About CCE
Recommended ReadingsACCS recommends these books related to classical Christian education:
C.S. Lewis Rudolf Flesch
"The Lost Tools of Learning"
Dorothy Sayers
Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning
Douglas Wilson
The Seven Laws of Teaching
John Milton Gregory
Repairing the Ruins
edited by Douglas Wilson
The Case for Classical Christian Education
Douglas Wilson
Optional titles:
The Abolition of Man
Education, Christianity, and the State
J. Gresham Machen
Foundations of Christian Education
Louis Berkof, Cornelius Van Til
Of Education
John Milton
On Christian Doctrine
Augustine
Ideas Have Consequences
Richard Weaver
On Secular Education
R.L. Dabney
The Paideia of God
Douglas Wilson
Why Johnny Can't Read
Chris Schlect, History instructor at New Saint Andrews College recommends the following:
1. Quintilian, Institutes of Oratory. Quintilian wrote in the first century A.D. He epitomizes Roman education, and his pedagogical ideas were generally followed in the Middle Ages.
2. Cassiodorus Senator, Institutiones, or Institutes of Divine and Human Readings. The preferred edition is titled An Introduction to Divine and Human Readings, translated by Leslie Webber (New York: Octagon Books, 1966). Cassiodorus flourished in the mid 500's, and was secretary to Ostrogothic King Theodoric. He founded a monastery, and his educational program, which he outlines in this work, would become the pattern for studious pursuits in monasteries throughout Christendom. It was his influence that turned monasteries into centers of learning. He pioneered the idea of the "Scriptorium," and monks thereafter devoted themselves to copying and preserving texts and libraries. To this we owe much of the classical heritage that we continue to enjoy today (including the text of the Bible), because medieval scribes copied and preserved the ancient manuscripts. To fulfill a learned monk's calling as a scribe or as a commentator on Scripture or the Church Fathers, Cassiodorus believed that a certain program of education was prerequisite. This program was what we know as the Seven Liberal Arts.
3. Martianus Capella, The Marriage of Philogy and Mercury. The preferred edition is Martianus Capella and the Seven Liberal Arts (two volumes), translated and introduced by Stahl, Johnson and Burge (New York, Columbia University Press, 1971) Capella describes the seven liberal arts in highly allegorical style, which made it appealing to later mediaevals despite the fact that Martianus wasn't a Christian. He wrote at the turn of the 5th century (contemporary of Augustine) in Carthage (near Augustine). His book is no doubt influenced by the same culture of education in which Augustine was trained, and which the latter advanced in a Christianized form in his famous treatise, On Christian Doctrine.
4. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine. Augustine, a Christian through and through, argues that there is much value in the excellent liberal education that dominated the pagan Roman world (e.g. Logic, Rhetoric). However, he takes great pains to preserve the antithesis between belief and unbelief, and so he urges his vision for a classical education that is distinctly Christian.