Vendor Hall
Sponsor Article
Mandala Fellowship:
Rediscovering the Quadrivium
For parents whose children have graduated high school, there are many higher education options to investigate. Many of us assumed we would send our children to a
college or university because that option
is most familiar to us or because we feel
that is what others expect us to do. We
may reason that a four-year degree is the
best means to help our children secure
a job. However, we should all pause for
a moment to consider whether employment should be the focus of education.
What was the original mission of the
university?
In order to consider the true purpose
of education, we must examine the original educational theories—those of classical and medieval thinkers. These thinkers
focused on seven liberal arts that formed
a proper liberal education, an education
that prepared people for leadership and
self-governance. These seven liberal arts
were divided into the Trivium (based
on the Latin word for “three”) and the
Quadrivium (based on the Latin word for
In a medieval classical,
Christian education,
teachers trained
younger students in
the Trivium arts first
as preparation for
the Quadrivium, the
higher education of
that period.
“four”). The three arts of the Trivium are
language arts—grammar, dialectic, and
rhetoric. The Quadrivium arts are arts of
number—arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. In a medieval classical,
Christian education, teachers trained
younger students in the Trivium arts
first as preparation for the Quadrivium,
the higher education of that period. The
Quadrivium, in turn, prepared students
to study moral sciences of philosophy
and theology. This progression ensured
that students could recognize the truth
and articulate it to others. This mode of
instruction produced thinkers such as
Galileo, Shakespeare, Sir Isaac Newton,
C. S. Lewis, and T. S. Eliot.
Now, however, instead of pursuing a
clearly defined path, university students
today are encouraged to choose from a
smorgasbord of electives that do not give
them a coherent view of the world. They
have no understanding of the history of
ideas and of how those old ideas have
impacted our contemporary culture. We
have narrowed our idea of the university
from an institution designed to cultivate
citizen-leaders to that of a system created
to produce workers. As a result, we are
now beginning to reap the poor results
of a poorly designed educational system.
Business leaders and parents alike are
starting to rethink the value of a college
education. In a recent blog post, Leigh
Bortins, founder of Classical Conversa-
tions, noted a new trend of skepticism
regarding the idea that a college educa-
tion is the only educational path after
high school:
Have you paid any attention to the
news? College students are now an-
gry over the lack of jobs and under-
employment. Leaders in economics
are also warning parents not to send
their children to college. Forbes,
USA Today, and other periodicals
have discussed the poor ROI (return
on investment) for a college educa-
tion today. Peter Thiel, a hedge fund
manager, started a program that pays
students not to go to college and to
go to work instead. Timothy Ferris’s
best-seller, The 4- Hour Workweek, is
full of alternative education and ca-
reer ideas. Sebastian Thrun, former
Stanford professor and Google guru,
has shunned college accreditation
and begun Udacity as an alternative.
And we all know the stories of Sili-
con Valley leaders who left college
in order to work. Yes, for the aver-
age person, college still provides an
www.TheHomeschoolMagazine.com
