In 1965 the Second Vatican Council issued Gravissimum Educationis, its Declaration on Christian Education. It restates, for our own age, the principles Pius XI set out in Divini Illius Magistri. I have measured the Classical Liberal Arts Academy against this Declaration as well, and I am glad to testify that our work satisfies it.
The account below follows the Declaration’s own order. In each point I show what the Council taught and how the Academy answers it.
The True End of Education
The Council teaches that “a true education aims at the formation of the human person in the pursuit of his ultimate end and of the good of the societies” of which he is a member (GE 1). Christian education adds that the baptized grow “ever more aware of the gift of Faith they have received” and “develop into perfect manhood, to the mature measure of the fullness of Christ” (GE 2).
The Academy’s curriculum is ordered to that ultimate end. The liberal arts train the mind. Philosophy, studied in the tradition of Aristotle and St. Thomas, leads it to the knowledge of causes, and theology directs everything to God.
The Council also observes that our time has made it “easier and at once more urgent… to continue the education of adults” (GE 1). Our courses are open year-round to students of every age, and we present the classical curriculum as a course of lifelong study rather than a sequence of school years to be completed and left behind.
Parents as First Educators
“Since parents have given children their life, they are bound by the most serious obligation to educate their offspring and therefore must be recognized as the primary and principal educators” (GE 3). The Council adds that parents “must enjoy true liberty in their choice of schools” (GE 6).
The Academy exists to serve that liberty. It began in 2008 among homeschooling families, and it still serves parents who have chosen to educate their own children at home. Parents order their children’s studies, and the Academy supplies an accredited curriculum, assessment, records and tutorial support.
Because the Academy is affordable, offers financial assistance to every family who needs it, and requires no books to purchase, the choice of a classical Catholic education does not depend on a family’s means.
Under the Church’s Mission
The Council teaches that education belongs in a special way to the Church, which has the duty of announcing the way of salvation to all men (GE 3). It welcomes “other aids which belong to the general heritage of man,” including “the media of communication” (GE 4). It also says that Catholic education “is to take on different forms in keeping with local circumstances” (GE 9).
Before I began the Academy, I asked my Bishop for permission. He arranged two meetings with his Vicar of Education, and I was encouraged to go forward. The Academy is run by my wife and me, both perpetually professed Lay Dominicans of the Order of Preachers.
We named the school deliberately, for what it teaches: the Classical Liberal Arts Academy. It does not claim the Church’s name, but it serves the Church’s mission. An accredited online academy is one of the “different forms” the Council foresaw, using the media of our time to reach families wherever they live.
Faith and Culture United
The Council asks Catholic education to “relate all human culture eventually to the news of salvation so that the knowledge the students gradually acquire of the world, life and man is illumined by faith” (GE 8). That describes the whole design of the Academy’s curriculum:
- The Trivium: Grammar, Logic and Rhetoric
- The Quadrivium: Arithmetic, Geometry, Music and Astronomy
- Philosophy: Ethics, Physics and Metaphysics
- Theology: Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition
The arts and sciences are studied in their natural order and crowned by theology. Modern subjects required for credentials are provided efficiently, so that they serve this order and do not crowd it out.
The Council asks that teachers be “very carefully prepared so that both in secular and religious knowledge they are equipped with suitable qualifications” (GE 8). Where such teachers are few, a sound system multiplies their work, as the Jesuit Ratio Studiorum once did. The Academy’s self-paced program was built for this purpose: not to replace good teachers, but to let the few faithful teachers available to us reach many students.
Higher Studies and St. Thomas Aquinas
In its teaching on higher studies, the Council asks that questions be examined so as to show “how faith and reason give harmonious witness to the unity of all truth,” following “the example of the doctors of the Church and especially of St. Thomas Aquinas” (GE 10).
This is the Academy’s own method. Our Logic program follows Porphyry and Aristotle’s Organon, our philosophy follows Aristotle as read by St. Thomas, and our theology is taught in the Scholastic tradition the Council commends. As a Dominican, I count it a privilege to teach in the school of the Angelic Doctor, whom the Council names above all others.
Conclusion
The Classical Liberal Arts Academy does what the Council asked of Christian education. It aims at the formation of the whole person for his ultimate end. It serves parents as the primary and principal educators and protects their freedom to choose. It was submitted to the Church at its founding and is run by professed Dominicans. It unites all human learning under the light of faith, and it follows the doctors of the Church, especially St. Thomas Aquinas.
For these reasons, I testify that the Classical Liberal Arts Academy satisfies the teaching of Gravissimum Educationis. I invite every Catholic family to read the Declaration and judge our work by it.
God bless,
Mr. William C. Michael, O.P.
Headmaster
Classical Liberal Arts Academy
Sources
- Second Vatican Council, Gravissimum Educationis (October 28, 1965)
- Pius XI, Divini Illius Magistri (December 31, 1929)