I recently spoke at a fundraiser for a classical Christian school, Coram Deo Academy. Here is what I said:
Here we are at an auction to raise money for a school. You were invited here and are being asked to purchase things at a price higher than what you would normally pay—you were not invited here to be a bargain shopper, but to be excellent in generosity. But money is hard earned, and there are many good causes you could support, not to mention other basic needs and comforts you could spend it on. Why spend it here? Why spend it on a school?
Perhaps to help is see the value of this cause, we might be helped to ask: What is the purpose of a school?
To get an education, of course. But what is an education? In Plato’s Republic he talks about the role of education as “inculcating just sentiments.” Plato speaks of a human being as being comprised of three parts: the head, the chest, and the belly. The intellect, the spirit, and the appetites. The head is our rationality, our capacity to reason, think, and arrive at truth—it is what creates syllogisms, computer code, and city bridges. The belly is our desires, our passions, and cravings—it is what must be bridled lest we become animals. The chest is the seat of virtue, where we love or hate what we ought to—the place where what is true, good, and beautiful is cherished and practiced. These three elements map nicely onto three major perspectives on the purpose of education:
Education for indoctrination.
The philosophy of Brave New World and 1984 and (apparently) many of our most prestigious universities today. An education that can claim that 2+2=5, if Big Brother says so. It is a forceful application of ideology, a simplistic fundamentalism that hardens the heart while softening the mind. Why? Because it is an appeal to the belly—our base appetites of fear, pleasure, and tribalism over the lofty objectives of goodness, truth, and beauty.
Education for employment.
The view of modernity that the highest good one can achieve is to make a lot of money, therefore the purpose of education is to make you as marketable as possible. Avoid the bizarre excesses of those indoctrinated, not only because they look crazy, but more so because it will hurt your chances of getting a job. And high-paying jobs are by no means unimportant—hopefully some of you have high-paying jobs and you can put that money to good use tonight. But it is a trend in education today to pare away the humanities—poetry, philosophy, theology, ethics, history—and to replace them with things like robotics and graphic design and engineering because (naturally) careers in the STEM field will be more lucrative than the liberal arts. Robotics and graphic design are not sinister, of course. They are wonderful. But what happens to a generation that is taught robotics, but never Dickens or Dante or Tolkien? What happens to the young man who is given the power of technique, but not the wisdom to know how to use it? We get what C.S. Lewis calls “men without chests.” Men who have the technical skill and knowledge of the head, but an atrophied heart and malnourished virtue. Strength, but not justice. And an emphasis on the head at the neglect of the chest will not prevent the worst impulses of the belly. Plato tells us “The head rules the belly through the chest,” (Lewis, Abolition). Nature abhors a vacuum. If we do not train our students to love the good, the true, and the beautiful, the growl of the stomach will eventually be heard, but now it will be amplified by cavernous heads.
Education for virtue.
What is the mission of classical education, of a school like Coram Deo? It is to create students with sharp minds, who can use logic, math, science, technology, and argument—but not only that. It is to cultivate “just sentiments,” to create men with chests. To create students who not only know philosophy and language and history and science, but also know why those things exist…why everything exists. The school exists to create lawyers who not only know how to argue and speak well, but also know what justice and righteousness is; to create engineers who not only know how to apply mathematics and physics, but who also desire to serve their city and community to the glory of God; to create scientists who not only possess inquisitive and analytical minds, but who also love the God who created this fascinating world and desires us to know Him as we know it. This school exists to disciple young people into loving the Lord their God with all their heart, mind, and strength, and to love their neighbor as themselves. If the next wave of people entering the workforce—the next wave of mothers and fathers, the next wave of doctors, managers, police officers, plumbers, architects, politicians, business owners—were not only technically skilled, but virtuously formed, then our society could be renewed, could begin to look more like the true, the good, and the beautiful.
Marc Sims 