“Classical education is not, preeminently, of a
specific time or place. It stands instead for a spirit of inquiry and a form of
instruction concerned with the development of style through language and
conscience through myth. The key word here is inquiry. Everything springs from the special nature of the inquiry.
The inquiry dictates the form of instruction and establishes the moral
framework for thought and action. Classical inquiry possesses three essential
attributes. The first of these is a general curiosity, as opposed to the
systematic or specific interest of modern science. One does not launch a
classical inquiry with a preconceived methodology or from the point of view of
an established academic discipline. Consequently, the field is open for all
sorts of questions, whether regarding the true nature of happiness, the cause
of the Persian wars, or the source of the Nile. Second, one responds to these
questions by forming imaginative hypotheses. The very nature of the questions,
being far-flung and wide-ranging, often makes impossible what qualify today as
scientific hypotheses. Third, one completes the inquiry by devising methods for
testing the hypotheses. Again, the restrictions placed by modern science upon
methodology are not adequate. The method used to test the hypothesis formed in
a classical inquiry may involve reason or observation, logic or
experimentation. The inquirer may even seek confirmation for his hypothesis in
an emotional or religious experience. How else, ultimately, does one test the
value of a poem or the validity of God’s love?
General curiosity, imagination in forming
hypotheses, and method in testing them, then, mark the classical spirit of
inquiry. This bent of mind allows the educated man to go on educating himself
or extending the realms of knowledge for his fellows.”
David V. Hicks, Norms
& Nobility, p.18
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