Consider This: Charlotte Mason and the Classical Tradition

by Karen Glass

Before concluding this consideration of the classical ideals, I would like to develop further the topic of synthetic thinking and a synthetic understanding of knowledge, because I believe that understanding this mode of thinking and working to establish it both in ourselves and in our children is possibly the most vital aspect of classical education, the one thing that will make a lifelong difference, regardless of the level of proficiency reached in any of the liberal arts. The medieval educators, when depicting knowledge, often showed the liberal arts grouped around or arrayed beneath the larger idea of philosophy or sometimes theology—love of wisdom, or the study of God himself. Charlotte Mason had a special fondness for Andrea da Firenze’s fresco that showed how the liberal arts could be considered outpourings of divine knowledge. Educational philosophy throughout history gives us a consistent picture of knowledge as a whole. We may look at one aspect of knowledge at a time, as we may look at a hand or a foot, but we never, when we think in the synthetic mode, lose sight of the fact that the hand is part of a whole person. For this reason, our educational efforts must teach us to consider all knowledge as a whole. We should never imagine that because we know a part well—even very well—we therefore comprehend all knowledge. This perception of knowledge as always being greater than we can apprehend allows us to retain that intellectual humility which is so necessary to c...