-rgvandewalker |
-rgvandewalker Vitruvius is part of my regular teaching material, and believe me, if he's all a student learned about burning bricks, the Grandeur that was Rome wouldn't have been very grand. It's an ideal of education, and it was never much a reality. In fact, classical education had nothing at all to do with the technical arts. Educated, free men looked down on those who worked with their hands. We're talking about a much more rigidly hierarchical society than that of today. But that aside... --MichaelTinkler |
As for the medieval meanings of "trivium" and "quadrivium", I am not a classical scholar, and I encourage corrections. Everything I've read seems to indicate that students were expected to know about everything, at least in some basic form. E.g., The classic study in architecture (The ten books by Vitruvius) tells how to do everything from laying out cities to burning bricks. Knowing everything is an unreasonable goal, but pursuing it makes for a glorious education- In classical education, as I understand it, you don't have to -do- it (this is Deweyism), just -read- about it, which saves a -lot- of time and busywork. -rgvandewalker