Since opening online in 2009, the Classical Liberal Arts Academy has hosted thousands of students, from all over the world. Yet, there is almost no improvement in Catholic education or culture to be found.
The reason for this does not lie with the children, but with Catholic adults. Following the mindset of the modern secular world, Catholic adults see education and study as something children do to prepare for “real life”. By “real life”, they mean working for money. Adult Catholic men are not studying philosophy and theology but are working like their non-Catholic neighbors.
This is why classical Catholic education will not advance.
Until Catholic adults establish a culture of philosophical study, children will not take studies seriously. They will learn from the Catholic adults around them that study is not “real life”. They will continue to see education as a set of minimum requirements to be checked off and finished during childhood.
Now, it can be said that, throughout history, men and women never studied philosophy and theology–and this is true. Almost all Catholics were mere peasants, working with their hands and leaving matters of philosophy and theology to those set apart for it. Thus, there is no classical Catholic culture to “restore”.
The difference, however, is that most Catholic men and women are not performing grinding manual toil in the modern world, but are immersed in information media, being entertained by movies, music, video games, etc., and following news and sports and other interests in leisure. Modern Catholics have the opportunity and means available to them to study as Catholics never had in history, but they have no interest in them.
This lifestyle preaches a terrible message to Catholic children, who look forward to the day when they reach adulthood and don’t need to study any more. In the past, children knew that studying was the privilege of a few, and the alternative was manual labor. In the present, children see that studying is a necessary evil that, for some unknown reason, is imposed upon them as children, but is unnecessary in “real life”.
They learn this from the Catholic adults they see every day.
Until Catholic adults devote their leisure time to the studies of philosophy and theology, there will be no advance in classical Catholic studies.
Mr. William C. Michael, Headmaster
Classical Liberal Arts Academy
mail@classicalliberalarts.com
