The Three-legged Stool

The Dorothy Sayers method of classical education does not guide us as to core subjects; she describes the method to use to learn any subject. The historic method of classical education likewise does not provide a curriculum comprehensive enough to meet the requirements of most state homeschooling laws. A truly optimum classical education, then, ought to be like a three-legged stool. One leg would be the mastery of language with a biblical foundation: English and Latin grammar, logic, and rhetoric. The second leg would be the mastery of mathematics with a biblical foundation: arithmetic, the grammar of mathematics; algebra and geometry, the logic of mathematics; and higher maths, the rhetoric of mathematics. Mathematics is also a language, and also teaches precise thinking and logic in another way. The third leg would be Christian and Western Civilization with a biblical foundation, so that the culture may be transferred from one generation to the next, allowing it to endure and progress. (If ever a generation failed to transfer Christian and Western culture to the next generation, that culture would cease to exist upon the parent generation’s death.) Western Civilization, which is based upon and is an outgrowth of Christianity, includes history, literature, art, music, science, philosophy, law, government, and other related topics, all on their biblical foundations.