The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home

by Susan Wise Bauer

Gene Edward Veith points out that the Greeks would have viewed with suspicion education that trains the student for a highly specific job. Such training creates “a slave mentality, making the learner an obedient worker utterly dependent upon his masters.”† In an economy where the average worker has held five different jobs over the space of a career, only the flexible can survive (and be free).

I wanted to write. I wanted to make a hand-braided early American–style rug. When my three children were toddlers, I had a whole stash of wool, all stripped in preparation for braiding. Since toddlerhood wasn’t the right time to start such a large project, I stored it in boxes “until the children are in school.” Instead of sending them off each morning while I quietly braided the rug, I was even more busy with home schooling than I had been with three preschoolers. I have time to write now. My rug-in-waiting is still in boxes, although I can almost see the time approaching to start it—thirty years later! But my children are the most creative project I have been involved in. I can’t compare the relationship I have with them to a relationship with a rug, no matter how beautifully hand-crafted. And my crafting of their education has been life-enriching to all of us.