Continue Your Education in Truth, Goodness, and Beauty

Free Resources to Help

Photo by Jonathan Francisca on Unsplash

Since moving to Oxfordshire, my husband and I have found ourselves in the orbit of a city whose heart and history is the intellectual life. We’ve both spent many years in academia, and now we can say we’ve spent many years out of it, or at least, mostly or partially out of it. So it’s been a delight to rediscover the joys of good conversation alongside people who are deeply interested in the same topics, even if from a different angle. (Of course these types of conversations do happen outside of academia, but less often.) 

Unfortunately, much of academic life as it exists now is not ordered towards the pursuit of wisdom. Many who enter pursue the path for reasons outside of the original vision of a university, and many who stay get caught in a “publish or perish” situation, spinning words for the sake of it, or spending their days mucking about in administrative quagmires. It’s difficult to be someone who devotes their days to the search for truth and takes home a paycheck from it. (This is probably why, historically, universities were places for religious who lived in poverty or under patronage.)

Recently, in an email exchange about various methods of education, someone reminded me of my own words: 

“Education is the shaping of a person (mind, heart, soul) to be disposed to love what is good, true, and beautiful in this life and be prepared to live that love in the next.”

I believe this to be as true for the small child who is just encountering the world for the first time, as it is for the young adult who is leaving home to make his way in that world, as it is for the person who has devoted her life to educating others. None of us is ever called to stop learning, whether we do it “officially” with grades and transcripts, or “naturally” as we move through the world, curious about creation and the people in it. (And dare I say, if we had less of the former and more of the latter, the world would be a better place.)

But most people went to schools that didn’t provide a classical education or even one that dealt fairly with the company of great minds who have preceded us in the Western tradition.¹ They weren’t encouraged to dialogue with the wisdom that has come down to us from the ages. Some have never read the texts that shape our laws or our culture, or more broadly, our “ethos” and ways of living. It’s not their fault: much of formal education just isn’t concerned with this, these days. And most people don’t have time to spend years getting a degree in philosophy.

Well, I have good news! If you’re curious about the world and the ideas that have shaped the West, you can pursue that education without enrolling in a course. Some of the universities that form students in the classical tradition, broadly speaking, are now offering free classes. (No homework!)

I should add that I myself have not taken these particular classes. But some of the professors were my professors or colleagues; others tend to come from places that share my vision about the true nature of education. 

Here they are:

• Studies in Faith & Culture (The University of Dallas)

• The Pursuit of Wisdom (Ave Maria University)

• Introduction to Western Philosophy (Hillsdale College)

The following two courses are very particular, but since they cover general areas that I’ve written on (like this and this)  they may be of interest to my readers, too:

• Cultivating Catholic Feminism

• Man of the Household & Woman of the Household

I am not affiliated with these programs and get no remuneration for sharing them; as I said, I haven’t watched them and so may not agree with everything in them. But that makes for great discussion! I’d love to hear what you think.

One last thing: a good education brings us into dialogue with the great thinkers of the tradition, but very often we can benefit from being in dialogue with our contemporaries, too. So why not host an in-person discussion group around one of these courses?² 

And if you’ve encountered other resources that foster a love for what is good, true, and beautiful, would you share them in the comments?

1. Are there great minds in the East? Of course! But as I was born and raised in the West and spend my life in a culture shaped by this tradition and/or reactions to it, I feel that it’s important to know.

2. Unfortunately, too many schools today equate “dialogue” or “participation” with “sharing feelings or personal experiences.” We’ve lost a sense that the purpose of dialogue is for both parties to come closer to the truth, which exists outside our subjective experience. (Of course, our subjective experience is part of who we are and can’t be left out as though we are merely brains in jars, either.) One way to help avoid this is to prepare good discussion questions in advance.