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The Christian Training of Children – Maxims and Sayings

Sister Maria Philomena, M.I.C.M. — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:29:21 +0000

Table of contents for Mother Love

Little Book of Instructions for Christian Mothers [continued]
(from Mother Love – A Manual for Christian Mothers – by Rev. Pius Franciscus, O.M.Cap., 1926)

On the Christian Training of Children

Chapter X. – Maxims and Sayings Which a Mother Might Teach Her Child.

Pithy, pregnant maxims and sayings are wise thoughts expressed tersely and strikingly. Watchwords we might call them. The Saints were partial to such little sayings. St. Francis is renowned for his “My God and my All,” St. Ignatius for his “All for the greater honor and glory of God,” and there is hardly a saint who did not have a special predilection for some particular expressive saying. It would be wise if all of us would profit by their example and also choose one or the other for our guidance. Every mother should have a storehouse of them, and should on suitable occasions quote them. The evident truth and wisdom of them cannot fail to impress the tender hearts of your little ones. These proverbs will in later life frequently occur to them, and may prove for them a source of strength in temptation as well as in the fulfillment of duty. The most valuable ones are those taken from Sacred Scripture, in particular, from the New Testament and directly from the teachings of Jesus Christ Himself. Next to these are the sayings of the Saints and, finally, proverbial sayings which are in daily vogue among the common people. Mother should be well acquainted with a number of them, and should, when occasion offers, not only quote them but also explain them.

In the following pages some few of each kind are recorded with the intention of making our mothers acquainted with a choice selection for daily use. There are no doubt better ones than those recorded and any mothers knowing such may confidently make frequent use of them; but we would earnestly warn against the use of worldly ones which though fairly expressive, are couched in vulgar or rude terms. Mothers must faithfully avoid silly, sinful and unchristian expressions which children are apt to remember much more quickly.

My Child, gain heaven and you have gained all, lose heaven and you have lost all.

If you do only what you please, can you be considered a servant of God?

We are in the world not to win money, but to win heaven.

Remember, Child, where’er thou art,
God sees into thy very heart.

Where’er you be and whate’er you do,
Remember ever: God sees you.

Do unto others as you would
That others should do unto you.

God will bless with happy days,
With store of precious good,
The child that honors and obeys
Its parents as it should.

My Child, I would rather see you dead at my feet than in mortal sin. (Words of St. Blanche, the mother of St. Louis.)

First the necessary, then the useful, and finally the pleasant.

Lying is a fatal evil,
Liars server their lord, the devil;
And no one every will believe
The child that once did dare deceive.

On Sunday rest and love to pray,
For Sunday is the Lord’s own day.

Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.

Lost innocence and wasted time are never found again.

Little strokes fell great oaks.

Constant dropping wears away the stone.

Never leave till tomorrow what you can do today.

Judge not and you shall not be judged.

Diligence is the mother of good luck.

You will never lose by doing a good turn.

No Cross, no crown.

Many words are not without sin.

Seek first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all things else will be added unto you.

Fools make feasts and wise men eat them.

A small leak will sink a great ship.

It is head for an empty bag to stand upright.

God is merciful to them who love Him.

A fat kitchen makes a lean will.

Believe no wrong if you have not see it; narrate no scandal whether you believe it or not.

Famine means unmentionable pain and sorrow, but no famine of food or drink can compare with the loss of God’s grace.

There is just one fearful thing about death — the moment after.

My life is but the weaving
Between my God and me;
I may not choose the colors—
He worketh steadily.

Full of the weaveth sorrow,
And I, in foolish pride,
Forget — He sees the upper,
And I, the under side.

If now the Cross of Chirst I bear,
I may be sure His Crown to share.

More things are wrought by prayers than this world dreams of.

‘Tis easy to sigh, but ‘tis better to pray.

So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man,
When duty whispers low, “Thou must,”
The creature says, “I can.”

The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.

Kind words are the music of the world.

There is so much bad in the best of us,
There is so much good in the worst of us,
That is hardly behooves any of us,
To rail at the faults of the rest of us.

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Philosophy – A Grounding in Reality

Sister Maria Philomena, M.I.C.M. — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 21:53:53 +0000

Our Philoso-Fur!

The Sisters are taking evening classes in Philosophy, going through Brother Francis’ Philosophia Perrenis lectures on tape with the assistance of a tutor-at-a-distance (using a speaker phone). We are almost to the end of the course on Cosmology, and there is never a lecture that doesn’t touch on something we can use in the classroom. This last week one of my students asked me about the resurrection of the bodies at the general judgment, when everyone who ever lived gets their bodies back. The question was: If someone is cremated (the morality of which was also discussed) or completely decomposed and the exact matter is no longer “free” — how do we get our bodies back? The very day that I answered that question (does anyone know the answer?), I heard Brother’s answer in our evening class. I was very glad to see that I’d answered it correctly! Rhipsime is a regular guest at our class, a regular little philoso-fur (as you can see from her choice of books!).

The Acquisition of Wisdom and the Transmission of Culture

Sister Maria Philomena, M.I.C.M. — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 21:05:48 +0000

Table of contents for Education - Necessary for Life

Toward a Deeper Understanding of the Powers of Life
As They Transcend the Material
The Acquisition of Wisdom and the Transmission of Culture

St. Ignatius (kneeling, center) and his first Jesuits

Our third level of education is the human or liberal — the training of man as man (how to think, how to act, and how to express oneself eloquently with both tongue and pen). A liberal education presupposes the earlier levels. If you can’t stay alive, you won’t be able to train your intellect. If people aren’t working together in society and providing for its needs with servile education, liberal education isn’t an option. But, once a society is established, now we can build even higher. And, to paraphrase Brother Francis, having a liberal education will make everything else you do more meaningful. Remember, the more you know, the more you can love, and the more you love, the more you serve.

In honor of Father Leonard Feeney, one of my examples is Saint Ignatius and his Company of Jesus.

Like that of Saint John Bosco, the story of Saint Ignatius’ personal education is fascinating. He was of a noble family and followed a military career. When he was laid up after the cannon ball broke his leg, he was disappointed that his sister-in-law had nothing else for him to read than the lives of Christ and the saints —so he was literate — but this reading educated him in a way that opened his soul to grace and God’s call (he had not been living the faith very well until now). In order to become a priest, he had to get a more formal scholastic education and so he went back to school. You are probably familiar with his humility, a grown man in a class of little boys, and how he worked his way up through school until he received his degree. It was while he was at the university that he met Saint Francis Xavier and gathered the rest of his first followers.

To talk about the founding of the Company, I’m going to use excerpts from The Jesuits and Education — by Father McGucken:

“His original concept [for the Company of Jesus was] of a very select body of men, limited in number . . .not to exceed sixty . . .He had not visualized a vast organization, but rather a small group of men, gifted, trained, university men, of whom St. Francis Xavier was a perfect example; men of executive ability, bound by no petty parochial cares, much less by the daily routine of the classroom, ready to fly at a moment’s notice to any part of the world at the Pope’s command, there to sit in on the councils of kings, to argue with heresiarchs, or to captivate the university centers of Europe by their learning and eloquence” (pg 6) — making sure that the Faith was integrated at highest levels of society . . . something they could only do if they were learned, holy men.

The Society developed differently, however, even during Saint Ignatius’ lifetime.

Soon he had “great numbers clamber[ing] for admission to the new Company . . . [and t]he admission of these younger men, the “scholastics,” their university training not yet complete, presented a new problem to St. Ignatius, the problem of educating them. At first they were “sent in small groups to the universities (the first one to Paris 1540), where “they lived under a superior and followed the ordinary exercises of community life, daily Mass, meditation, and the like. . . .Naturally, these young men with their fixed hours for study and their regular manner of life were a striking contrast to the university youth of the sixteenth century. Young seculars desirous of profiting by the favorable surroundings of the Jesuits asked to be taken into the Jesuit [residence hall] “college”. Occasionally courses were given by Jesuit professors to counteract the none-too-orthodox university teaching, or to supplement a regular course.” (pg 7) (*re-cap*) From here, it was only a short step to founding a separate school, in fact, only seven years after the first scholastics were sent to university of Paris, the first Jesuit college, as a school for externs (seculars) only — with Jesuits acting as professors — was established at Messina.

Eventually, the scope of Jesuit education was broadened to include what we call “secondary” education.

“[A]lmost against [St. Ignatius'] will, he and his followers came to see the power of education. This would be not [just] a cure for heresy, but a preventive of it. To save southern Germany for the Church, there was needed a genius like Peter Canisius; and even his heroic efforts were powerless to remedy all the ravages wrought by heresy and worldly prelates. But once get control of the youth, train them in right principles, impart to them at the same time an education the equal or superior of any in Europe, and the whole world is saved for the Church.” (pg 9)

And if you can’t get control of ALL youth, you start with those you have. The effectiveness of the Jesuits in the Catholic Counter Reformation for two and a half centuries can perhaps best be measured by the hatred which they inspired in the enemies of the Church — hatred that led to their suppression. If you think of the familiar English Jesuits, like Saint Edmund Campion, or if you look at the family of Saint Thomas More, I think you will immediately get a picture of the kind of full Catholic life and culture that is the result of a liberal education.

We are in the home stretch, but to show that an appreciation for liberal education is not limited to modern times . . . I would like to go back to the Middle Ages, what your average American knows as “the Dark Ages.” We move to England, where the King is Alfred the Great. It is the late 800′s, and with his wars of defense over, he is turning his attention to the welfare of his people’s souls. With the aid of the monks (mostly Benedictines), he duplicates in England — much more gently — what Charlemagne did in France during the previous century — what’s called the Carolingian Renaissance. This covers all aspects of life and learning: religion, education, law (trial by jury of 12), language, exploration and expanded trade and travel, agriculture, the useful and mechanical arts. The result of Alfred’s reign was such peace and tranquility that he could (and apparent did) hang gold bracelets some major sign posts and no man would touch them — and that if a traveler dropped a purse in the highway — he would find it untouched the next day! This is particularly impressive when you realize that prior to this, plundering and robbery by the English of their own countryside had become common place. King Alfred’s reign was one of the golden ages of England history.

Let’s just take a quick look at St. Alfred’s educational policies.

First of all, not only did he restore the destroyed monasteries, but at the advice of St. Neot founded a palace school. To run this school, the king invited scholars (monks) from Europe and Wales. King Alfred himself hadn’t learned to read until the age of 12 because of the invasions of the Danes and he always regretted this late start. So, (to paraphrase Father Butler in his Lives of the Saints for October 28, feast of St. Neot)

“Not only did the King see to his own education, spending all his free time conversing with the scholarly monks of the palace school, he also made the series of translations* for the instruction of his clergy and people, most of which survive.” (en.wikipedia.com) He himself set the example for his people of putting religion first: eight hours of the day he devoted to prayer and reading, eight hours to the administration of his kingdom, and the final eight to the needs of his body. King “Alfred stirred up all the gentlemen to bring up their sons to the study of literature, or, if they had no sons, some servants or vassals whom they should make free. He obliged every free man … [with a certain amount of land] to keep their sons at school till they were fifteen years of age. … In order to be qualified [for their rank and responsibilities], their tender hearts must be deeply impressed with the strongest and most generous sentiments of sincere piety and religion, and of true honors; . . . they must acquire the habit of reasoning well and readily, and of forming right judgments and conclusions. Their faculties must be raised and improved by study, … [and then after a foundation in the sciences, directed according to their talents]. King Alfred also exhorted the noblemen to choose among their country vassals … some youths who should appear by their parts [talents] and ardent inclinations to piety, particularly promising to be trained up to the liberal arts. … [T]his prince was solicitous that care should be taken for the education and civilizing of all [his people] by religious instructions and principles. …” [Butler’s Lives of the Saints, John Murphy & Co., 1866 – Volumes 4, October 28, page 227]

*St. Bede’s Church History, St. Gregory’s Pastoral, Orosius’ Roman History, Boetius’ De Consolatione Philosphia, St. Austin’s Soliloquies, Dialogues of St. Gregory, as well as a prose version of the fifty Psalms. A book of the poverbs of St. Alfred has come down to us, as well as the King’s crowning literary work: The Lays of Boethius. He was probably also the inspiration for the Saxon Chronicle and the Saxon Martyrology.

I already mentioned the peace and tranquility that reigned under this amazing, saintly king — and the education of himself and his people played no small role.

***

In our time, with a majority of high school students going on to college — although most of these colleges are providing, not liberal education but more advanced vocational training — higher education certainly is valued.

Brother Francis was asked by Father Feeney: what is the matter with education today? Unbeknownst to Father, Brother had been thinking about this question and so surprised him with a ready answer: An absence of Wisdom. Brother told this story many times, but I remember one time in particular. I can still remember the joy on Brother’s face — the smile with which he told me how he surprised Father!

And absence of Wisdom. Education today needs the Faith. It was this conversation, I believe, that led to Brother Francis’ Tuesday Night Philosophy class at the early Center. Philosophy is the study of wisdom, natural wisdom as a preparation for supernatural wisdom, and so it ties right back into our definition of education: what was it? (repeat definition)

It was to address the problems of modern education that the Center was founded in the first place; and it was at the Center that Father Feeney put his finger on the root of the current Crisis: yet another attempt to deny the necessity of the Faith in our time, by denying the necessity of the Church for salvation – by denying the dogma: Extra ecclesiam nulla salus — Outside the Church there is no salvation.

Just look at that pile of books!

Among Brother Francis’ notes, I found a couple of lists, enumerating the results of denying this dogma. One list has nine points, the other has fourteen — but both lists include this point: one of the results of denying the dogma is the destruction of Catholic Education. If we take that and word it positively, we get: If we are defending the dogma, we should be building Catholic Education.

How can we build Catholic education, the acquiring of Wisdom and the transmitting of culture, into our own lives now that, for most of us, the years of our formal education are past? An excellent means of continuing our education is to be part of the Saint Augustine Institute of Catholic Studies. [There is more information on the table over there.]

The history of man follows a predictable pattern of hills or waves. There is a period of growth, of effort and enthusiasm, of building, until a certain order is reached. This is maintained — or even built upon — for a time, and then people start getting lax. This begins a downhill trend until things get so bad that “somebody does something” and we begin the upward processes again.

We see this in nations, in societies, in families, in individuals. And we see it in the history of education.

Education is necessary for life; Catholic education is necessary for a Catholic life.

****

Before I close, I would like to give you two short exercises in imagination.

First, imagine yourself without any of your senses, except the sense of touch. You cannot see, you cannot hear, you cannot smell, you cannot taste. All you can do is feel. Now I, who have my senses, wish to share with you a gorgeous rose. But you cannot see it and you can not hear me describe it . . . So I take the rose and put it near your hand. What happens? You would probably prick yourself on a thorn and refuse to touch it any more, being content with a smooth pebble or a simple clover blossom that doesn’t hurt. You will not be able to appreciate much about the rose with only the sense of touch.

But suddenly you have your sense of taste! Well, taste doesn’t help much with roses, although you could taste honey made from its nectar, but you probably wouldn’t make any connection between honey and the thing that pricked you since you can’t hear.

Add your sense of smell. You can smell the marvelous scent of the rose … which might make you explore further with your sense of touch to find the velvety petals. But you are still very limited.

The appreciation of roses . . .

Now you can hear. I can tell you about the rose, give you its name, you can hear poetry about it . . . but you still can’t fully appreciate the gorgeous queen of flowers — you don’t have enough knowledge.

So: You now have sight — But only shades of gray — because you are colorblind. You can now see the petals, the beautiful intricacy of God’s creation, but when I tell you that it is red, you have no idea what I’m talking about.

At last, you can see color. The fascinating shades of gradating color in the petals . . .Now you can truly know what I mean when I say: “Look at the beautiful rose!”

What the senses do for the body in acquiring knowledge, education does for the intellect and will: it makes one able to appreciate all of God’s creation, physical and spiritual, as well as God Himself.

***

I have one more exercise for you. I have here on the podium a little white rock. Suppose I give it to you. What is your reaction?

What a nice white rock — just like hundreds of others out in the driveway. Thank you! And you toss it outside.

It is possible that because I gave it to you, you might not toss it away, but slip it into your

Education leads to appreciation.

pocket. If you were Brother Francis, you would make a meditation on it — probably several meditations on it! — all about the stability of its nature, what its nature means for plants, animals, and men — in fact to the whole universe — what part rocks played in the life of Our Lord or the Saints . . . but most of us would just throw it away.

But now I tell you that it comes from the Holy Land — and you know what the Holy Land is. Wow, now this rock takes on some significance. From being ready to toss the rock outside, you might keep it as an almost-relic — or at least an interesting artifact.

And this respect will deepen into reverence when I explain that it came from a spot near Calvary, a spot where we know Our Lord and Our Lady had been.

You are really starting to appreciate this rock now that you are being educated about it.

But, when I tell you that this rock, this exact piece in my hand, is a piece of the Holy Sepulcher, where Our Lord Himself was laid after He was taken off the cross, your reverence turns to . . . veneration.

This rock really is from the Holy Sepulcher. Helene Armeno and her twin sister brought it back with them from their pilgrimage.

Until I educated you about this rock, this relic, you might have been ready to throw it away.

Can you see how education, leading to appreciation, can affect our outlook and decisions?

Remember, the saints became saints because they appreciated the things we have — the things that we don’t appreciate.

***

Seat of Wisdom, pray for us!

Another quote from Brother Francis (which I’ve included on the handout):

“When the condition of the world is as bad as it is, it calls for great sanctity to meet the challenge. Mediocrity is not for our time.”

Sanctity is union with God, union with God is measured by charity, charity is fed by knowledge . . . and knowledge is gained by education.

I have shown you different scenes from the past that demonstrate how Catholic education played a vital role in teaching, living, and spreading the Faith.

How will future historians describe our time — so troubled and muddied?

What difference will Catholic education make for us now?

Our Crusade was founded by educated men and women — with such courage — what will the future have to say about OUR response in this critical time?

Thank you.

*******************************************

Bibliography (partial):

Pioneer Priests of North America, 1642-1710, by the Rev. T. J. Campbell, S.J., Fordham University Press, 1908.

The Jesuits and Education, The Society’s Teaching Principles and Practice, Especially in Secondary Education in the United States, by William, J. McGucken, S.J., Ph.D., The Bruce Publishing Company, 1932. (pp. 6-9)

The Biographical Memoirs of Saint John Bosco, by Giovanni Battista Lemoyne, S.D.B., An American Edition Translated from the Original Italian, Diego Borgatello, S.D.B., Editor-in-chief, Volume IV, 1850-1853, Salesiana Publishers, Inc., 1967. (pp. 204-207)

The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints; by the Rev. Alban Butler, John Murphy & Co., 1866. Volume IV, pp. 222-229.

Saint Angela of the Ursulines, Mother Francis d’Assisi, O.S.U., The Bruce Publishing Company, 1952.

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Auriesville Pilgrimage 2009

Sister Maria Philomena, M.I.C.M. — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 20:38:55 +0000

Immaculate Heart of Mary Brigade in front of the Shrine of the Eight North American Martyrs, Auriesville, NY.

At the end of September every year, the older students have a chance to go on the seventy-two mile Pilgrimage for Restoration. It is a wonderfully painful walking retreat — with amazing spiritual results!

Lining up to get the banners blessed at the beginning of the pilgrimage, Lake George (Lake of the Blessed Sacrament), NY.

Part of Saint Joseph's Brigade

Brother Andre, Chief of Brigadiers

Friday evening Benediction at Blessed Kateri's shrine in Fonda, NY. The celebrant is Canon Andreas Hellmann of the Institute of Christ the King.

The Christian Training of Children – Rewards and Punishments

Sister Maria Philomena, M.I.C.M. — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 14:20:20 +0000

Table of contents for Mother Love

Little Book of Instructions for Christian Mothers [continued]
(from Mother Love – A Manual for Christian Mothers – by Rev. Pius Franciscus, O.M.Cap., 1926)

On the Christian Training of Children

Temper tantrums in adults (or students acting adult parts) are not pretty.

Chapter VII. - Of Rewards and Punishments.

A stubborn evil spirit that resists the ordinary means of control, is driven out according to the words of our Lord by prayer and fasting. This is also the means by which deeply-rooted defects and faults in children must be driven out. Prayer and fasting will win. Still as long as a child is young enough to be coerced, it should be compelled to pray and fast in its own behalf, though it may be good and advisable that a mother pray for such a child and offer for it many personal acts of self-denial. Prayer humbles the spirit, while fasting chastens the flesh and is the sovereign remedy against sensuality.

This two-fold means is indicated in all cases which do not yield to admonitions and remonstrances, nor to kind words or threats. The mother should consider the source of the fault–pride or sensuality–and choose the remedy accordingly. But she should remember that prayer alone, though very efficacious, will not in itself subdue a proud spirit. It is also necessary to make the child feel humiliation. This may be done by showing preference to its brothers and sisters, by being brief and curt, by disregarding its advances, by isolating it from the others, and by other such minor humiliations.

Humiliations come in many forms.

Repeated faults of sensuality are most easily conquered by denying a child a dessert or some delicacies and knick-knacks for which it may have a special predilection; in extreme cases sine favorite dish of necessary food may also be denied. In serious breaches of sensuality the child should be compelled to sleep on a hard, springless bed, or some other physical chastisement be administered with the palm of the hand or with the rattan or rod. Hardness of heart against the poor should be conquered by distributing alms to the needy through the hand of the child, avarice and greed may be corrected by depriving the child of things to which it may be much attached and by insisting upon its sharing liberally with its brothers and sisters whatever it possesses. The same means, namely distributing alms through the hands of the child and denial of the comforts and luxuries of life, may be used when the child is inclined to extravagance.

The choice of the particular punishment to be administered in the individual case must be a subject of intelligent study. A mother’s intention must never be merely the infliction of pain, but rather the amendment of the child. Severe punishments should only be resorted to, when light punishments produce no results. The punishment also which was fixed upon, should never be applied more severely than necessary, and it should always be administered with due regard for the child’s physical condition. Frequent mistakes are made in the choice and infliction of chastisement.

Drama queens require special treatment.

They are mostly administered without reflection, on the spur of the moment and thoughtlessly. On one occasion parents will punish excessively, and on another not enough, or not at all. Would to God that every mother and every father understood the value of conscientious punishment! The punishment of children has for its object the correction and amendment of faults, and if it is to produce these results, parents must consider it one of their most important obligations, the faithful fulfillment of which becomes a source of untold benefit to their boys and girls and also the occasion of infinite merits to themselves.

However, it is not sufficient to inculcate merely a fear of sin in the hearts of children by the infliction of some punishment; parents must also instil [sic] in them a love of virtue for its own sake and for the sake of the joys and rewards attached to the practice of virtue. This may be done by portraying to them the inner peace which is consequent upon the doing of good works in the service of God and of our neighbor, and by describing in some appropriate story the unrest and remorse of conscience which the sinner experiences after his misdeeds.

Sticky Fingers claims her own reward (and then loses it).

Parents should not be chary of words of commendation and encouragement when a child perseveringly strives to get rid of some fault, or when it had performed some act of self-denial, of patience, of kindness, of obedience, or of forgiveness, which perhaps required no little moral courage. Indeed, mother and father should show sincere pleasure in any act of virtue that the child might perform, and at times, even reward it with some material recompense. Still, in doing so, they should remind the child of the greater pleasure which God has in its well-doing, and how He will reward it with the eternal happiness of His own heavenly home, if it will only persevere in its efforts till the end of its days.

Valuable presents and extraordinary pleasures should rarely be given as a reward. Trifling gifts and minor enjoyments may be granted, but not too frequently, otherwise the child may learn to despise them. The child should never join in the amusements proper to adults only, neither should it be drawn into their cares and worries. The longer we can preserve in the children the simplicity and the innocence of childhood, the more shall we be able also to preserve in them the spirit of docility and obedience and their love for the simple pleasures of home-life.

To be continued . . .

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Plato and Liberal Education – Part Three

Sister Maria Philomena, M.I.C.M. — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 18:31:05 +0000

by Brother Francis Maluf, M.I.C.M.

Truth, Goodness, Beauty

Plato and Liberal Education

III. The Epochs in Plato’s Educational System

The key for Plato’s system of education is the Greek word μουσικε (sounds like “musikay”) which has survived in our modern languages in such words as “music” and “museum”. To the Greeks the term had a wider signification, including within its comprehension all the liberal arts. Greek mythology personified the liberal arts, making each one of them a goddess, a Muse, who guides, inspires, and stands as a type and an ideal. Thus we have the Muses of history, poetry, astronomy, eloquence, music, dance, tragedy, comedy, and lyric poetry. The Greeks saw beauty everywhere; whenever reality is known, it reveals rhythm and harmony, and hence education must progressively direct the mind to higher and higher aspects of beauty. The mind rises from beauty in the plane of sheer sense experience, the rhythm and harmony of sounds, shapes, and movements, to the beauty of law and order manifested in the visible world, the music of the spheres; and finally to the source of all beauty, Beauty in itself, the eternal Logos, attained by the art of dialectics. Every one of the arts and sciences is called μουσικε in this sense; and it is in this sense that we must understand the passage in the Republic where Plato makes Socrates say: “When the modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the state change with them.” Corresponding to the different planes of knowledge, we can distinguish four epochs in Plato’s educational plan. Here is a brief description of each of these epochs in their sequence.

1. The first twenty years are concerned mainly with the body and with the organic faculties. The children, as early as the age of three are introduced to mythology; this is meant to train their imagination, and to cultivate love of valor and heroic deeds. The mythology must be purged of any references to the gods which might degrade the concept of divinity in the child. The fact that mythology does not give the factual or historic truth does not matter, but it must be censored and purified from anything that might give a permanently false impression of reality. Factual truth is not so important at this stage, because it is an intellectual concern, and this stage of education is mainly concerned with the senses. After mythology, follow in sequence: gymanstics, reading and writing, poetry and music, and mathematics, until finally this epoch is rounded off in two years of military training, from the eighteenth to the twentieth year. Plato recognized the imitative tendencies of the soul, and thus he prescribes that the child must be surrounded from early childhood with beautiful objects which embody the truth he will come to understand later on in life. Hence the surroundings and environment are tremendously important in this formative period.

Brother Francis (2003)

2. The second period, extending from the year twenty to the year thirty, is concerned with the sciences of measurement and understanding. Plato mentions plane geometry, solid geometry, astronomy, and harmonies. He conceives their role as a prelude to dialects. Evidently, he envisaged a patient treatment of these topics, with sufficient time for creative reasoning on the part of the students, and meditations on fundamental truths and notions which prepare the way for philosophy. This is clear from the amount of time he allows for this kind of work, although the amount of facts, principles, experiments, in such a variety of sciences, and in such a short time, that we leave him no leisure for reflection, meditation, wonder, nor for any creative work on his own initiative. Furthermore, the language of these experimental physical sciences today, is so little related to the language and truths of philosophy, that instead of being a prelude to philosophy as Plato intended, these positive sciences stand in our day as a tremendous handicap to philosophic thought.

3. The third epoch, which occupies the years thirty to thirty-five, is concerned with the art of dialectics, “the art which elevates the mind to the contemplation of what is best in existence”. This is the crowning mark of liberal education; the mind’s eye, which so far had been trained only to recognize the reflections of Good, must now be exercised to see the Good itself, the ultimate source of truth and beauty in the universe. To Plato, philosophy was not an organized science, or a system of sciences. The task of organizing truths of philosophy was to be carried out by his disciple Aristotle. This is why Plato was mainly concerned with the art of attaining philosophical knowledge, and this art he called “dialectics”. In our days, we possess not only the fruits of Plato’s and Aristotle’s efforts towards discovery and organization of philosophical truths. We have, in addition, the results of centuries of collective effort on the part of scholastic philosophers, ending in a body of logically related sciences, full of precise notions, clear definitions, and well established truths. This philosophic tradition was accomplished through gradual steps, beginning with sense experience and common-sense knowledge. We must remember that the individual also must grow to philosophic understanding through the same way. Philosophy is a science, but philosophizing is an art. If we realize this truth sufficiently, we would not depend so exclusively in our teaching on the presentation of philosophic truths as finally and definitely formulated. The dialect method of Plato can still teach us a great deal as to how to teach philosophy effectively, and how to train the student to raise philosophic problems, to attain a realization of a philosophic truth, and to formulate and defend this truth. We can make philosophy much more of a living tradition by reviving the Platonic method, if not the Platonic science of philosophy.

Not yet philosophers!

4. The fourth and last epoch, requiring fifteen years of life and terminating at the age of fifty, is a period dedicated to real experience in the world. It is significant that Plato did not try to carry the world into the school; the only way to know what life is, is to go through it. No man is truly wise enough to be entrusted with the destiny of a state until he has seen the real world in the light of universal truth. Philosophic ideas alone may be sufficient for the purpose of philosophic contemplation, but the philosopher-king, must make practical decisions for the common good, who must have more than ideas, namely, experience. Nor would experience without the philosophic discipline and knowledge of the Good suffice, because experience can move on a plane of insignificant facts unless illuminated by the idea of the Good.

It is twenty-three centuries since Plato opened his academy and invited the youths of Athens to seek the knowledge of the Good. Since that time, something has happened on our planet; the Eternal Truth, the very Person of Good, has broken the bounds of eternity, plunged into our world, and lived as one of us. If Plato were to come to life today, how would he respond to our tidings of great joy? What would he think of our response?

The End

Plato and Liberal Education – Part Two

Sister Maria Philomena, M.I.C.M. — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 17:16:24 +0000

by Brother Francis Maluf, M.I.C.M.

A discussion with Brother Francis (Fall 2008)

Plato and Liberal Education

II. What is Liberal Education?

We are used to distinguishing between two kinds of education: liberal and vocational. But Plato, while recognizing the need of developing the practical arts and professions, reserved the term “education”, at least in its absolute unrestricted sense, to what we would call liberal education. “This is the only training which, upon our view, would be characterized as education: that other sort of training which aims at the acquisition of wealth or bodily strength, or mere cleverness apart from intelligence and justice, is mean and illiberal, and it is not worthy to be called education at all.”

From following the thoughts of Plato we get a hint as to the essence of liberal, or in his language, true education, which distinguishes it from all kinds of training for useful skill or for useless cleverness. Liberal or true education is education whose end is man himself. It is the education of man as man. When a man is trained for the perfection of what he makes, he receives vocational training, or, if we call it education, we are using the term in a forced sense; but when a man is trained and instructed for the perfection of what he is and what he does (immanently) within himself, then we may say that he is being educated in the most absolute sense of the term. We may teach a man to become a carpenter, a farmer, a physician, or an engineer. We may also teach a man to become a good man, good not only in the moral sense but primarily in the ontological sense, in the sense of perfected, developed, accomplished, in the sense that he can exercise and apply his faculties coordinately and for their natural purposes.

You are as likely to produce a well-constructed bridge by accident and without aiming at it, as you are to produce a well-educated man by a scheme of training thoroughly directed to other ends.

When men are trained vocationally we have every right to expect better products (potatoes, chairs, medical services, or efficient machines), but we have no right to expect better men unless somewhere in our educational plans and activities we aim at the proper perfections of a man. You are as likely to produce a well-constructed bridge by accident and without aiming at it, as you are to produce a well-educated man by a scheme of training thoroughly directed to other ends. It should go without saying and as part of nature’s justice, that in a society where leaders receive specialized vocational training without liberal education, no sound norms can rightly be expected and no human values are secure. When the present trend towards vocational training finally succeeds in overwhelming and washing away the last vestiges of liberal education, we can expect to live in a world of good things and bad men. We shall have, to give one good example, unintelligent and confused leaders, on the one hand, and excellent atomic bombs, on the other!

It should go without saying and as part of nature’s justice, that in a society where leaders receive specialized vocational training without liberal education, no sound norms can rightly be expected and no human values are secure.

What are, then, those human perfections which constitute the end of liberal education? Plato’s answer to this question is in a way the major theme of all his writings. If one dares put it briefly and succinctly in one sentence, this is what it would be: man’s proper perfection consists in the knowledge of the absolute good, and in response to beauty. The absolute good is the good-in-itself and the source of the goodness all other things.

Expanding sense knowledge

It is good, not mediately as being the cause of something else, but immediately, ultimately, as being the end to which all other things are means. Man seeks this end, not only by his senses but by his intellect, and can attain it only with his intellect. But man must begin with his sense experience, and gradually advance, through higher and higher aspects of the good, reflected in the world of contingent things, until he is finally ready to see the primal source of all goodness. On the way to this absolute good, beauty is the sign-post. Man, therefore, must begin by learning to respond to beauty as given to the senses and as found in the visible universe, but he must not dwell in it nor let it conceal that invisible beauty it is meant to proclaim.

Not all knowledge, therefore, is conducive to the perfection of man, and consequently, not all knowledge has value in liberal education. All the sciences of space and time, of experience and experiment, of statistics and measurements, such sciences as mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, history, economics, etc., must find their justification primarily in the practical order, in the order of what man makes outside of himself. Man’s perfection consists in a growth from the fragmentary knowledge of sense experience to a unified vision of the mind; and hence all the above mentioned experimental sciences, can figure in the course of liberal education, only in so far as they lead the way to philosophic science; they must be treated as preludes to philosophy. Their end must be the understanding of the eternal truth, first as reflected in the visible world, but finally and consummately, as it is in itself. The climax of liberal eduction consists in philosophy and theology, and all its earlier stages must be ordered to this end, both in the selection of their subject matter and in the mode of their presentation.

It is especially remarkable that Plato, who is the greatest pioneer in the field of philosophy, should recognize the necessity of revealed truth, and admit the superiority of such truth over the highest truths of human reason working on its own. Although he was handicapped by an inadequate pagan religion, he still had the genius to see that those intimate truths of the inner life of God could only be known if God Himself were to reveal them, and that once known, such truths would unquestionably be the crown of all human knowledge, and the summit of wisdom in this life. Thus in the Republic, after making Socrates describe the building of a state by the guidance of reason, Plato makes one interrogator raise the question as to whether any thing is left out. “Nothing to us,” replies Socrates, “But to Apollo, the god of Delphi, there remains the ordering of the greatest and noblest and chiefest things of all.”

“Which are they?” asks again the interrogator.

“The institution of temples and sacrifices, and the entire service of the gods, demigods, and heroes. . . These are matters of which we are ignorant ourselves, and as founders of a city we should be unwise in trusting them to any interpreter but our ancestral deity. He is the god who sits in the center on the naval of the earth, and he is the interpreter of religion to all mankind.”

To be continued . . .

Plato and Liberal Education – Part One

Sister Maria Philomena, M.I.C.M. — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 22:04:24 +0000

by Brother Francis Maluf, M.I.C.M.

[Editor's note: This article was originally published in From the Housetops in 1946. It is one of the most important summaries of our educational apostolate. The article is also included in the notes accompanying the course on Logic in Brother's lectures on Philosophia Perennis.]

Plato and Liberal Education

I. What is Education

Even the Blueberry Fiddle Festival is an education!

Plato conceived education as an art of perfecting man. According to this view, education is possible because man is a perfectible being. Nobody ever talks about perfecting God, because God is not perfectible, but perfect; nor do we ever discuss the education of angels, because, although an angel is not absolutely perfect, he is perfect within his own essence, which means that an angel receives all the perfection that is due and proper to his nature in one instantaneous act. To be sure, there are in the visible world other perfectible things besides man; but even so, the notion of education does not seem to fit the modes of perfectibility of things that are not human. A machine, for example, can be constructed and improved, while a tree attains its proper perfections by growth. Yet we would all hesitate to talk about the “education” of a plant or of a machine; and it would be just as incorrect to speak of the education of an animal. A dog, for example, may be trained; but a dog could never be educated. A dog is trained by being made subject to human purposes and notions, not even remotely entertained by the dog itself. Besides, it is trained, not to become a more perfect dog, more suitable for beastly society, but rather, in order to become more useful or more amusing to man, even if in the process it loses its intrinsic properties and gets to be, not more, but less of a dog.

Education remains, therefore, a distinctively human affair, and as such, derives its distinctiveness from man’s peculiar way of growing into his perfections. Like all living things, man possesses within himself a vital principle of growth; but in man, this principle is further determined by rationality. It is by virtue of his rationality that man can consciously entertain his purposes, choose his means, and criticize his own actions. This coincidence of growth and rationality in the same being is a privilege which renders man unique in the whole universe. Plato must have been fascinated by this marvelous blend of qualities in man, this blend of intelligence and growth, for he makes it the central theme of practically all his Dialogues. In these Dialogues we have a most vivid picture of education. In every case we find that education is a growth, a movement from confusion to clarity, from ignorance to knowledge; and also we find that in every case, the student is his own first teacher. The role of the teacher is simply to help the student in his seeking and to guide his steps. The teacher of the Dialogues, usually Socrates, is supposed to be the wise man, the man who has
already attained those perfections desired for and by the student. The teacher stands as a proximate exemplar; and, by virtue of the fact that he is supposed to see the end of the road, he can also guide and direct, by ruling out false starts and by suggesting better ones. To put it in a more characteristically Platonic simile, the teacher is a midwife, who assists at the birth of the idea in the mind of the student.

We can learn a great deal more about human nature and also about education, by observing with Plato, the way man grows into the attainment of his perfections. In contrast with other intelligent beings (God and the angels), man must accomplish his rationality through effort and discipline. Because human rationality is an accomplishment, it enjoys only a precarious existence. All our human concerns which manifest man’s rationality under any aspect, whether of order, purpose, truth, or beauty (the sciences and the arts, institutions, laws cultural values, etc.), depend for their continued existence upon the disciplined activities of men. Cathedrals do not grow like weeds, and no painting was ever made haphazardly. Every new-born baby is an absolutely new beginning, and every new generation of babies is a terrific challenge and threat to the existing civilization and to the established order of things. Indeed, our life here is an explosive situation! Man is a joining together of the nothingness and am infinity, and it is education which must span the chasm
between the two extremes. No wonder that Plato, having understood the nature if education, should view it as the highest social function, commensurate with the whole of life, and absolutely necessary for the perfection of the individual and of society. Plato had such a profound appreciation of the importance of education, that starting to describe the building of a state, he ended up, in his famous Republic, with a kind of super-school on his hands.

But there comes a point where we must remind ourselves that, after all, we are with a pagan philosopher, and should be on guard lest we let him mislead us in matters about which we ought to know better. And we do, as a matter of fact, know more than Plato about the origin and purpose of our human existence. Let us, therefore, be on the alert for any possible defects in Plato’s educational theories and practices which might flow from his pagan errors about man. Plato certainly understood that education must be of the whole man, which means of the complete composite of soul and body. He also rightly defended and emphasized the primacy of the soul in matters of education. He knew that the human soul is immortal, and at least vaguely suspected that man’s life-long educational activity finds its consummation in another life. But Plato also held some erroneous doctrines about the soul. It is a well known fact, for example, that he taught that the human soul exists prior to this life. We Christians, on the other hand, know that every individual human soul is created singularly and immediately, at the moment of conception, by a separate act of God. Here we have in this issue what might seem at first glance like a slight difference of belief: but on more careful examination, this disagreement between the Christian and pagan outlooks, reveals such a chasm as can only be explained by the tremendous intervening fact of the Incarnation.

Plato can hardly be blamed for missing the point with regard to the fact, the manner, or the purpose of creation. This kind of knowledge requires a far greater intimacy with God than was given to the pagan world. It remains to the immortal credit of Plato that he attained, by mere reason, a clear concept of the kind of reality the human soul is. He knew the soul in its spirituality and in its simplicity; he recognized its power and its dignity; he understood its activity of life in the body, and its activity of knowledge beyond the body; and he proved philosophically, that this kind of being cannot be dissolved or destroyed by natural means. But the same kind of argument led Plato also to believe that the soul could be neither made nor developed by any natural process. He, therefore, concluded that the soul is not only immortal, but also eternal, having no beginning as well as no end in time. The Christian alternative, namely, that the soul is created out of nothing by the omnipotence of God, did not present itself to Plato; for to him, God is neither infinite nor
omnipotent, and the very idea of creation out of nothing would have sounded to him as no less that a philosophic absurdity.

Dirt is our natural element!

Plato, therefore, according to his own lights, had to educate a soul which was never created, which had no beginning in time, and no definite destiny for the future. The human soul to Plato is a little sad deity which cannot die, but can lose everything else it ever attained; even to the very memory of its personal identity in previous lives. This unconscious deity is accidentally united to, or rather, imprisoned in a material body, which it must leave after a certain length of time, to be united, perhaps to another body, and to go through the same cycle all over again. This soul has already had more intimate contacts with eternal realities that it has in this life, and therefore must have been in a higher state of perfection than in its present state. Unfortunately, however, it has lost all memory of these perfections and must now make a new start at re-ascending the scales of perfection to lose them again once more. How futile the whole thing must appear when viewed from the total perspective of eternity! And yet, this is as optimistic a view of human existence as the pagan world ever attained.

These errors of Plato are at least partly responsible for some of the most obvious defects in his theory of education: depreciation of the body and of sense experience; a false theory of knowledge according to which we learn by remembering what we already knew in a previous life; and, most seriously, a relative disregard of personal values by treating the individual primarily as a function of the state. Yet, in spite of these defects, Plato remains, even today, a great master of the art of teaching, and the leading champion of the very concept of liberal education. It is in this last capacity that we are now primarily interested in Plato, and therefore, let us proceed to examine more specifically what Plato means by liberal education.

To be continued . . .