This is the first of a series of posts about Dorothy Sayers’s essay “The Lost Tools of Learning.” I think that’s sufficient introduction for anyone who reads this blog.
Also, I’m going to call her Dottie throughout, because I want to.
One of the first things Dottie does in her speech is propose “to deal with the subject of teaching,” for the purpose of producing “a society of educated people, fitted to preserve their intellectual freedom amid the complex pressures of our modern society.” Like every thirty-two-year-old academic, she aimed high, at no less than an overhaul of modern education, to correct the woefully slack thinking that ran rampant through the England of her day. She helpfully lists some examples of the problem she wants to solve:
- People are susceptible to propaganda.
- Professional writers fail to define their terms.
- The average educated person can’t tackle a new subject for himself.
- The average educated person can’t make connections across subjects.
- Academics can’t distinguish between material and final causes.
- Academics assume what they are trying to prove.
Serious problems, these. Worth addressing.
Here’s where things get sticky. Does the average graduate of a classical school fare any better than his public school peers when it comes to:
- Susceptibility to propaganda?
- Defining his terms?
- Tackling new subjects?
- Making connections across subjects and disciplines?
- Distinguishing between material and final causes?
- Begging the question? (Or misusing the phrase “begging the question?”)
I’m sure Dottie would agree that, even in her day, exceptional students avoided these pitfalls. Her proposals weren’t meant to improve the lot of the exceptional, but of the average. We’re talking about the typical CCE student, the Classical Child-Not-Left-Behind.
If average graduates of classical Christian schools routinely make the mistakes Dottie lists above, then either a) her proposal doesn’t work or b) we haven’t implemented it correctly.
Christian Leithart 