What is the Liberal Arts Tradition?
The liberal arts nurture the habits of thinking and reasoning and carry with them the idea of being honorable, generous, and noble. Being educated well in the seven liberal arts gives students a foundation for all further learning. A liberal arts education differs from all other forms of education in that it is not career-oriented; rather, its end is human flourishing.
Students enter “The Great Conversation” by interacting with authors, artists, and great thinkers as they approach the time-tested great work with humility, understanding that there is much to be learned, and with hope that one day they too will become “artists” able to create what is True, Beautiful, and Good.
There are seven liberal arts which are considered foundational for all higher learning and which are divided into what are called the Trivium (the language arts), and the Quadrivium (the mathematical arts).
The Trivium
The Trivium (or “three paths”) is the study of grammar, logic, and rhetoric, with a focus on learning to understand and use language in reading, writing, and speaking effectively. Thus, a liberal arts education teaches language through handwriting, phonics, spelling, grammar, vocabulary, reading, Latin, composition, formal logic, and formal rhetoric.
The Quadrivium
The Quadrivium (or “four paths”) includes the study of number (arithmetic), its relation to space (geometry), its relation to time (music), and a combination of the three (astronomy). The mathematical arts not only develop the capacity for abstract reasoning, but give evidence for the created, ordered cosmos.
