Before we try to answer the question of whether classical education is for every child, we should ask how that question is different from the seemingly simpler question of whether education (without the word "classical") is for every child.

Would we answer these two questions differently?

I don't know of anyone who would answer the second question with a resounding yes.

Would we not answer the second question (whether education is for everyone) with a resounding "Yes"? And if that is the case, we would then have to also ask ourselves why anyone would answer the first question, about classical education, differently. If non-classical education is for everyone, why isn't classical education for everyone as well?

Is there something about a specifically classical education that would make it appropriate only for some?

The problem here, of course, has to do with our definitions. Is classical education simply a regular education (whatever that is) along with something different? Some generic education to which something is added in order to make it classical?

We might say that what makes classical education different from non-classical education is that classical education includes instruction in classical languages like Latin and sometimes Greek. If we defined it this way, we would be tempted to say that classical education is not for everyone. After all, these more specifically "classical" studies seem hard, and not every student would necessarily be able to navigate them. How can we ask every child to master not only the elements of a regular education, but the classical languages as well?

In addition, there seems to be some emphasis on the Great Books in a classical curriculum. In the average schools, it's hard enough to teach good books, much less great ones. The Great Books are hard to understand. Won't many children flounder if they try to read them?

At first this sounds persuasive. After all, Latin is difficult. Reading the Iliad is difficult. But while Latin is difficult, so is calculus. Reading The Iliad can certainly be difficult, but so is physics. Maybe we would say that some subjects are not for everyone.

Maybe it is not a classical education that is not for everyone. Maybe it is a rigorous education that is not for everyone. But that would mean that it is not necessarily the "classical" part of classical education that would prevent its use with all children, but simply the difficult parts of it, since a regular education can be hard too.

A classical educator would argue that the classical part of classical education is not really any more difficult, strictly speaking, than common subjects. It is not self-evident, for example, that the study of Latin is any more difficult than the study of geometry, or grammar, or algebra, or biology.

So the answer to whether certain subjects should be taught to everyone on the basis of their difficulty seems to have very little to do with whether they are classical subjects or conventional subjects.

The teaching of Latin in common schools (at least in the last 50 years) is certainly rarer, but why do we consider it harder? And is the Iliad any more difficult than, say, Moby Dick? Why would anyone think so? Never mind that many of these authors we associate with classical education.

Certainly reading classical texts in their original languages is hard. But don't many schools teach other foreign languages, and expect students to have some facility in reading the texts in those languages? These are mostly modern foreign languages, of course (Spanish, French, German), but is there some reason for us to believe that learning these languages is somehow easier than learning Latin or Greek, which have a more straightforward and organized grammar?

If there is something about classical education that makes it not appropriate for all students, it cannot be its difficulty, since classical education is not necessarily any more difficult than many conventional education programs.

The proper definition of classical education is not a "difficult education"; the proper definition of classical education is the passing on of Western civilization through the liberal arts and the Great Books. If that is indeed the case, then the question of whether classical education is for everyone becomes a matter of whether everyone should receive the benefits of his or her civilization, whether that is best accomplished through the liberal arts and Great Books, and whether that is best done by learning to read the books in their original languages.

The cultural role of schools has long been acknowledged, and the liberal arts—the set of linguistic and mathematical academic skills—has always been considered a proper part of any education. Language and math are the two basic tools of the mind. There are no others. And the best that has been thought and said has ever been within the province of learning.

Any school that tries to pass on our culture is classical in nature, even if it is unable to utilize all of the available tools. Many schools in the past have gotten by on what may be called "classical education light”—that is, an education with the proper overall aim, but without the benefit of subjects like Latin.

There was no Latin taught in the Little School on the Prairie, but that was not intentional. If they could have, they would have. There was not an abundant supply of Latin teachers in areas of the country that were just being settled. Many one-room schoolhouses were not able to teach all subjects because of the lack of both qualified teachers and books. My father grew up in the hills of South Carolina. They had only three books in their school, which had to be lent out.

Most schools with the available resources taught at least Latin. But even in schools with thin programs, the aim was still to pass on the culture using the resources they had. There was a widespread understanding of what "good" education was, and it included Latin and the "greats."

In fact, we might even define classical education as "real education." The problem is not whether classical education is for everyone, but whether anything that is not classical, in at least the broad sense outlined above, is education at all. We live in a time when the definition of education itself has been confounded. In the twentieth century, the progressive education movement redefined it along psychological and political lines (the purpose of education is to adapt children to psychological and political norms), and pragmatists redefined it along vocational lines (the purpose of education is to adapt students to the modern economy).

The question is not whether classical education should be for everyone, but whether all children should be educated at all.

Martin Cothran
Editor, The Classical Teacher Magazine

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