by Sayers · Cluster: Essay · Critique of Progress · Common Man
Abstract
In this 1947 Oxford lecture Sayers contends that modern schooling teaches a multitude of “subjects” but fails to teach children how to think, leaving them defenceless against propaganda, advertising and sloppy argument. Her remedy is to revive the medieval Trivium—Grammar, Dialectic and Rhetoric—as the true tools of learning, matching each to a natural stage of the child’s development (the Poll-parrot, the Pert and the Poetic ages). The sole end of education, she insists, is to teach people how to learn for themselves, so that any subject becomes an open door.
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Connections
Forms & Genres: Nonfiction Archetypes: Child, Mentor Motifs: The Book, Machine Themes & Concepts: Education, Classical Education, The Trivium, Childhood And Growth, Critique of Progress, Truth, Imagination, Liberty, Reform, Creativity, Faith, History Forms: Essay Historical References: Medieval England, Classical Antiquity, Christianity, Renaissance, Reformation Settings: Oxford Characters: The Student, The Teacher, Child, Milton