Liberal Arts - and Montessori

It used to be that the trivium was taught before all else:

• grammar


• logic


• rhetoric

These three (the Trivium) taught the children how to think, preparing their minds to be open to all further learning. These pieces were *foundational*.

Now, unless you are fortunate to attend a truly decent school (whether public or private) or utilize a top-notch homeschool curriculum, these things are just not taught or experienced.

The Trivium paved the way for the remaining foundational studies in the Quadrivium:

• Arithmetic (number in itself)


• Geometry (number in space)


• Music (number in time)


• Astronomy (number in space and time)

I cannot speak for other curricula, since there is nothing I use so fully and completely as the AMI version of Montessori education for primary and elementary. A Montessori education allows me, as mother and teacher, as well as the student, to utilize whatever needed components from SO many other sources. Montessori provides the foundation and the framework, the child's interests and local educational requirements fill in the rest.

I can say that Montessori albums, when followed in laying the educational foundation, both academically and spiritually, CAN and DO provide the liberal arts in their entirety.

So why do we care about the liberal arts? The most concise answer can be found in the article "On the Purpose of  Liberal Arts Education" by Robert Harris (click on the title for the full, long but fascinating article).

I. A liberal arts education teaches you how to think

II. A liberal arts education teaches you how to learn.

III. A liberal arts education allows you to see things whole

IV. A liberal arts education enhances wisdom and faith

V. A liberal arts education makes you a better teacher

VI. A liberal arts education will contribute to your happiness

From The Idea of a University by John Henry Newman

"[The purpose of a liberal arts education is to] open the mind, to correct it, to refine it, to enable it to know, and to digest, master, rule, and use its knowledge, to give it power over its own faculties, application, flexibility, method, critical exactness, sagacity, resource, address, [and] eloquent expression. . . ."

So don't leave out these subjects because there isn't time to fit them in (like astronomy...). These things are the fuel for all other learning. Said another way, other learning isn't worth it without the foundation.