The Ordo Amoris of Education
Academic institutions have lost their way.
Such a claim would have been considered blasphemous only a few decades ago but today, it is quickly becoming commonplace in public discourse. This is due largely to the grim reality that test scores are plummeting, graduation rates are stagnant, and godless propaganda is filling textbooks. What went wrong? This question, though necessary, has dozens of possible answers: Whether you consider government capture, immoral curriculum, unnatural teaching methods, ill-equipped teachers, ideological infiltration, it is clear—to paraphrase one great playwright—something is rotten in the state of public education.
Many great thinkers of our time have observed, and I tend to agree, that these failings and obvious evils are merely symptoms of a deeper and more severe issue with academic institutions. Namely, we have forgotten why we educate.
Good ol'e Aristotle once observed that one knows a thing by what it was made to do. You can discern the difference between a spoon and knife because you understand the distinct functions they were made to perform. This basic knowledge lends you to rightly use these inventions — and keeps you from giving yourself a good stab in the mouth.
With an understanding of this general principle, prominent thinkers from John Dewey to C. S. Lewis have poured over the question "Why do we educate" and have proposed their own philosophical musings as potential answers. Whatsmore, communities around the world have tested many education theories, though, some have faired worse than others (i.e. 19th century Prussian public schools). Whether or not they found success however, ultimately, has nothing to do with the staff or curriculum (though these things are important to a large degree) because before we can rightly education a pupil, start a school, become a student, or raise a child, we must know the answer to the question "Why do we educate?"
So, without any further delay, in an attempt to answer this age-old question, I will appeal to the authority of Saint Augustine, who said plainly that the purpose of education is to rightly order the loves of men. Of course, this claim is embedded with assumptions that must first be stripped away and considered: Is there an ultimate “right” at all? Do humans have inclinations or loves? Are the desires of humans naturally disordered? Can loves be reordered? Is transformation a result of education? Should one wish to be transformed at all? The traditional and Biblical answer to each of these questions is, “yes.” Indeed, once one recognizes that the world was designed intentionally with order and ethics by a God, who has the authority to dictate what is right and wrong, beautiful and ugly, true and false, it becomes clear that mankind has fallen far from this mark of perfection. It is our task in life, therefore, to aim at living in harmony with these divine features of the universe. Once we accept that our duty, as creatures, is to re-align our fallen nature with the perfect ethos of our Creator, we must consider the means by which we might accomplish this. Here we once again find ourselves at education.
As Noah Webster defined the term in his 1828 dictionary, education "comprehends all that series of instruction and discipline which is intended to enlighten the understanding, correct the temper, and form the manners and habits of youth, and fit them for usefulness in their future stations." Said in another way, education is a means by which one's desires, loves, and will can be realigned with the perfect order.
Traditional education understands this well. It takes the best (or worst) ideas history has to offer and invites students to examine them, discern the best principles, and allow them to sanctify their minds, characters, and wills. Through an examination of Gods created order, children learn truth, see beauty and know goodness. The promise of education is that such knowledge will transform the individual who holds it and prepare them for right-living and proper thinking. As C. S. Lewis wrote in The Abolition of Man, "When the age for reflective thought comes, the pupil who has been thus trained in ‘ordinate affections’ or ‘just sentiments’ will easily find the first principles in Ethics: but to the corrupt man they will never be visible at all and he can make no progress in that science.”
With this etymology of education, schools, teachers, and parents are prepared to shape children into citizens, neighbors, fathers or mothers, scientists, theologians, and rhetoricians. Conversely, this is impossible to do if children are not taught an answer the questions "What makes a good citizen?" and "Who is your neighbor?"
I will conclude this philosophical musing of mine with the words of Plato from The Republic. He wrote that the well-nurtured youth is one "who would see most clearly whatever was amiss in ill-made works of man or ill-grown works of nature, and with a just distaste would blame and hate the ugly even from his earliest years and would give delighted praise to beauty, receiving it into his soul and being nourished by it, so that he becomes a man of gentle heart. All this before he is of an age of reason; so that when Reason at length comes to him, then, bred as he has been, he will hold out his hands in welcome and recognize her because of the affinity he bears to her."
By returning to Saint Augustine's end of education, schools will educate students to be virtuous countrymen, happy neighbors, and wise adults who have proper affections for what is true, good, and beautiful. And with these traits, they will be equipped to live well, and shouldn’t that always be our aim?
