Classical education was based on a clear understanding and facility with the trivium: grammar, logic, and rhetoric. You don’t hear too much about these disciplines any more and it’s sad to say that contemporary education appears to be moving further and further away from classical education. Shoot, they’re not even teaching cursive writing any more. When I was a kid (not THAT long ago) I had grammar and spelling from the earliest days of grade school at least up through high school. Logic and rhetoric were also presented but under the guise of critical thinking and forming a valid argument. At the university we took courses explicitly designated Logic and Rhetoric.

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