Our Philosophy

In 1947, Dorothy L. Sayers, novelist, playwright, translator, and apologist, was asked to address the faculty at Oxford University on the topic of education. Claiming to enter the educational debate merely as a “concerned amateur,” her sly and witty contribution to the debate over traditional vs. progressive models of education has become the foundation of a resurgence of classical education in America. In her speech entitled “The Lost Tools of Learning,” Ms. Sayers sides with the likes of T.S. Eliot and C.S. Lewis to criticize and oppose the “progressive” educational reforms of her day. In her speech, Ms. Sayers turns the tables on modern progressive educators by arguing that the very things these modern educators wish to achieve (i.e. “making students fit for the modern world” etc.) can only be achieved by recovering the medieval model of a classical liberal arts education which these educators were rejecting. She states: “If we are to produce a society of educated people, fitted to preserve their intellectual freedom amid the complex pressures of our modern society, we must turn back the wheel of progress some four or five hundred years, to the point at which education began to lose sight of its true object….the sole true end of education is simply this: to teach men how to learn for themselves; and whatever instruction fails to do this is effort spent in vain.” Sayers’ program for reform seeks to recover the “lost tools” of medieval Scholasticism—namely, the grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric of the Trivium. In Sayers’ view, the Trivium develops a disciplined mind prepared to master any subject. All subjects, in fact, such as history and mathematics, have their respective “grammars” of rudimentary knowledge, “dialectics” of how that rudimentary knowledge systematically coheres, and “rhetorics” of how they are expressed, articulated, and presented. Any teacher who has faced a classroom filled with bright students who seem to lack all background knowledge, to lack any foundation on which to build, will appreciate Sayers’ recommendations. In applying this insight, ACA teachers are encouraged to organize the teaching and presentation of their subject material according to this trifold division seeking to teach the grammar, logic, and rhetoric of their respective subject matters.

In addition to applying the medieval concept of the Trivium to individual subjects, Sayers also applies it to childhood development: grades Kinder – 6th grade corresponding to the “Grammar” phase; 7th – 9th corresponding to the “Dialectic” phase, and 10th – 12th corresponding to the “Rhetoric” phase.