked on. If you see her ideas in another program, you'll have a
better sense now of where they come from and what a poor foundation they
rest upon. Would you not prefer a genuinely classical education
founded upon and actually experienced by history's wisest and best men?
***
William Michael, Director
Classical Liberal Arts Academy
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