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Climbing Parnassus: A New Apologia for Greek and Latin
Discussions of educational reform often involve windy talk of a "return to the classics," yet rarely do would-be reformers go so far as to advocate a return to education in the classical languages themselves. That is a program that strikes even the most stalwart critics of contemporary educational mediocrity as quixotic, and perhaps even undesirable.Tracy Lee Simmons readily concedes that there is little reason to hope for a widespread renascence in the teaching of Greek and Latin to our nation's schoolchildren. But in this concise and elegantly wrought brief, he argues that, whatever its immediate prospects, an education in the classical languages is of inestimable personal and cultural value. Simmons first sketches the development of educational practice in the schools of the classical and Renaissance eras. He then presents a lively narrative of the fortunes of classical learning in the modern age, including accounts of the classical tongues' influence on some of the West's most prominent writers and statesmen, including, among many others, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Thomas Arnold, Theodore Roosevelt, Evelyn Waugh, and C. S. Lewis. Simmons demonstrates the personally cultivating and intellectually liberating qualities that study of the Greek and Latin authors in their own languages has historically provided. Further, by tracing the historical trajectory of Greek and Latin education, Simmons is able to show that the classical languages have played a crucial role in the development of authentic Humanism, the foundation of the West's cultural order and America's understanding of itself as a union of citizens.In Climbing Parnassus
Simmons presents the reader not so much with a program for educational renewal as with a defense and vindication of the formative power of Greek and Latin. His persuasive witness to the unique, now all-but-forgotten advantages of study in, and of, the classical languages constitutes a bracing reminder of the genuine aims of a truly liberal education.
About the Author
Tracy Lee Simmons is a journalist who writes widely on literary and cultural matters. He holds a master's degree in the classics from Oxford.
Simmons presents the reader not so much with a program for educational renewal as with a defense and vindication of the formative power of Greek and Latin. His persuasive witness to the unique, now all-but-forgotten advantages of study in, and of, the classical languages constitutes a bracing reminder of the genuine aims of a truly liberal education.
About the Author
Tracy Lee Simmons is a journalist who writes widely on literary and cultural matters. He holds a master's degree in the classics from Oxford.
290 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2002
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 84 reviews
June 10, 2009
This is a paradigm-shifting book. I was flabbergasted by how much I really didn't understand about what true Classical Education is. Now I do understand, and although I will still continue my Neo-Classicistic methods, it will be in the light of the aims of Classical methods.
I now have the words to express what I'd been thinking all along - the tremendous difference between training and education. There are many people in our society that have degrees, but very few are truly educated. Most are just trained.
Perhaps someday I'll acquire the Classical Education I seek for myself - to be able to read the classics in their original languages and understand exactly why and how the authors thought the way they did. A renewed horizon stretches before me, tantalizing and beautiful - but no longer unreachable!
I now have the words to express what I'd been thinking all along - the tremendous difference between training and education. There are many people in our society that have degrees, but very few are truly educated. Most are just trained.
Perhaps someday I'll acquire the Classical Education I seek for myself - to be able to read the classics in their original languages and understand exactly why and how the authors thought the way they did. A renewed horizon stretches before me, tantalizing and beautiful - but no longer unreachable!
January 16, 2022
This is, I think, the best written book I've read - the prose drawing and articulate; his command of the metaphor flawless. Simmons, in the lofty sense, is an educated man. He puts forth an argument for classical education; to "civilize the mind" (p 66) by study of Latin, Greek, history, and math. It is a well argued case, though I do not wholly agree with it. Or rather, I do not want to agree with it. I suspect there are alternatives, perhaps many, but such criticism is easy and admittedly banal. Argument aside, the elegant writing itself makes a compelling case. I often return to the pages of this book, if less for the content than to only appreciate his flair with words, to "change the shape of the mind for the better. It stays with us." (p 184)
January 13, 2011
This book was really hard for me to read through. I struggled with the authors knowledge of Classical Education and its history. But at the same time there was a part of me that wanted to know more and I feel pretty dumb for having gone through the public education system. The way our Founding Fathers of this nation were raised and learned knowledge is literally extinct nowadays. I feel that our education system has a large part to do with the struggles and issues that plague our society in these days.
Do not take my word and agree; read the book yourself and see if you do not come away rethinking your own travels through your "school years" to find any meaning to it. And if you have children, you may just decide that maybe the current path our "public education" has them on, is not the right one at all.
Do not take my word and agree; read the book yourself and see if you do not come away rethinking your own travels through your "school years" to find any meaning to it. And if you have children, you may just decide that maybe the current path our "public education" has them on, is not the right one at all.
July 22, 2025
7/2025: Forget the old review; I hadn't much studied the history and philosophy of liberal education when I wrote it. I now find that Simmons's vision is almost identical to mine, and that his exaltation of ancient language and Trivial studies is the surest foundation for classical education. To focus only on "virtue" and "wonder" while neglecting content and culture, as so many classical pedagogues do, is to flirt with peril; and Simmons's audacious prescriptions are just what the doctor ordered for the recovery of a humane society. The book also doubles as an excellent brief overview of historical educational practice and ideals. How could I have ever called it "engaging but missable"?? Ah, this website can serve as a humbling mirror of our own follies once one has been writing on it past a certain number of years.
2/2023: 3.5 stars. Simmons writes very well as befits a classical man, making his elegant argumentation a joy to read. But I would not classify this among my favorite books on classical education. This is not to say that it is bad—it is, in fact, excellent on the whole—but Simmons's particular take on the Great Tradition is a bit different than what I would tend to emphasize, and I fear that it is so cold and rigorous that it could potentially scare away newcomers to the concept. He stresses rote drilling, dry memorization of facts, and a highly "intellectualized" approach in contrast with the "poetic knowledge" of David Hicks, Stratford Caldecott, and Charlotte Mason folks. We can take much from this model, which is more in accord with Sayers's (in)famous essay, and it is healthy to recognize that in order to cultivate wonder, education should start with objectively worthy things that far transcend any child's inclinations. But I favor a vision somewhere in between these approaches. Simmons is also too worshipful and misty-eyed toward the classical world. Yes, we need to know and immerse ourselves in the legacy of Greece and Rome, but this is but a figment of what classical education really is. Count me in the minority, but I think one can still receive a rich education in the spirit of the classics without mastering Greek and Latin; and, more importantly, with an understanding of Christianity as the True Myth that transcends the classics and which undergirds all proper study. Classical-ed veterans can comfortably skip all of the first half, which is both a rehash of Norms and Nobility and an engaging but missable summary of the history of classical language study in the West. The last part has most of the good stuff. Not necessarily essential, but worth a skim.
2/2023: 3.5 stars. Simmons writes very well as befits a classical man, making his elegant argumentation a joy to read. But I would not classify this among my favorite books on classical education. This is not to say that it is bad—it is, in fact, excellent on the whole—but Simmons's particular take on the Great Tradition is a bit different than what I would tend to emphasize, and I fear that it is so cold and rigorous that it could potentially scare away newcomers to the concept. He stresses rote drilling, dry memorization of facts, and a highly "intellectualized" approach in contrast with the "poetic knowledge" of David Hicks, Stratford Caldecott, and Charlotte Mason folks. We can take much from this model, which is more in accord with Sayers's (in)famous essay, and it is healthy to recognize that in order to cultivate wonder, education should start with objectively worthy things that far transcend any child's inclinations. But I favor a vision somewhere in between these approaches. Simmons is also too worshipful and misty-eyed toward the classical world. Yes, we need to know and immerse ourselves in the legacy of Greece and Rome, but this is but a figment of what classical education really is. Count me in the minority, but I think one can still receive a rich education in the spirit of the classics without mastering Greek and Latin; and, more importantly, with an understanding of Christianity as the True Myth that transcends the classics and which undergirds all proper study. Classical-ed veterans can comfortably skip all of the first half, which is both a rehash of Norms and Nobility and an engaging but missable summary of the history of classical language study in the West. The last part has most of the good stuff. Not necessarily essential, but worth a skim.
March 1, 2016
Just a few quotes from the closing pages of Climbing Parnassus should serve to illustrate how far afield of educational orthodoxy the book roams:
“Children are to be sympathized with and respected, not coddled, nor are they to be humored. Their roads aren’t always to be made smooth.”
“Good teachers will firmly resist pupil – and, even more, parental – complaints against the use of drill as ‘deadening’ or ‘uncreative.’ Neither group likely knows what it’s talking about and must not be patronized but ignored.”
“School ought to be a training ground for the intellect, not a clearinghouse for ‘skills.’”
If these statements shock your sensibilities I can only say that they were probably intended to do just that, while also adding that this is not the book for you. If, however, you found yourself nodding in agreement every so often as you read Nock’s “Theory of Education in the United States,” well, let’s just say that Simmons owes much to Nock’s ideas. The idea that people are educable to different degrees is not given voice in today’s schools and universities; in fact, when I explained the premise of this book to a faculty member who came into the library, she informed me such notions are “undemocratic” and that I should probably not read that book in public anymore.
Simmons rejects almost entirely the “cultural literacy” defense of classics; indeed, he even seems to view the Great Books program with more than a little suspicion (“Anyone not reading on his own the good novels of his day, or those of the day before yesterday, has no business pretending to a humanistic education anyway,” he declares). Instead, much of the book is given over to first a tracing of the shape of classical education over the centuries and then a defense of classical education as formative, not utilitarian. Classical education humanizes us.
Thus far this review has not mentioned Greek and Latin, the purported topics of the book (the subtitle is “A New Apologia for Greek and Latin”). That is simply because many of the arguments Simmons makes apply to classical education as a whole; only a few apply specifically to Greek and Latin. One might be tempted to accuse Simmons of being a purist when it comes to his insistence on the superiority of reading Homer and Virgil in the original; I suspect he would relish the title.
Will this book change hearts and minds doggedly set on the modern educational cycle of constant upheaval and ever-increasing vocational training? No, but then it was never meant to. Simmons is speaking to those outside that fold, those searching for an alternative to the “human capital” sausage mill of public education. For those readers, the book could be a revelation. One can only hope.
“Children are to be sympathized with and respected, not coddled, nor are they to be humored. Their roads aren’t always to be made smooth.”
“Good teachers will firmly resist pupil – and, even more, parental – complaints against the use of drill as ‘deadening’ or ‘uncreative.’ Neither group likely knows what it’s talking about and must not be patronized but ignored.”
“School ought to be a training ground for the intellect, not a clearinghouse for ‘skills.’”
If these statements shock your sensibilities I can only say that they were probably intended to do just that, while also adding that this is not the book for you. If, however, you found yourself nodding in agreement every so often as you read Nock’s “Theory of Education in the United States,” well, let’s just say that Simmons owes much to Nock’s ideas. The idea that people are educable to different degrees is not given voice in today’s schools and universities; in fact, when I explained the premise of this book to a faculty member who came into the library, she informed me such notions are “undemocratic” and that I should probably not read that book in public anymore.
Simmons rejects almost entirely the “cultural literacy” defense of classics; indeed, he even seems to view the Great Books program with more than a little suspicion (“Anyone not reading on his own the good novels of his day, or those of the day before yesterday, has no business pretending to a humanistic education anyway,” he declares). Instead, much of the book is given over to first a tracing of the shape of classical education over the centuries and then a defense of classical education as formative, not utilitarian. Classical education humanizes us.
Thus far this review has not mentioned Greek and Latin, the purported topics of the book (the subtitle is “A New Apologia for Greek and Latin”). That is simply because many of the arguments Simmons makes apply to classical education as a whole; only a few apply specifically to Greek and Latin. One might be tempted to accuse Simmons of being a purist when it comes to his insistence on the superiority of reading Homer and Virgil in the original; I suspect he would relish the title.
Will this book change hearts and minds doggedly set on the modern educational cycle of constant upheaval and ever-increasing vocational training? No, but then it was never meant to. Simmons is speaking to those outside that fold, those searching for an alternative to the “human capital” sausage mill of public education. For those readers, the book could be a revelation. One can only hope.
June 7, 2018
Call me an elitist if you want... there always will be (and always should be) an elite class in a civilized society. It is unfortunate that entry to the 'elite' class in current American civilization may merely involve 15-minutes of fame, a big bucks movie or music contract, inheriting a large trust fund or company, or being a politician. None of these things may involve any personal cultivation in what is good or true. Studying the humanities--for real--and becoming truly classically educated should be the ticket... and at the same time, a classical education becomes the root that grounds us to our past and that cultivates our souls. Now please excuse me while I go practice Latin with my 4th grader.
My favorite quotes from the book:
"At the heart of liberal education stands the conviction that the well-touted freedom of mind comes only by submission to standards external to oneself, that the discipline precedes freedom and that this kind of freedom can only be earned as a reward, not conferred as a right." pg 34
"No one can really become educated without having pursued some study in which he took no interest--for it is part of education to learn to interest ourselves in subjects for which we have no aptitude." (TS Eliot) pg 39
"The ancients knew that any society marked by unbridled appetites competing for control and satisfaction would quickly reduce itself to barbarism." pg 49
"When aims are pitched high, even a partial failure may lead to ultimate success. The climb itself builds muscles, even if we don't reach the top." pg 81
"One had that passion [for learning] or one did not. But if one were born with the fortune to be so gifted--and this may be what gifted means--the learner could commence the climb." pg 98 (emphasis added)
"The proper aim of the Humanist was not intellectual integrity alone, but the ability to take delight in delightful things. A classical education was to enhance the soul." pg 111
"Is the vertical, Practical Man--that tool manipulated for other people's enrichment--the best we can hope to be?" pg 152
"Some people are trained [vocationally]; some are educated; some are both. The distinction is simple enough. But it creates cramps for a democratic culture." pg 152
"Literacy is fine and well, [Albert J.] Nock said, but in the long view it's not much. Knowing how to read and write may shore up a nation's social health, but it's the bare minimum for a higher culture--without which any society must be judged cheap and ephemeral. In fact, 'the mere ability to read raises to very extravagant presumptions upon the person who has it.' 'Surely everything depends on what he reads,' Nock said.... Whenever we judge a culture, we must weight 'the general furniture of its mind,' and that furniture is flimsy and getting flimsier. It's time, he thought, to refurnish. We need less plastic and synthetics and more mahogany and teak." pg 154
"[Nock] was speaking out for higher culture--the kind that had made the likes of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams possible. He was speaking out for the formed, well-stored mind." pg 155
"All this adds up to "the Great Tradition of a truly civilized society," which is in the end the only sort of society worth having and preserving. Anything less is just getting and spending." pg 157
"Education should not be, as he [Nock] explained later in his memoirs, a preparation for making a living, but a preparation for living." pg 157
"Classically educated people are not the prime consumers of propoganda." 169
"Hordes of reformers clamored for that 'useful knowledge' to be taught in the schools--and where it wasn't useful, schools were to make it easy and somehow relevant to modern concerns." pg 181
On teaching appreciation instead of Latin grammar/dates/prosody: "But [appreciation] fails most disastrously when it most succeeds. It teaches a man to feel vaguely cultured while he remains in fact a dunce. It makes him think he is enjoying poems he can't construe. It qualifies him to review books he does not understand, and to be intellectual without intellect." pg 188
"Yet much schooling today, even high schooling, has become every bit as vapid as this whimsical example suggests. Here, before the young can know the dangers of soft teaching or the seductions of ignorance, non-knowledge gets planted and watered." pg 189
"But we must know what makes a people civilized. Is it merely the sum of their "information," their ability to convert effort into cash, their hunger to make more gadgets to perform functions they've yet to question, their bottomless yen for amusement?" pg 209
"'Let us not forget,' Emerson once said, 'that the adoption of the test "what is it good for" would abolish the rose and exalt in triumph the cabbage.' And man cannot live by cabbage alone." pg 213
"One embarks on classics for the sake of self-culture, first and foremost." pg 223
"A classical education is, as Livingstone called it long ago, 'a training in insight and sympathy,' a training forever changing one's map of the cosmos; the world becomes a more multi-hued terrain in sharper relief." pg 229
"the more 'useful' a curriculum, the less valuable it may be for the long-term interests of the learner." pg 230
"Much there is to be said for any curriculum that doesn't strive to give content so much as it does the tools of skill and judgment that allow us to get that content at our own leisure. Generations of educated men and women for example, have read and enjoyed Shakespeare without getting him in school. The classroom saw them reading Homer and Horace, counting hexameter feet and agonizing over the force of a Greek particle. They weren't 'appreciating'; they were working. They were strengthening their intellectual and aesthetic muscles while learning the glorious minutiae of literary pieces deemed to be those works most worth knowing for a thinking, sentient citizen of the West." pg 230
"Classical education is a bulwark against slick stupidity and easy opinions." pg 231
"But the humanities, he [Paul Shorey] saw, can march by more lenient orders. They can be softened--and they can be faked. No one need prove he knows anything once the spector of Appreciation enters the groves of academe.... Current attacks on classics, he said, were 'inspired by the revolt against discipline and hard work.'" pg 234
My favorite quotes from the book:
"At the heart of liberal education stands the conviction that the well-touted freedom of mind comes only by submission to standards external to oneself, that the discipline precedes freedom and that this kind of freedom can only be earned as a reward, not conferred as a right." pg 34
"No one can really become educated without having pursued some study in which he took no interest--for it is part of education to learn to interest ourselves in subjects for which we have no aptitude." (TS Eliot) pg 39
"The ancients knew that any society marked by unbridled appetites competing for control and satisfaction would quickly reduce itself to barbarism." pg 49
"When aims are pitched high, even a partial failure may lead to ultimate success. The climb itself builds muscles, even if we don't reach the top." pg 81
"One had that passion [for learning] or one did not. But if one were born with the fortune to be so gifted--and this may be what gifted means--the learner could commence the climb." pg 98 (emphasis added)
"The proper aim of the Humanist was not intellectual integrity alone, but the ability to take delight in delightful things. A classical education was to enhance the soul." pg 111
"Is the vertical, Practical Man--that tool manipulated for other people's enrichment--the best we can hope to be?" pg 152
"Some people are trained [vocationally]; some are educated; some are both. The distinction is simple enough. But it creates cramps for a democratic culture." pg 152
"Literacy is fine and well, [Albert J.] Nock said, but in the long view it's not much. Knowing how to read and write may shore up a nation's social health, but it's the bare minimum for a higher culture--without which any society must be judged cheap and ephemeral. In fact, 'the mere ability to read raises to very extravagant presumptions upon the person who has it.' 'Surely everything depends on what he reads,' Nock said.... Whenever we judge a culture, we must weight 'the general furniture of its mind,' and that furniture is flimsy and getting flimsier. It's time, he thought, to refurnish. We need less plastic and synthetics and more mahogany and teak." pg 154
"[Nock] was speaking out for higher culture--the kind that had made the likes of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams possible. He was speaking out for the formed, well-stored mind." pg 155
"All this adds up to "the Great Tradition of a truly civilized society," which is in the end the only sort of society worth having and preserving. Anything less is just getting and spending." pg 157
"Education should not be, as he [Nock] explained later in his memoirs, a preparation for making a living, but a preparation for living." pg 157
"Classically educated people are not the prime consumers of propoganda." 169
"Hordes of reformers clamored for that 'useful knowledge' to be taught in the schools--and where it wasn't useful, schools were to make it easy and somehow relevant to modern concerns." pg 181
On teaching appreciation instead of Latin grammar/dates/prosody: "But [appreciation] fails most disastrously when it most succeeds. It teaches a man to feel vaguely cultured while he remains in fact a dunce. It makes him think he is enjoying poems he can't construe. It qualifies him to review books he does not understand, and to be intellectual without intellect." pg 188
"Yet much schooling today, even high schooling, has become every bit as vapid as this whimsical example suggests. Here, before the young can know the dangers of soft teaching or the seductions of ignorance, non-knowledge gets planted and watered." pg 189
"But we must know what makes a people civilized. Is it merely the sum of their "information," their ability to convert effort into cash, their hunger to make more gadgets to perform functions they've yet to question, their bottomless yen for amusement?" pg 209
"'Let us not forget,' Emerson once said, 'that the adoption of the test "what is it good for" would abolish the rose and exalt in triumph the cabbage.' And man cannot live by cabbage alone." pg 213
"One embarks on classics for the sake of self-culture, first and foremost." pg 223
"A classical education is, as Livingstone called it long ago, 'a training in insight and sympathy,' a training forever changing one's map of the cosmos; the world becomes a more multi-hued terrain in sharper relief." pg 229
"the more 'useful' a curriculum, the less valuable it may be for the long-term interests of the learner." pg 230
"Much there is to be said for any curriculum that doesn't strive to give content so much as it does the tools of skill and judgment that allow us to get that content at our own leisure. Generations of educated men and women for example, have read and enjoyed Shakespeare without getting him in school. The classroom saw them reading Homer and Horace, counting hexameter feet and agonizing over the force of a Greek particle. They weren't 'appreciating'; they were working. They were strengthening their intellectual and aesthetic muscles while learning the glorious minutiae of literary pieces deemed to be those works most worth knowing for a thinking, sentient citizen of the West." pg 230
"Classical education is a bulwark against slick stupidity and easy opinions." pg 231
"But the humanities, he [Paul Shorey] saw, can march by more lenient orders. They can be softened--and they can be faked. No one need prove he knows anything once the spector of Appreciation enters the groves of academe.... Current attacks on classics, he said, were 'inspired by the revolt against discipline and hard work.'" pg 234
February 6, 2014
A book of profound insight, and yet deeply flawed. In that sense, the book is itself a kind of parable of mankind.
"As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another," the wise old sage of Proverbs tells us. Likewise, we find in the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations, the pinnacle of mankind's achievement in language, in beauty, in literature, in art. We find one man's thoughts sharpening another until the dross of obscurity and rawness are pounded from culture and only the highest thoughts of humanity are honored. The grandiose thoughts of these civilizations are preserved for us in the study of these ancient languages. When we learn Greek and Latin, a window is opened blowing fresh air into the stifling room of modernity, rank with the suffocating fumes of progress and industrialization.
That young minds must be formed to recognize and appreciate magnificence is a point that is made soundly and eloquently throughout the book, and a point that the modern schools have nearly abandoned to their detriment. The human mind tends toward the base, the low, the vulgar, and if civilization is to be kept from utterly slipping into a gutter, then education must develop a taste in young people for what is noble, pure, and virtuous.
But where the book is deeply flawed is in its assertion that education alone can make men good, a point that is mentioned many times. For an author so obviously erudite, I am shocked by this historically careless and might I add naïve assertion!
The human condition is more serious than those of the salvation-by-the-classics camp seem to realize. Humanity needs more than a good example to save him from his depravity. Now don't get me wrong; he does need a good example. Mankind does need his mind to be stretched beyond the limits of a lazy boy chair, a football game, potato chips, Bud Light, the world of flippant Facebook posts, inane tweets, and sensationalist journalism. The trek up the ancient Mt. Parnassus truly is an exercise that expands our minds such that we can learn to perceive both greatness and goodness. But perceiving and doing is such a different thing.
The mistake of Simmons is to believe that acquainting one with the good will be enough to make him good. Introducing him to virtue in great stories is likely to cause him to desire virtue. This would be enough to make him good, if it were not for the shackles of sin. Sin is like a prison, and to those locked in its wall, though they dream of virtue, courage, goodness, heroism; though they look beyond the bars imagining themselves living out these ideals, they find no way to carry through. They must be set free. This can only come through the simple gospel message. Paul writes that when the law told him not to covet, it raised in him all manner of covetous desires. He saw the goodness in being content, yet was unable to conjure up feelings of content within himself.
If there is one thing that history has shown us, it is that education alone can never save the human soul. The Roman governor Pontius Pilate, educated in the highest civilization in the known world, looked the creator of the universe in the face and spurted: "What is truth?" He was a coward who knew not goodness. In his conscience, he knew the man before him had done no wrong. But he feared for his political position. No, my dear Tracy Lee Simmons, the education of Rome can make no man good, nor will it ever.
This is not to say that this grand mistake ruins the whole book. It is still most definitely worth reading! My own children are taught both Greek and Latin and they thoroughly enjoy it. But they are not taught it because I believe it will make them good. They learn it because it is their cultural heritage. The better they understand their cultural past and the splendor of cultures gone before them, the better they will be able to know and communicate to others about the ruler of the Universe. I want them to better know of the one who was born into a country under Roman rule, who spoke Greek, and who even now asks for the allegiance of every American.
So read Climbing Parnassus. It will help you understand how learning ancient languages will show you your place in history right now, and open your eyes to the great thoughts of those gone before. But don't read it to find out how to be good. The holy and ancient scriptures will introduce you to someone who can help you with that.
"As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another," the wise old sage of Proverbs tells us. Likewise, we find in the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations, the pinnacle of mankind's achievement in language, in beauty, in literature, in art. We find one man's thoughts sharpening another until the dross of obscurity and rawness are pounded from culture and only the highest thoughts of humanity are honored. The grandiose thoughts of these civilizations are preserved for us in the study of these ancient languages. When we learn Greek and Latin, a window is opened blowing fresh air into the stifling room of modernity, rank with the suffocating fumes of progress and industrialization.
That young minds must be formed to recognize and appreciate magnificence is a point that is made soundly and eloquently throughout the book, and a point that the modern schools have nearly abandoned to their detriment. The human mind tends toward the base, the low, the vulgar, and if civilization is to be kept from utterly slipping into a gutter, then education must develop a taste in young people for what is noble, pure, and virtuous.
But where the book is deeply flawed is in its assertion that education alone can make men good, a point that is mentioned many times. For an author so obviously erudite, I am shocked by this historically careless and might I add naïve assertion!
The human condition is more serious than those of the salvation-by-the-classics camp seem to realize. Humanity needs more than a good example to save him from his depravity. Now don't get me wrong; he does need a good example. Mankind does need his mind to be stretched beyond the limits of a lazy boy chair, a football game, potato chips, Bud Light, the world of flippant Facebook posts, inane tweets, and sensationalist journalism. The trek up the ancient Mt. Parnassus truly is an exercise that expands our minds such that we can learn to perceive both greatness and goodness. But perceiving and doing is such a different thing.
The mistake of Simmons is to believe that acquainting one with the good will be enough to make him good. Introducing him to virtue in great stories is likely to cause him to desire virtue. This would be enough to make him good, if it were not for the shackles of sin. Sin is like a prison, and to those locked in its wall, though they dream of virtue, courage, goodness, heroism; though they look beyond the bars imagining themselves living out these ideals, they find no way to carry through. They must be set free. This can only come through the simple gospel message. Paul writes that when the law told him not to covet, it raised in him all manner of covetous desires. He saw the goodness in being content, yet was unable to conjure up feelings of content within himself.
If there is one thing that history has shown us, it is that education alone can never save the human soul. The Roman governor Pontius Pilate, educated in the highest civilization in the known world, looked the creator of the universe in the face and spurted: "What is truth?" He was a coward who knew not goodness. In his conscience, he knew the man before him had done no wrong. But he feared for his political position. No, my dear Tracy Lee Simmons, the education of Rome can make no man good, nor will it ever.
This is not to say that this grand mistake ruins the whole book. It is still most definitely worth reading! My own children are taught both Greek and Latin and they thoroughly enjoy it. But they are not taught it because I believe it will make them good. They learn it because it is their cultural heritage. The better they understand their cultural past and the splendor of cultures gone before them, the better they will be able to know and communicate to others about the ruler of the Universe. I want them to better know of the one who was born into a country under Roman rule, who spoke Greek, and who even now asks for the allegiance of every American.
So read Climbing Parnassus. It will help you understand how learning ancient languages will show you your place in history right now, and open your eyes to the great thoughts of those gone before. But don't read it to find out how to be good. The holy and ancient scriptures will introduce you to someone who can help you with that.
April 3, 2017
Wow it took me almost four years to the day to finish this book but it was so worth it. I wish I had read it 13 years ago. So much truth!
Some of my favorite quotes
"Beware of the man with a new truth to preach. He bids to do are thinking for us.... we as a nation possess a weakness for new gospels a vital but hazardous trait, as we stand in danger of discarding both the good and useful in a quest for the dubious and untried....here are the new is always better, the old worst; the new is always richer and relevant, the old threadbare an obsolete.... yet having crossed the threshold of a millennium, we feel a few spiritual tremors. Impetuosity does not reflect. The super annuated, ever-changing mind cannot speak to the whole of life. It cannot contemplate; it cannot assign value. It can drive us to build new roads and bridges, but I cannot explain where we want to go. I can build rockets to Mars and beyond, but it cannot tell us whether it's wise to go there. They cannot answer questions it long ago lost the wisdom to ask. The life of the mind and soul it leaves breath of standards, those talking points of judgment, which are required only with time and patience and effort." (pp2-3)
Illiterate and semi literate Americans are condemned not only to poverty, Hirsch wrote, but also to the powerlessness of incomprehension. Knowing that they do not understand the issues, and feeling pray to manipulative oversimplifications, they do not trust the system of which they are supposed to be the master. They do not feel themselves to be active participants in our republic, and they often do not turn out to vote. P6-7
The eternal human problem: what should men believe about life, how should they live it, and what state of society can good life be best lived, and how can we create such a state? P21
And education he said it's not the mayor possession of knowledge, but the ability to reflect upon it and grow in wisdom. Liberal education at AIM not just furnishing the mind with serviceable knowledge and information, or even at habituating the mind to rational methods, but it leading it to wisdom, to a quality of knowledge tempered by experience in imbued with understanding. It should, in a word, humanize. I'm guided by such an aim education loses its true character and find itself degraded to servile training for the worlds daily drudgeries. Liberal education civilizes. It transforms us. We are better for having run its course. P30
The kind of education which sets of mine free from servitude of the crowd I'm from vulgar self interests. P31
Liberty have a double edge, fit only to be handled by Justin virtuous man; too bad and dissolute, it becomes a mischief unwieldy in their own hands. P33
For Newman a proper education forms a habit of mind that last through life, of which the attributes are freedom, equitableness, calmness, moderation, and wisdom, all of which add up to what he called the philosophical habit. Knowledge is to be sought for its own sake, irrespective of intermediate and material gain. P35
It would be a pity if we overlooked the possibilities of education as a means of acquiring wisdom; if we belittled the acquisition of knowledge for the satisfaction of curiosity, without any further motive than the desire to know; if we lost all respect for learning. P39
What purpose should education, at its most enlightened, serve? Livingston listed three functions, to whit: to teach us to earn a living; to teach us to be good citizens; and to help us to understand the meaning of the good life. P42
What was that to be the result of all the strenuous philosophical effort? The wise citizen fit to govern first himself and then and only then to govern others. P59
An essay attributed to Plutarch fastened upon the link between mental training and moral behavior, asserting that there must be a concurrence of three things to produce right action: nature, reason, and habit. P79
The teacher should help the student achievement soundness of judgment, wisdom of speech, and integrity of conduct. P96
We call these studies liberal Vergerius wrote which are worthy of a free man; those studies by which we attain and practice virtue and wisdom; that education which calls forth, trains, and develops those highest gifts of body and mind which in ennoble men, and which are rightly judge to rank next in dignity to virtue only. Learning to think logically was not enough. Memory he exulted as one of the most precious of human for faculties. intelligence may be more important than a memory, he wrote, but intelligence without memory is worthless. P96-97
No master can endow a careless and in different nature with the passion for learning, p98
Not everyone is called to be a lawyer, a physician, a philosopher, to live in the public eye, nor has everyone outstanding gifts of natural capacity, but all of us are created for the life of social duty, all are responsible for the personal influence which goes forth from us. P99
The impact of knowledge is impossible to predict. But this we can know: ignorance is no asset, and the empty, Formless mind is surely a positive liability. Few qualities can be more useful whatever ones future may hold, then the fortified mind. Parents who cannot see this or shortsighted, misinformed, or vicariously rapacious. P214
The true aim of education is to develop the man and woman who are something bigger and finer than a mere piece of mechanism designed to fit into place in a practical world which is devoid of aspiration and idealism, breath division in imagination, and forever denied the privilege of tasting the things of the spirit which alone is life. P215
That is what formation is all about. We gain independence. Much there is to be said for any curriculum that doesn't strive to give content so much as it does the tools of skill and judgment that allow us to get that content at our own leisure. P230
The inner takes precedence over the outer. For the inner is eternal. Our task in this life is to form and reform ourselves by the best standards and patterns prior generations have found and refined. P244
Some of my favorite quotes
"Beware of the man with a new truth to preach. He bids to do are thinking for us.... we as a nation possess a weakness for new gospels a vital but hazardous trait, as we stand in danger of discarding both the good and useful in a quest for the dubious and untried....here are the new is always better, the old worst; the new is always richer and relevant, the old threadbare an obsolete.... yet having crossed the threshold of a millennium, we feel a few spiritual tremors. Impetuosity does not reflect. The super annuated, ever-changing mind cannot speak to the whole of life. It cannot contemplate; it cannot assign value. It can drive us to build new roads and bridges, but I cannot explain where we want to go. I can build rockets to Mars and beyond, but it cannot tell us whether it's wise to go there. They cannot answer questions it long ago lost the wisdom to ask. The life of the mind and soul it leaves breath of standards, those talking points of judgment, which are required only with time and patience and effort." (pp2-3)
Illiterate and semi literate Americans are condemned not only to poverty, Hirsch wrote, but also to the powerlessness of incomprehension. Knowing that they do not understand the issues, and feeling pray to manipulative oversimplifications, they do not trust the system of which they are supposed to be the master. They do not feel themselves to be active participants in our republic, and they often do not turn out to vote. P6-7
The eternal human problem: what should men believe about life, how should they live it, and what state of society can good life be best lived, and how can we create such a state? P21
And education he said it's not the mayor possession of knowledge, but the ability to reflect upon it and grow in wisdom. Liberal education at AIM not just furnishing the mind with serviceable knowledge and information, or even at habituating the mind to rational methods, but it leading it to wisdom, to a quality of knowledge tempered by experience in imbued with understanding. It should, in a word, humanize. I'm guided by such an aim education loses its true character and find itself degraded to servile training for the worlds daily drudgeries. Liberal education civilizes. It transforms us. We are better for having run its course. P30
The kind of education which sets of mine free from servitude of the crowd I'm from vulgar self interests. P31
Liberty have a double edge, fit only to be handled by Justin virtuous man; too bad and dissolute, it becomes a mischief unwieldy in their own hands. P33
For Newman a proper education forms a habit of mind that last through life, of which the attributes are freedom, equitableness, calmness, moderation, and wisdom, all of which add up to what he called the philosophical habit. Knowledge is to be sought for its own sake, irrespective of intermediate and material gain. P35
It would be a pity if we overlooked the possibilities of education as a means of acquiring wisdom; if we belittled the acquisition of knowledge for the satisfaction of curiosity, without any further motive than the desire to know; if we lost all respect for learning. P39
What purpose should education, at its most enlightened, serve? Livingston listed three functions, to whit: to teach us to earn a living; to teach us to be good citizens; and to help us to understand the meaning of the good life. P42
What was that to be the result of all the strenuous philosophical effort? The wise citizen fit to govern first himself and then and only then to govern others. P59
An essay attributed to Plutarch fastened upon the link between mental training and moral behavior, asserting that there must be a concurrence of three things to produce right action: nature, reason, and habit. P79
The teacher should help the student achievement soundness of judgment, wisdom of speech, and integrity of conduct. P96
We call these studies liberal Vergerius wrote which are worthy of a free man; those studies by which we attain and practice virtue and wisdom; that education which calls forth, trains, and develops those highest gifts of body and mind which in ennoble men, and which are rightly judge to rank next in dignity to virtue only. Learning to think logically was not enough. Memory he exulted as one of the most precious of human for faculties. intelligence may be more important than a memory, he wrote, but intelligence without memory is worthless. P96-97
No master can endow a careless and in different nature with the passion for learning, p98
Not everyone is called to be a lawyer, a physician, a philosopher, to live in the public eye, nor has everyone outstanding gifts of natural capacity, but all of us are created for the life of social duty, all are responsible for the personal influence which goes forth from us. P99
The impact of knowledge is impossible to predict. But this we can know: ignorance is no asset, and the empty, Formless mind is surely a positive liability. Few qualities can be more useful whatever ones future may hold, then the fortified mind. Parents who cannot see this or shortsighted, misinformed, or vicariously rapacious. P214
The true aim of education is to develop the man and woman who are something bigger and finer than a mere piece of mechanism designed to fit into place in a practical world which is devoid of aspiration and idealism, breath division in imagination, and forever denied the privilege of tasting the things of the spirit which alone is life. P215
That is what formation is all about. We gain independence. Much there is to be said for any curriculum that doesn't strive to give content so much as it does the tools of skill and judgment that allow us to get that content at our own leisure. P230
The inner takes precedence over the outer. For the inner is eternal. Our task in this life is to form and reform ourselves by the best standards and patterns prior generations have found and refined. P244
July 3, 2023
Summer 2023. Still inspiring.
Again, summer 2018.
Re-read summer 2016.
July 2014 - I'm so thankful to have come across this book when I did. The ideas here will, I think, transform the way I homeschool. I expect to re-read this many times.
Again, summer 2018.
Re-read summer 2016.
July 2014 - I'm so thankful to have come across this book when I did. The ideas here will, I think, transform the way I homeschool. I expect to re-read this many times.
July 2, 2016
Liberating Education
“At the heart of liberal education stands the conviction that the well-touted freedom of mind comes only by submission to standards external to oneself, that the discipline precedes the freedom, and that this kind of freedom can only be earned as a reward, not conferred as a right.”
Just what does “liberal” mean in a book introduced by conservative icon William F. Buckley, Jr.? It is best to forget how these terms are used in our tiresome culture wars, and consider the author’s vision of what education should be on its own merit. To him, “Knowledge is to be sought for its own sake, irrespective of immediate and material gain. Any other attitude to knowledge betrays the servile mind.” Forget politics, here liberal means truly liberating.
This, he claims, was the goal of classical education as practiced centuries ago. He concedes his goal as unachievable, as “it has failed to remain useful in an age no longer requiring the services of scholastic monks, courtiers, and imperial civil servants.” But maybe there is still something to be learned. That “grand old fortifying classical curriculum requires not an uncritical re-adoption (of which there’s no chance anyway) but a sympathetic reappraisal, if for no other reason than that so many men and women of centuries past who established and refined the standards by which we live today held that gem in such high esteem.”
While modern education is the primary target of this reappraisal, conservatives are not spared; he reminds us not to confuse “pious or patriotic piffle with real education.” He expresses his ideal so beautifully that I am inspired to devote the next ten years to learning Latin and Greek so I can truly understand the sublime learning revealed by his beloved classics. Ah, but what is the opportunity cost, what else could I learn in all that time?
Making Us Truly Human
What is education for? Is it more than “to make ideal citizens, super tolerant neighbours, agents of world peace, and happy family folk, at once sexually adept and flawless drivers of cars?” Or less optimistically, “servile training for the world’s daily drudgeries.”
The author’s answer is that the goal is to civilize and transform us, to make us truly human rather than simply an organized animal. This idea of “Humanism” is central to the book. It wants to take civilization beyond simply repressing violence and wanton sexual desire, into creating something new, profound and beautiful.
Where We Have Gone Wrong
I suppose it is easy to criticize, but at least we get a very literate job of it. In his view, modern education “begins in ‘Appreciation’ and ends in gush. It fails most disastrously when it most succeeds. It teaches a man to feel vaguely cultured while he remains in fact a dunce. It makes him think he is enjoying poems he can’t construe. It qualifies him to review books he does not understand, and to be intellectual without intellect. It plays havoc with the very distinction between truth and error.”
He continues, “Never have so many people earned so many academic degrees and known so little. Yet never have so many thought they know so much. What we often find in this comfortably half-educated time is a virulent strain of unearned cynicism, the rough workings of intelligent minds that haven’t yet learned how to think, a trait ironically evident in the idealistic young.”
As he sees the goal of education to learn from the best of Western thought, one can imagine he has little time for modern cultural relativism:
“This use of the word culture hails from the halls of anthropology. If only there it had stayed. But it slithered forth from the laboratory to infect us all. Here was a word hot for serving up on a steaming platter to the over-degreed and half-educated. It not only exfoliates before our eyes; it excuses ignorance and inoculates the ignorant from any responsibility to know anything beyond their kith and kin. Culture now is any chunk of social reality you like or dislike.”
And as for the consequences, “Members of tagged ‘victimized’ groups are made thereby to feel good about themselves; members of tagged ‘dominant’ groups are made to reflect on their retrospective crimes. Here burns yet another insidious form of propaganda. It doesn’t train, it harangues; it exploits the ill read and the unsuspecting.”
Unfortunately it also exploits the well read. The cult of the victim we are slithering into undermines any chance of understanding the complex reality we inhabit, and actually doing something useful about it. Instead we are sold a simplistic “liberal” morality peppered with cherry-picked stories, while religious conservatives are mocked for doing the same thing.
The Glorious Past
While there is much we can learn from the past, there is a tendency here to glorify it beyond all reason. For example, here is an imaginary ancient citizen looking at our society today: “Yes, I can see all the works of a great civilization; but why cannot I meet any civilized persons? I only encounter specialists, artists who know nothing of science, scientists who know nothing of art, philosophers who have no interest in God, priests who are unconcerned with politics, politicians who only know other politicians.” I was recently standing in the magnificent structure of the Coliseum in Rome, the work of a great civilization, contemplating the utter inhumanity of the spectacles that took place there. And yes, the classically educated elites had the best seats reserved for them. Civilized persons are rare indeed.
The education was not exactly ideal either. We are told, with apparent approval, “For Greeks and Romans, the fully grown adult set the standard, not the child. For the ancients were marked by an utter lack of interest in child psychology. Theirs were not child-centered societies. The only point of education is to teach the child to transcend himself.”
This confuses indulging the student with understanding how a child actually learns. Child psychology can help us improve our ability to teach the child to “transcend himself”. For example, it tells us that the following is not an optimal educational technique:
“Ending two consecutive lines of Latin verse with a verb earned the unhappy versifier a beating. These must have been tedious days in school for the dull ones — but no doubt invigorating for the diligent and able. Garlands were to the talented.”
The problem with traditional education was that while the child was held accountable, the teacher was not. Lazy, uninspired teaching backed by needless brutality was the result. They got away with it because it was the only game in town, and that was the way it had always been done. We can do better.
In Praise of Elitism
The classical education described in this book was only available for a small economic elite, and is only possible for the intellectual elite. However, all education must face the reality that students have varying capacities to learn. This is a problem for those who take the democratic ideal too literally. Both liberals and conservatives do this, each in their own way.
A legitimate objection to a child-centered education is that the children cannot possibly know what they need to learn. The adult elite knows better, or at least they should. We are reminded that there is a distinction between “the education which democrats like” and “the education which will preserve democracy.”
That means giving the best education possible to those who are most capable. “Reflexively disparaged today, an elite to the Greeks and Romans was not only inevitable in a sound society, but the desirable fruit of the highest thoughts, words, and deeds — thoughts, words, and deeds to which most of us are simply not equal. Again, a high culture reaches upward to the better and best. Distinctions arise. They are sought, not derided, as signs of intellectual and cultural health.”
The doctrine of equality degrades education “into a kind of charter for rabid self-assertion on the part of ignorance and vulgarity, serving it up as a warrant for the most audacious and flagitious exercise of self-interest.” While this sentence nicely describes what passes for modern conservatism, liberals are educated to do essentially the same thing using more sophisticated language.
The Classical Path to Wisdom
The interesting question is what did traditional education do right, even if they did it badly? So lets forget the abysmal teaching methods and examine the content. In a word, it required hard work. But not just any work, “a real education must be based on a serious, consecutive, progressive study of something definite, teachable, and hard. Knowledge must have traceable contours.” So, “why should we teach anything other than languages, mathematics, and geography before the age of thirteen?”
The benefit of the early learning of Latin and Greek is that “Memorizing, as we must do when learning to use a language, stretches the mind. Our brains become more capacious: the more we memorize, the more we can memorize.” The modern term is brain plasticity, and the principle is well established. Memory, of course, played a large role in traditional education when even books were rare, never mind ubiquitous Internet. Developing a capacious memory now has less value than it used to, but I leave open the possibility that the training co-develops other mental capacity as well.
The next step is learning grammar, which is the mathematics of language. [As evidence, the software I am using to write this includes a grammar checker. It is amusing to see it complain about the text I paste in from this classically educated author.] The value of Latin and especially Greek is that they are so different than English they provide deep insight into how our own language works.
Finally, the student will be actually able to read the finest thoughts of antiquity expressed in their original language. Conspicuously absent from this program are the concepts of appreciation, creativity and critical thinking. “It may be telling that we do not find many instances in the ancient world of pupils set to writing their own poems: their task was not to express themselves, but to bow humbly at the feet of others. They were apprentices. They were to know, not to be known.” These are only truly possible after the mind has been trained, “the last fruit of ripe experience.”
A Few Objections
The author points out that this vision of a classical education is little different than teaching science. But scientists have finally started to investigate how their subject should be taught. The evidence is against the traditional methods of memorizing and using formulas. Curiosity, collaboration and critical thinking have been shown to be more successful in producing the skills scientists actually need.
We also need these attributes in the wider world. But there is a danger. “Appreciation” degenerates into parroting the teacher’s opinion, “creativity” is whatever the child feels like doing, and “critical thinking” means using unexamined beliefs to dismiss an argument you cannot be bothered to understand.
Yet these skills are essential, and can only be learned from practice. We can’t wait for the last fruit of ripe experience. There is no substitute for the discipline of not letting children get away with faking them.
Why Did I Like This Book?
“Appreciation” is such a dirty word here, representing all that is shallow, that I don’t dare tell you how much I appreciated the way this book made me think. I think of it as a work of good fiction. Sure, the picture of the past he paints for us is a bit dreamy, and the proposed curriculum is not very realistic. But I am inspired to ask what liberal values really are, and how do we pass them on to the next generation. What really is the difference between "the education which democrats like" and “the education which will preserve democracy?” What more can I ask?
“At the heart of liberal education stands the conviction that the well-touted freedom of mind comes only by submission to standards external to oneself, that the discipline precedes the freedom, and that this kind of freedom can only be earned as a reward, not conferred as a right.”
Just what does “liberal” mean in a book introduced by conservative icon William F. Buckley, Jr.? It is best to forget how these terms are used in our tiresome culture wars, and consider the author’s vision of what education should be on its own merit. To him, “Knowledge is to be sought for its own sake, irrespective of immediate and material gain. Any other attitude to knowledge betrays the servile mind.” Forget politics, here liberal means truly liberating.
This, he claims, was the goal of classical education as practiced centuries ago. He concedes his goal as unachievable, as “it has failed to remain useful in an age no longer requiring the services of scholastic monks, courtiers, and imperial civil servants.” But maybe there is still something to be learned. That “grand old fortifying classical curriculum requires not an uncritical re-adoption (of which there’s no chance anyway) but a sympathetic reappraisal, if for no other reason than that so many men and women of centuries past who established and refined the standards by which we live today held that gem in such high esteem.”
While modern education is the primary target of this reappraisal, conservatives are not spared; he reminds us not to confuse “pious or patriotic piffle with real education.” He expresses his ideal so beautifully that I am inspired to devote the next ten years to learning Latin and Greek so I can truly understand the sublime learning revealed by his beloved classics. Ah, but what is the opportunity cost, what else could I learn in all that time?
Making Us Truly Human
What is education for? Is it more than “to make ideal citizens, super tolerant neighbours, agents of world peace, and happy family folk, at once sexually adept and flawless drivers of cars?” Or less optimistically, “servile training for the world’s daily drudgeries.”
The author’s answer is that the goal is to civilize and transform us, to make us truly human rather than simply an organized animal. This idea of “Humanism” is central to the book. It wants to take civilization beyond simply repressing violence and wanton sexual desire, into creating something new, profound and beautiful.
Where We Have Gone Wrong
I suppose it is easy to criticize, but at least we get a very literate job of it. In his view, modern education “begins in ‘Appreciation’ and ends in gush. It fails most disastrously when it most succeeds. It teaches a man to feel vaguely cultured while he remains in fact a dunce. It makes him think he is enjoying poems he can’t construe. It qualifies him to review books he does not understand, and to be intellectual without intellect. It plays havoc with the very distinction between truth and error.”
He continues, “Never have so many people earned so many academic degrees and known so little. Yet never have so many thought they know so much. What we often find in this comfortably half-educated time is a virulent strain of unearned cynicism, the rough workings of intelligent minds that haven’t yet learned how to think, a trait ironically evident in the idealistic young.”
As he sees the goal of education to learn from the best of Western thought, one can imagine he has little time for modern cultural relativism:
“This use of the word culture hails from the halls of anthropology. If only there it had stayed. But it slithered forth from the laboratory to infect us all. Here was a word hot for serving up on a steaming platter to the over-degreed and half-educated. It not only exfoliates before our eyes; it excuses ignorance and inoculates the ignorant from any responsibility to know anything beyond their kith and kin. Culture now is any chunk of social reality you like or dislike.”
And as for the consequences, “Members of tagged ‘victimized’ groups are made thereby to feel good about themselves; members of tagged ‘dominant’ groups are made to reflect on their retrospective crimes. Here burns yet another insidious form of propaganda. It doesn’t train, it harangues; it exploits the ill read and the unsuspecting.”
Unfortunately it also exploits the well read. The cult of the victim we are slithering into undermines any chance of understanding the complex reality we inhabit, and actually doing something useful about it. Instead we are sold a simplistic “liberal” morality peppered with cherry-picked stories, while religious conservatives are mocked for doing the same thing.
The Glorious Past
While there is much we can learn from the past, there is a tendency here to glorify it beyond all reason. For example, here is an imaginary ancient citizen looking at our society today: “Yes, I can see all the works of a great civilization; but why cannot I meet any civilized persons? I only encounter specialists, artists who know nothing of science, scientists who know nothing of art, philosophers who have no interest in God, priests who are unconcerned with politics, politicians who only know other politicians.” I was recently standing in the magnificent structure of the Coliseum in Rome, the work of a great civilization, contemplating the utter inhumanity of the spectacles that took place there. And yes, the classically educated elites had the best seats reserved for them. Civilized persons are rare indeed.
The education was not exactly ideal either. We are told, with apparent approval, “For Greeks and Romans, the fully grown adult set the standard, not the child. For the ancients were marked by an utter lack of interest in child psychology. Theirs were not child-centered societies. The only point of education is to teach the child to transcend himself.”
This confuses indulging the student with understanding how a child actually learns. Child psychology can help us improve our ability to teach the child to “transcend himself”. For example, it tells us that the following is not an optimal educational technique:
“Ending two consecutive lines of Latin verse with a verb earned the unhappy versifier a beating. These must have been tedious days in school for the dull ones — but no doubt invigorating for the diligent and able. Garlands were to the talented.”
The problem with traditional education was that while the child was held accountable, the teacher was not. Lazy, uninspired teaching backed by needless brutality was the result. They got away with it because it was the only game in town, and that was the way it had always been done. We can do better.
In Praise of Elitism
The classical education described in this book was only available for a small economic elite, and is only possible for the intellectual elite. However, all education must face the reality that students have varying capacities to learn. This is a problem for those who take the democratic ideal too literally. Both liberals and conservatives do this, each in their own way.
A legitimate objection to a child-centered education is that the children cannot possibly know what they need to learn. The adult elite knows better, or at least they should. We are reminded that there is a distinction between “the education which democrats like” and “the education which will preserve democracy.”
That means giving the best education possible to those who are most capable. “Reflexively disparaged today, an elite to the Greeks and Romans was not only inevitable in a sound society, but the desirable fruit of the highest thoughts, words, and deeds — thoughts, words, and deeds to which most of us are simply not equal. Again, a high culture reaches upward to the better and best. Distinctions arise. They are sought, not derided, as signs of intellectual and cultural health.”
The doctrine of equality degrades education “into a kind of charter for rabid self-assertion on the part of ignorance and vulgarity, serving it up as a warrant for the most audacious and flagitious exercise of self-interest.” While this sentence nicely describes what passes for modern conservatism, liberals are educated to do essentially the same thing using more sophisticated language.
The Classical Path to Wisdom
The interesting question is what did traditional education do right, even if they did it badly? So lets forget the abysmal teaching methods and examine the content. In a word, it required hard work. But not just any work, “a real education must be based on a serious, consecutive, progressive study of something definite, teachable, and hard. Knowledge must have traceable contours.” So, “why should we teach anything other than languages, mathematics, and geography before the age of thirteen?”
The benefit of the early learning of Latin and Greek is that “Memorizing, as we must do when learning to use a language, stretches the mind. Our brains become more capacious: the more we memorize, the more we can memorize.” The modern term is brain plasticity, and the principle is well established. Memory, of course, played a large role in traditional education when even books were rare, never mind ubiquitous Internet. Developing a capacious memory now has less value than it used to, but I leave open the possibility that the training co-develops other mental capacity as well.
The next step is learning grammar, which is the mathematics of language. [As evidence, the software I am using to write this includes a grammar checker. It is amusing to see it complain about the text I paste in from this classically educated author.] The value of Latin and especially Greek is that they are so different than English they provide deep insight into how our own language works.
Finally, the student will be actually able to read the finest thoughts of antiquity expressed in their original language. Conspicuously absent from this program are the concepts of appreciation, creativity and critical thinking. “It may be telling that we do not find many instances in the ancient world of pupils set to writing their own poems: their task was not to express themselves, but to bow humbly at the feet of others. They were apprentices. They were to know, not to be known.” These are only truly possible after the mind has been trained, “the last fruit of ripe experience.”
A Few Objections
The author points out that this vision of a classical education is little different than teaching science. But scientists have finally started to investigate how their subject should be taught. The evidence is against the traditional methods of memorizing and using formulas. Curiosity, collaboration and critical thinking have been shown to be more successful in producing the skills scientists actually need.
We also need these attributes in the wider world. But there is a danger. “Appreciation” degenerates into parroting the teacher’s opinion, “creativity” is whatever the child feels like doing, and “critical thinking” means using unexamined beliefs to dismiss an argument you cannot be bothered to understand.
Yet these skills are essential, and can only be learned from practice. We can’t wait for the last fruit of ripe experience. There is no substitute for the discipline of not letting children get away with faking them.
Why Did I Like This Book?
“Appreciation” is such a dirty word here, representing all that is shallow, that I don’t dare tell you how much I appreciated the way this book made me think. I think of it as a work of good fiction. Sure, the picture of the past he paints for us is a bit dreamy, and the proposed curriculum is not very realistic. But I am inspired to ask what liberal values really are, and how do we pass them on to the next generation. What really is the difference between "the education which democrats like" and “the education which will preserve democracy?” What more can I ask?
February 6, 2024
An exhaustive research on the matter of Classical Education and its roots in Renaissance Humanism. This book is such a thought-provoking and paradigm-shifting book. In a modern era, a book like this would be considered heretical and reactionary among Education policymakers which is an unfortunate case.
Some of my favorite quotes from this book are
“Culture is that which climbs high on the scale of human achievement, is not easily apprehensible to all, and requires patient thought and sympathy. We are not born into culture; we acquire it. And we can lose it.”
“Classics serve no class.”
“Talent is no respecter of social status.”
“Beauty is not democratic; she reveals herself more to the few than to the many, more to the persistent and disciplined seekers than to the careless. Virtue is not democratic; she is achieved by those who pursue her more hotly than most men. Truth is not democratic; she demands special talents and special industry in those to whom she gives her favours. Political democracy is doomed if it tries to extend its demands for equality into these higher spheres. Ethical, intellectual, or aesthetic democracy is death.”
“Knowledge is to be sought for its own sake, irrespective of immediate and material gain.”
“Sympathy without selection becomes flabby, and a selection which is unsympathetic tends to grow disdainful.”
“Ideals determine, and sustain, culture.”
“Those who say our thoughts are not our own because they resemble those of the Ancients may as well say our Faces are not our own because they are like our Fathers.”
“Greek and Latin were so taught for so many centuries because they were not native. Their very strangeness and dissimilarity to modern languages made them a unique, irreplaceable tool of teaching.”
“An opinion built upon established standards, after all, is not quite the same thing as a mere feeling. Such an opinion may be well or ill-founded, right or wrong, but it isn’t mere. It never was.“
“Democracy comes short of what it should be just to the extent that it fails to provide for the exceptional individual, no matter how poor his start in life, the highest kind of exceptional training; for democracy as a permanent world force must mean not only the raising of the general level, but also the raising of the standards of excellence to which only exceptional individuals may attain.“
“The best education, the highest and most bracing education, does not scorn the ground; without the ground we cannot spot the horizon. Yet it doesn’t disdain the stars. It shows us how to be fully human — and to exercise all the powers proper to a human being.”
Some of my favorite quotes from this book are
“Culture is that which climbs high on the scale of human achievement, is not easily apprehensible to all, and requires patient thought and sympathy. We are not born into culture; we acquire it. And we can lose it.”
“Classics serve no class.”
“Talent is no respecter of social status.”
“Beauty is not democratic; she reveals herself more to the few than to the many, more to the persistent and disciplined seekers than to the careless. Virtue is not democratic; she is achieved by those who pursue her more hotly than most men. Truth is not democratic; she demands special talents and special industry in those to whom she gives her favours. Political democracy is doomed if it tries to extend its demands for equality into these higher spheres. Ethical, intellectual, or aesthetic democracy is death.”
“Knowledge is to be sought for its own sake, irrespective of immediate and material gain.”
“Sympathy without selection becomes flabby, and a selection which is unsympathetic tends to grow disdainful.”
“Ideals determine, and sustain, culture.”
“Those who say our thoughts are not our own because they resemble those of the Ancients may as well say our Faces are not our own because they are like our Fathers.”
“Greek and Latin were so taught for so many centuries because they were not native. Their very strangeness and dissimilarity to modern languages made them a unique, irreplaceable tool of teaching.”
“An opinion built upon established standards, after all, is not quite the same thing as a mere feeling. Such an opinion may be well or ill-founded, right or wrong, but it isn’t mere. It never was.“
“Democracy comes short of what it should be just to the extent that it fails to provide for the exceptional individual, no matter how poor his start in life, the highest kind of exceptional training; for democracy as a permanent world force must mean not only the raising of the general level, but also the raising of the standards of excellence to which only exceptional individuals may attain.“
“The best education, the highest and most bracing education, does not scorn the ground; without the ground we cannot spot the horizon. Yet it doesn’t disdain the stars. It shows us how to be fully human — and to exercise all the powers proper to a human being.”
April 25, 2022
Unless you are fluent in Latin and Greek, this book will give you an inferiority complex. You think you're smart? You think you're educated? Nope. You're not even close.
In all seriousness, this was a good book. I was hoping for more practical advice for homeschoolers, but there was little to none given. What this book does do is give an overview of the history of Latin and Greek studies, as well as emphasizing why a deep and life changing education can only come through sweat, tears, and a classical education.
In all seriousness, this was a good book. I was hoping for more practical advice for homeschoolers, but there was little to none given. What this book does do is give an overview of the history of Latin and Greek studies, as well as emphasizing why a deep and life changing education can only come through sweat, tears, and a classical education.
December 17, 2025
This is a worthwhile book for anyone interested in classical education, Greek and Latin education, or the history of classical education. Though well written, I would consider it to be “headier,” so it may not be the best introduction to classical education, depending on who you are. For me, his narrative of humanist education was fascinating and helpful, introducing me to a few intriguing new primary sources. His final chapter, in which he gives his most straight forward apology for Greek and Latin, was excellent. I would highly recommend it for those wondering why even study Latin and Greek today. Altogether, I’d recommend this work!
September 15, 2025
It took 16 months of doctor’s waiting room visits, I have finished this book, and my goodness was it worth the read. My copy is now heavily underlined and notated, and full of doctors’ business cards.
As a classical home educator, this book has helped me and will help me be a better teacher and push me harder to redeem my own education while pushing my children toward better. Big props to the Memoria Press Classical Etc. for recommending this invaluable resource.
As a classical home educator, this book has helped me and will help me be a better teacher and push me harder to redeem my own education while pushing my children toward better. Big props to the Memoria Press Classical Etc. for recommending this invaluable resource.
June 19, 2020
Who knew so much could be said about why one should learn Latin and Ancient Greek.
July 9, 2021
This is a book that I loved reading even though I frequently disagreed with it. Beautiful, thorough, and provocative, it has truly served to expand my understanding. Simmons says so much so well, that one hates to find points of disagreement.
Nevertheless, I do believe Simmons missteps at several points. The most significant is the hope he places in a classical education for the formation of the soul. To cite only one example, he closes with an eloquent comment on the universal benefit of classical humanism for all philosophies. He says humanism is the house to be built on different foundations. The problem is that foundations are more important than houses, and a sandy foundation will fall away, destroying whatever it was designed to support. Simmons was simply talking about the house, and perhaps it is not the job of schools to build foundations. This is a discussion Simmons did not want to enter. However, it is reasonable to question whether the benefits of a classical education can be consistently predicted when it is to be placed on differing philosophical and theological foundations.
Despite this, Simmons has still written a great book. He shows what a true classical education is and compellingly argues for the inclusion of the ancient languages. I would not say I have quite drunk the Kool-Aid of classical education, but Simmons has brought the glass to my lips and convinced me to take a sip.
Nevertheless, I do believe Simmons missteps at several points. The most significant is the hope he places in a classical education for the formation of the soul. To cite only one example, he closes with an eloquent comment on the universal benefit of classical humanism for all philosophies. He says humanism is the house to be built on different foundations. The problem is that foundations are more important than houses, and a sandy foundation will fall away, destroying whatever it was designed to support. Simmons was simply talking about the house, and perhaps it is not the job of schools to build foundations. This is a discussion Simmons did not want to enter. However, it is reasonable to question whether the benefits of a classical education can be consistently predicted when it is to be placed on differing philosophical and theological foundations.
Despite this, Simmons has still written a great book. He shows what a true classical education is and compellingly argues for the inclusion of the ancient languages. I would not say I have quite drunk the Kool-Aid of classical education, but Simmons has brought the glass to my lips and convinced me to take a sip.
March 12, 2025
Outstanding. Would recommend it to every teacher and parent, whether they decide to pursue Latin and Greek education or not.
June 11, 2017
Just the shot in the arm I needed
July 10, 2020
I can't tell if classics is a religion or not.
December 27, 2018
Climbing Parnassus delivers the author’s impassioned case for the value of an education in the classics. He spends a significant portion of the volume discussing the history of classical education (which he is careful to distinguish from the modern “classical education movement”) as well as discussing why we should be reading Latin and Greek.
He makes a number of points. A few are fairly pragmatic: for instance, if we wish to understand the men who made history (America’s Founding Fathers, for instance) “from within,” we must study what they read themselves rather than simply reading about them. Others are much more sweeping and difficult to prove: he says that learning Latin and Greek by immersing oneself for years in ancient texts makes people educated in a special way. That is, it creates a special way of thinking that the world needs.
He acknowledges that such training is a huge investment requiring substantial intelligence--it’s not for everyone. Simmons argues that we need an elite to guide and shape culture. He quotes Theodore Roosevelt’s statement that “Democracy as a permanent world force must mean not only the raising of the general level, but also the raising of the standards of excellence to which only exceptional individuals may attain.”
It was interesting to read this right on the heels of Karen Glass’s book Consider This, because Simmons addresses some of the same questions and comes to opposite conclusions. For instance, Karen Glass argues for the possibility of an education in the classical tradition without the study of classical languages. Simmons is fiercely convinced of the opposite. Yet both of them recognize the essential futility of dabbling in Latin roots and vocabulary as if it were some sort of magical smart-making exercise. Nowadays, learning a little bit of Latin is popular, and I often hear people asking why we are doing this. It is well worth reading Simmons’ case for actual fluency in Latin [says the woman whose Latin has gone completely by the wayside--someday I will learn it again!].
I enjoyed this book, but I can’t help noting that the author’s enthusiasm leads him to display a certain naivete. He seems ready to embrace everyone who studied the classics and to treat all historical manifestations of classical education as wonderful.
In his enthusiasm, he proposes that classical humanism is especially awesome because it can unite Christians, atheists, and agnostics by providing them with a common culture. This is perhaps a half truth. When we compare the classical education of deeply religious eras with skeptical ones, of Roman Catholic educators with Lutheran or Reformed ones, etc., we see the classics approached and handled differently. These differences matter hugely. As the author himself recognizes, a truly classical education is very specific in its goals and curriculum. We can’t revitalize classical humanism without finding a moral anchor outside of it.
Overall, a useful read, and a fun one (the author's style is decorative and entertaining).
He makes a number of points. A few are fairly pragmatic: for instance, if we wish to understand the men who made history (America’s Founding Fathers, for instance) “from within,” we must study what they read themselves rather than simply reading about them. Others are much more sweeping and difficult to prove: he says that learning Latin and Greek by immersing oneself for years in ancient texts makes people educated in a special way. That is, it creates a special way of thinking that the world needs.
He acknowledges that such training is a huge investment requiring substantial intelligence--it’s not for everyone. Simmons argues that we need an elite to guide and shape culture. He quotes Theodore Roosevelt’s statement that “Democracy as a permanent world force must mean not only the raising of the general level, but also the raising of the standards of excellence to which only exceptional individuals may attain.”
It was interesting to read this right on the heels of Karen Glass’s book Consider This, because Simmons addresses some of the same questions and comes to opposite conclusions. For instance, Karen Glass argues for the possibility of an education in the classical tradition without the study of classical languages. Simmons is fiercely convinced of the opposite. Yet both of them recognize the essential futility of dabbling in Latin roots and vocabulary as if it were some sort of magical smart-making exercise. Nowadays, learning a little bit of Latin is popular, and I often hear people asking why we are doing this. It is well worth reading Simmons’ case for actual fluency in Latin [says the woman whose Latin has gone completely by the wayside--someday I will learn it again!].
I enjoyed this book, but I can’t help noting that the author’s enthusiasm leads him to display a certain naivete. He seems ready to embrace everyone who studied the classics and to treat all historical manifestations of classical education as wonderful.
In his enthusiasm, he proposes that classical humanism is especially awesome because it can unite Christians, atheists, and agnostics by providing them with a common culture. This is perhaps a half truth. When we compare the classical education of deeply religious eras with skeptical ones, of Roman Catholic educators with Lutheran or Reformed ones, etc., we see the classics approached and handled differently. These differences matter hugely. As the author himself recognizes, a truly classical education is very specific in its goals and curriculum. We can’t revitalize classical humanism without finding a moral anchor outside of it.
Overall, a useful read, and a fun one (the author's style is decorative and entertaining).
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May 1, 2008Finally finished reading this book. Really interesting. Makes me feel guilty for not knowing Latin or Greek... No time to remedy that right now, but maybe someday.
Since I don't know or teach those languages, I think one of the most interesting things for me was his take on classical education. Down through the ages it has been an education for the elite, and he seemed to think that it should still be so. Those with less intelligence and drive would not be able to take the rigor of a traditional classical education. So I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to reconcile this view with the view at my school (classical education is useful for everyone) and with the American culture which is very egalitarian. Not sure if I've found quite the proper balance yet, but it was food for thought.
Since I don't know or teach those languages, I think one of the most interesting things for me was his take on classical education. Down through the ages it has been an education for the elite, and he seemed to think that it should still be so. Those with less intelligence and drive would not be able to take the rigor of a traditional classical education. So I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to reconcile this view with the view at my school (classical education is useful for everyone) and with the American culture which is very egalitarian. Not sure if I've found quite the proper balance yet, but it was food for thought.
August 26, 2018
I totally agree with Simmons that we lost an appreciation of what it means to be a moral person when we abandoned the classics and focused on strictly practical subjects. By making success in the material world the apex of human existence and losing sight of Parnassus, we have created a society that has elevated selfishness and that is losing its awareness of the possibilities of human development.
However, I do not agree with Simmons that the British method of teaching Latin and Greek in previous centuries is the best method to open young minds to the richness of classic thought. Rather, immersion in Latin and Greek at an early age with an emphasis on the spoken language would be much more effective for and enjoyable to students. Unfortunately, I do not see this happening in the foreseeable future.
However, I do not agree with Simmons that the British method of teaching Latin and Greek in previous centuries is the best method to open young minds to the richness of classic thought. Rather, immersion in Latin and Greek at an early age with an emphasis on the spoken language would be much more effective for and enjoyable to students. Unfortunately, I do not see this happening in the foreseeable future.
February 9, 2019
This book is a strident and powerful argument for rigorous classical education. It makes me want to learn some ancient languages, or at least read the correspondence between Jefferson and Adams. While the book can be slow at times since it recounts two thousand years of the rise and fall of classical education, it carries a strong common theme of the benefits and purpose of such an education. In particular, it asks the question of whether citizens should be trained to be effective in commerce or to be thoughtful and resistant to propaganda. The arguments are clear, but the evidence is anecdotal, which makes it less convincing. The strongest argument for classical education is the clarity and style of the writing itself, which I found to be enjoyable even when the particular section was less than thrilling.
April 15, 2018
I picked this book up off my shelf to psych myself up to begin teaching Latin to my 4th grade daughter. I have to admit that at least 50% of this book flew straight over my head, but what I did get opened my eyes and inspired me to begin our study of Latin. It showed me that classical education is not just the stages of learning (grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric), but that much of its value lies in reading the classics in their original languages. This book made me realize that my own public school education (even an “excellent” one by current standards) pales in comparison to the classical education of centuries past. I am excited to begin redeeming my own education as I learn alongside my daughter.
January 5, 2015
I did not know how much I did not know about classical education until I read this book. My whole idea about what it is, how it is done, and why it is important has changed. Tracy Lee Simmons is definitely educated and the book is really well written, I had to keep a dictionary nearby while reading.
August 20, 2018
This is an excellent book for understanding the history of classical education and how it has waxed and waned. I unfortunately had to return the book to the library about 90 pages short of finishing, but it is an important volume for anyone seriously interested in the revival of classical learning.
July 26, 2016
Unfortunately, horribly loquacious. Full of pomp. Utterly unreadable and hardly academic in its undertaking. All this is rather unfortunate since by exalting Latin to a salvific height, it fails to recognize the true value of a language that still serves as a valuable key to our past.
September 30, 2017
For a book about entering through the gates of Latin and Greek towering like sentinel parapets before the colossal Parnassus, this was more like a meandering stroll through a tranquil meadow liberally peppered with flowers.
November 24, 2019
Simmons’ book is a must read for anyone interested in learning what a “classical” and “rigorous” education looks like. There is a sobering gap between what those terms have meant historically and what they mean today.
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