Trinitas Blog

The benefits of learning Greek as a tool to sharpen one's mental abilities cannot be overstated.

“I would make them all learn English: and then I would let the clever ones learn Latin as an honor, and Greek as a treat.”       -Winston Churchill

This quote from Churchill at times can be taken out of context. It would appear that Churchill spoke of Latin as the cognitive sharpening tool of the clever. But a more careful reading would show that Churchill understood that both Greek and Latin were excellent tools for cognitive development.

Classical educators are frequently asked why we teach “dead languages.” At Trinitas, we teach both Latin and Greek as part of our core curriculum, and we believe to do otherwise would make us something other than classical. We don’t cling to these languages out of some foolish consistency or for the sake of keeping up classical appearances. No, we cling to them for their unparalleled value as educational tools.

When Janice and I visited Trinitas Christian School at the invitation of Justice Ken Bell (father of three Trinitas alums) fourteen years ago, it wasn’t because we were looking for classical education. We were looking for Christian education to be sure, but we didn’t even know enough about classical education to ask a good question about it. Seeing was believing for us that day though, and one tour of the school during a normal day of classes convinced us that this classical education was worth a try.

So let’s imagine we’ve been recruited to play a game. We didn’t volunteer, we were recruited. Saying no wasn’t an option. In this game we get dropped off in a strange alternate reality where we understand nothing. The people are speaking our language, but they’re using a lot of words and phrases and references we don’t understand. They only laugh at us when we ask questions, but mostly they ignore us. There are a dozen of us so we have some comfort in our numbers, but none of us understands how to get along in this strange place. Before we were dropped off in this alternate reality, we were told that to win the game, to get back home, we must make it to the Good City, and to be careful along the way. We were given no map and no further instruction.

When thinking of the past, we often find ourselves in one of two precarious positions: veneration or disdain. Looking back on those “good ole days” can cause us to miss out on the gifts of God before us now. Do we, like Saul, desperately seek to evade the consequences of today by reaching out to the ghosts of the past? Or are we more like Ajax, holding silently onto old grudges, forsaking forever a chance for restoration to a friend and comrade? Surely these are not the only ways to view what has gone before us? Is there a way to recall the past with glorifying it unnecessarily, or treating as an experiment in regret?

“I wasted time and now doth time waste me.” This is the lament of Shakespeare’s King Richard II. He was an idle and indecisive king whose crown was stolen from him because he wasted his past, and as he speaks these words he anticipates living out the rest of his days in prison or exile.  Another of Shakespeare’s great figures, Hamlet, is also famous for wasting time. After the ghost of his father appears and burdens him with the urgent task of vengeance, Hamlet spends the next four acts of the play finding excuses not to go through with it, because he fears what the future might hold.

We spend a lot of time thinking about our future.  People ask you what you want to be when you grow up? Where are you going to college? What are you going to do with your life? What job do you want? There is much we don’t know for certain about our future. But today I want to tell you something about your future.

In the last post we anticipated what habits would help husbands and fathers to be oriented toward the life of the home in ways that produce good fruit. What follows is not comprehensive. In fact it may seem simple, but simple things are often most important because they are most basic to life: plants need watering to live, pets need feeding to flourish, and man, well, man needs spiritual habits to cultivate holiness.