One of our sister schools in Spokane is headed by a gentlemen named Brent Harken.  He is an experienced, wise, and respected head of school whose perspective is frequently helpful.

One of the things he routinely tells his school parents is this: “I’m doing this for your grandkids.”

He explains that the work they’re doing at Spokane Classical Christian School is building the sort of appetites and abilities that will not just effect worldly success and happiness now, but generational effectiveness and blessing.  

Brent realizes that students who can reason well today will have reasonable dinnertime conversations when they have their own kids.

Students who understand the progression of Western thought and influence, students who realize they’re being given a baton with “CULTURE” etched on its side, are mindful of handing that baton to someone else…and making sure it’s not fumbled in the passing.  

Students who have been challenged and stretched develop a sturdiness that has utility everywhere…and they are also able to assure their own kids that just because something hurts doesn’t mean it’s causing harm.  Muscle soreness is a feature, not a bug.  

I appreciate Brent’s one-liner above, as it encapsulates a principle we depend on at ECS.  We’re interested in the long-term.  Enculturation is a marathon, not a sprint. We’re more interested in winning wars than winning battles.  We’re teaming up with parents for sake of their kids…not trying to replace the parents.  

If I only have an elevator ride to explain the distinction between modern education and classical education, I’ll usually say this: 

Modern education focuses on the transfer of information; 

classical education focuses on the transfer of culture.

This brief explanation is supported by the classical training enjoyed by our forebears.  From the Protestant reformers to our founding fathers, the shapers of our culture collectively were very concerned that those who came after them would be able to continue their work. Because of this, their (and their kids’) education was heavy on training in the great works of Western Civilization as well as classical languages (especially Latin), logic, and rhetoric.  Sound familiar? They figured that these ingredients were going to be very important if culture were to advance.

Modern education has largely abandoned these ingredients and the results speak for the themselves. When is the last time you saw logic being employed in a daytime talkshow or Latin or Greek being invoked outside of medical school?  Pathos goes unchecked by ethos or logos. The culture our forebears worked to build is literally disintegrating, and in some cases it is on purpose.  

God has been very gracious to our culture, and we’ve presumed upon that grace. Now we depend on the Western ideals of freedom of speech and freedom of religion to say we hate the evil West and Christians are bigots.  A culture of death has echoes everywhere, and the same people who would wail over the felling of an old-growth cedar would celebrate the in-utero dismemberment of a fellow image-bearer.  Many of them include their pets in their wills because they have no children and don’t want them.  

If they had read the books your children are reading, they might know that this is not a good formula for human flourishing today, let alone thirty years from now. 

Can such a culture continue?  Yes, but it will require repentance and some help.  Like Brent Harken, we are doing our work for you grandkids.  We do hope that you and your grandkids flourish, but if the fight stops there because the family tree is either stunted or poisoned, then we will not succeed in our mission. 

May God find us faithful and bless the work of our hands. 

Risus est bellum!
Jonathan

A Faculty Fireside – by Mr. Josh Walton

According to Augustine (and a Google search related to this) “familiaritas parit contemptum,” or familiarity breeds contempt. A depth of knowledge on a subject can make one almost disinterested or forgetful of the value of that subject. Think of it this way: You drive your children to school. You have 4 kids, your oldest is in 11th grade, and your youngest is in 2nd grade. Your familiarity with the route has led to a “contempt” for your surroundings. But it’s now a “Raggants Got Talent” evening and your husband is driving, and you have the opportunity to look out the window and see things on that same route that you either forgot about or are able to see for the first time. That old white house has a fresh coat of daisy yellow paint (which was actually done the year prior). There’s a new coffee stand (it’s been there for 3 months). And there is a new roof on the house that had a blue tarp on it since the last storm (this was actually finished yesterday, but had your husband not been driving you would not have noticed it until June). Your familiarity brought a form of contempt.

The world spins on its axis. Flowers bloom in their seasons. Pink salmon hustle up the rivers in the odd years. Your skin cells regenerate every 2-4 weeks. You drive your children to school. A honey bee’s ocelli detect the light from the sun, guide it across the river to the blooming flower, where it collects the means to make a spoonful of honey which you then place on that fresh cut on your newly generated skin to help seal and heal your dermis, scar free. But we miss all that, not because we actively hold it in contempt but because we spend life “driving by” it all.

This is the beauty of teaching and learning. Teaching at ECS is taking Psalm 19 to heart. Creation reveals the Creator. His Word revives our souls. His creation and His Word should set a fire to our curiosity. Our act of worship on Sunday is to foster curiosity in the teaching of the Scriptures. At ECS we wish to burn with wonder in all the venues given to us by God. How does ancient literature apply to the life of your 11th grader? Did Mendel’s simple experiments on pea plants also plant seeds of enthusiasm for more knowledge of DNA in the 9th and 10th graders’ minds? Did Mrs. Liden leading the kindergarteners and 1st graders through “Turkey in the Hay” grow a love of learning new songs in those children’s hearts (YES!). Who really writes those mysterious missives from the Gnomes? (It’s a Gnome, for sure).

Many years before I started teaching at ECS I came across another Latin refrain: “Qui docet discit.” “He who teaches learns.“It has always reminded me to be curious so that I can fight against the contempt of the common, continually learning, so that I may consistently be teaching well. (While using alliteration to anchor the point home so that my 5th graders will recognize it).

So, Qui docet discet,
Mr. Walton

Why We Make the Raggants Stand Up and Speak Before an Audience

If my records are correct, our first Rhetoric Tournament was in January of 2017.  Back then it was dubbed the “Speech Tournament,” and by my math that makes this year’s version our tenth annual! 

That was quick.

In that time the Tournament has only gained momentum and gravity, drawing all the Secondary students into its vortex.  With a mountain of Secondary House points on the line (not to mention bragging rights), the stakes are higher every year.  

When something is around for a decade, it can become part of the cultural fabric.  There’s less of “Why do we do this?” and more of “We’ve always done it that way.”  Perhaps this is a good time to review why we practice so much public speaking at ECS.  Let me suggest three quick benefits of rhetorical practice.    

Rhetorical practice helps a student to establish credibility. (Ethos) Any rhetorician who wishes for his audience to believe him must establish some credibility.  If a speaker has his reasoning and his argumentation is completely dialed in but happens to be a selfish jerk, all his devices are for naught.  Or as a far better man than I am once said, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Cor. 13:1).  Quintilian defined a rhetorician as “a good man speaking well”…but he must first be a good man. And such “good” men will emerge as leaders in the generation to come. 

Rhetorical practice inspires others to follow.  (Pathos)  Ours is a culture that is increasingly dependent on artificial intelligence and communication via text message rather than face-to-face.  A man who can speak the truth with both boldness and grace will inspire others to follow a compelling man unto their own blessing.  

Rhetorical practice helps a student to order his thoughts. (Logos)  We utilize a series of rhetorical exercises called the Progymnasmata, which were developed to help the trainee articulate himself on his feet in a host of contexts eloquently and persuasively. Latin (an inflected language) and logic classes help students learn to be careful and even precise with their language, but when it comes to ordering thoughts and ideas, Rhetoric is particularly helpful. 

Of course, there’s a lot more that can be said about ethos, pathos, and logos, and much has been said elsewhere.  But these are some of benefits that come to my mind when thinking about our Rhetoric Tournament. 

This serves our mission well.  If we wish for our students to “carry and advance Christ-honoring culture,” then they’re going to need to speak well.  The rest of our curriculum gives them something to say; Rhetoric gives them the tools to say it. The Secondary Rhetoric Tournament (and the Grammar Speech Meet, and more!) gives them an opportunity to practice this important skill. 

If you want to see what that looks like, stick around next week and find out! 

Risus est bellum!
Jonathan (the U.H.)

The following notes are from Mr. Higgins’ talk at the 2026 Information Night.

I’ve been around school enough of my life to know the joke about what assuming means for you and me, but still, I’m ready to risk it. I assume that every parent wants more for their kid than to grow up to be a rock star at scrolling TikTok. I haven’t seen bumper stickers for that yet: “My kid won Most Cat Videos Watched last month at We Are the World Elementary.” Our household has really benefited from some recipe reels and hair-care tutorials, and I always enjoy a good sports’ fails compilation, but this isn’t the goal, right?

I will also assume that when you imagine your son as an adult, you want him to be able to do more than prompt an AI chatbot to summarize the meaning of life, let alone make himself an AI girlfriend-bot for $20/month. You want your graduated daughter to be able to think more deeply than drafting a three bullet point list to decide whether Netflix or Disney+ is the better streaming service. I guess that means at least she’s trying to follow a budget?

I assume you want them to know how to read, and know how to pick out something that is good to read, and then even want to want to read, not just for their job, or to troubleshoot a broken appliance, but because they enjoy it. I assume you want them to know how to put down their phone at the right time, how to spot when a Taylor Swift song is trying to manipulate their feelings to make selfishness a virtue (and aren’t they all?), and how to avoid the feelings of anxiety and panic over every hourly headline of the imminent apocalypse.

I’ll admit that I really like a Claude commercial from a few months ago. It starts by cycling through scenes of disaster under a dystopian filter while the voiceover keeps repeating, “There’s never been a worse time.” But then the music changes and a new voice says,

“There’s never been a better time…to have a problem, to be stuck, to be overwhelmed, to be impatient, to be out of ideas, or out of your depth….”

The commercial ends with Claude’s tag line: “Keep thinking.” That sounds good. But do we know how to think? Does anyone even think thinking is good?

Here’s the thing, we could call it a meta-problem, as in a systemic or societal problem, and it relates specifically to schooling: who is defining what is the problem, and then, who is willing to care and work to try to solve the problems? Are we going to have to think about it? Is this going to be on the test?

Part of the problem is that it’s easy to misdiagnose the problem. Part of the problem is that we’ve got enough food and strong enough cell signal that we’ll let others deal with the problems, especially the hard ones. Part of the problem is that so many schools are the problem, teaching students that their bodies are the problem, that their country is the problem, that God is the problem.

The future–and for that matter, the present–still belongs to people who know the truth, who can think and write clearly, and who identify what should be done, how to do it, and why. For that matter, heaven and earth belong to the Lord Jesus Christ, and we are His. He is the truth, the way, and the life, and He calls His disciples to care about all that He cares about. Blessed is the man, and the student, who delights in all things because he’s meditating on the law of the Lord.

He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
that yields its fruit in its season,
and its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.
(Psalm 1:3 ESV)

At ECS we are trying to equip image bearers to be stout and fruitful. We want them to get a taste for how good it is to work—including working with their minds—to work hard, to do hard things, to solve hard problems. Stated another way, our mission is to help them become such impressive learners that they can carry and advance Christ-honoring culture. This requires developing the skill of laughing, the strength of endurance, and the sacrifices to work at all this with one another.

We follow a teaching model that isn’t delight driven, but it is intended to direct their delights where they should go.

We teach our youngest students that God separated the light from the dark, land from sea, right from wrong, right from left, nouns from verbs, boys from girls. Flowers and bugs and books of the Bible can be distinguished, named, and it doesn’t have to be a chore.

As students mature we teach them that the world, having rejected God, is messy, logic is hard to find, and it takes effort to understand how things fit together and effort to build something great. Cause and effect, and second level consequences, aren’t impossible to think about, but you do have to think.

And as our students get nearer to graduation we teach them that they can create, not just consume. They can speak, not just scroll. They can know the truth and adorn it, make it look good. They can learn to show up, and stand out.

Classical education refers to these emphases as Grammar (distinguishing Truth from Error let alone Lies), Logic (distinguishing Goodness from Evil and Apathy), and Rhetoric (distinguishing Beauty from the Ugly and Envy). The Trivium also seems to fit with certain stages of a student’s development, from Elementary to Junior High toward High School. But they are also gifts from God that help us solve problems.

There are problems: legal problems, political problems, potty-training problems, what’s for dinner problems, what-do-I-want-to-be-when-I-grow-up problems, novel-writing-character-development problems, classroom problems, financial problems, health and medical problems, language problems, traffic-circle problems.

There is no better time to honor Christ in our thinking. There is no better time to honor Christ by taking agency to think clearly about what’s wrong, resist the inertia of the lukewarm, and work to advance Christ-honoring culture. There’s no better place than ECS to think about it together.

Yes we live in unfavorable circumstances. We’re not yet living in the apocalypse, but we are living in some crazy days that seems to have borrowed major ingredients of every dystopian story ever written. And yeah, the prince of darkness is pretty ticked off at how many blessings God has given to His children. The serpent has been hostile to God’s people from the Garden. But we know the one who crushes the serpent’s head. He’s given us His Spirit, complete copies of His inspired Scriptures, a lot of great books, and fast WiFi.

May our sons in their youth
be like plants full grown,
our daughters like corner pillars
cut for the structure of a palace;
(Psalm 144:12 ESV)

I’ll end as I began: I assume you’re here tonight because this is what you want for your kids. ECS cannot replace you as parents, we’re not trying to, but we can be a tool you choose to help you. Come think and pull with us in Jesus’ name.

A Faculty Fireside – by Mrs. Bazen Higgins

Here we are, deep in the vast school year with spring break miles away. If your work ethic or attitude isn’t seaworthy by now, you’re going to start taking in water pretty soon. So, here’s a patch kit and repair instructions as you shape things up in the middle of the year.
 

Mr. Higgins, on September 7, 2023, the sunny first day of school, gave us a convocation talk entitled “The Year of the Raggant.” At the end of this talk, he introduced the phrase “high discipline, low drama.” That was almost 3 years ago, and to this day, this phrase is a crucial reminder. High discipline, low drama is something every Christian needs to continually think about in order to be effective in his or her efforts.

High discipline:

Scripture clearly compels and commands us to live a life of self-control and discipline. (Proverbs 25:28): “A man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls.” And Paul, when talking about preaching the Gospel, says, “But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.”(1 Corinthians 9:27) These passages are talking about being highly disciplined individuals who are not taken over by intruders or are shown as hypocrites in their faith. High discipline is self-bossing! This is trudging along and completing your reading when you don’t want to. This is repenting of your sin right away. This is getting the grades in and getting out of your warm bed on time. This is eating the sandwich your mom gave you, even if it has tomatoes on it, and making sure to wash your hands when Mrs. Hall asks you to.

Low drama:

When we are dramatic, we are taking ourselves or the situation out of proportion to what is fitting. The book of Ecclesiastes is about the vanity of life and the triviality of our work. We are not the center of the universe, and someone has gone through what you are going through right now. God does whatever He pleases, and He does not need us to finish His work (but by his grace He does use us!) The mood of Ecclesiastes is pretty somber, but it picks up by reminding us how God blesses us and how we are to enjoy the good gifts He’s given. Ecclesiastes 9:7-10 says:

“’Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do. Let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going.” 

When you are a child of Christ, you know things are not a big deal because, One: God’s in control. Two: You are going to heaven. Three: you can’t do anything to ruin God’s plans. And number four: He has revealed to you all that He wants you to do, and because of His son’s work, He is already pleased with you! So, yes, there are things in life that are a BIG DEAL, but in Christ, you have no worries and nothing but Christ to boast about.

There are very few people who have both of these virtues, high discipline and low drama, because they are balancing virtues. So you are probably bad at one or the other. When you notice where you are lacking, thank God for the clarity and a dose of humility, and get after it! Don’t freak out, but also, get your stuff done! Take your work more seriously and yourself less seriously. High-Discipline-Low-Drama it up people! God is good, so get after it and go glorify Him!

—Mrs. Bazen Higgins

Recently I was speaking with a female staff member about another Christian school that – though a good school – has experienced more crises than ECS. She immediately quipped back to me, “That’s because of our men.” 

“What do you mean?” I asked. 

“Well, drama just doesn’t gain traction with our men.” She then proceeded to rehearse a couple of recent examples where women were spiraling up drama until it hit one of our men and totally died.  And none of this was crisis-level drama, just run-of-the-mill drama that didn’t get to swell into anything spectacular.

I’m not saying women are the problem any more or less than men.  But when over-masculinization or over-feminization take hold in institutions or cultures, bad things follow. 

In a recent article for Compact Magazine, Helen Andrews argues that the increasing wokeness in our culture is largely owing to the majority feminization of fields like academia, media, law, and medicine.  Some of the stats are rather surprising, and the whole article is worth a read.  Though Andrews does not appear to be a Christian, she’s definitely conservative, and her observations are both compelling and incisive.  

Now, you may be looking ahead at the length of this article and going, “Oh no. Where’s he going with this…?”  Fair question.  The fact that Andrews’ is doing a polka on thin ice says more about the ice than the dancer. Why is this such a hot topic?  Because she’s onto something. 

I sincerely appreciate the women that we have working with us at ECS.  Their presence is both welcome and helpful.  Women with backbone help to promote the right sort of manliness even among the men while also fulfilling a vital role in any culture, including a school.  That’s good!  

But I also appreciate our men.  When a little boy scrapes his knee at recess, it’s often a big girl who ushers him to the office where a woman (probably) will help patch him up.  When that same little boy throws a pine cone at that same big girl at the following recess, it’s usually a man who privately counsels him on how to honor women.  Both are important! If the men did all of this work it would not be as good as when the ladies share the load.  Sometimes a boy needs some Neosporin and a band-aid, but sometimes he just needs to rub some dirt on it and get back to the game.  

What Andrews is talking about is not the physical presence of men or women in the institutions as much as the over-feminization of these institutions (of which the female majority population is a symptom). When institutions are marked by feminine virtues, they are often institutionally frustrated. If institutions are a plant, women are water for the plant and men are the soil.  While the illustration only goes so far, what happens when you have no soil? Nutrient-poor soil? No water? Too much water? Right. It doesn’t work. 

I agree with Andrews that over-feminization in our culture is a big problem. In fact, it’s actually worse that Andrews suggests, because she makes no mention at all of the feminization of the Church which is perhaps a more harrowing example than all her examples put together.  Still, acknowledging these issues does not require that I hate women (like Mrs. Andrews. Ha.). 

But what about ECS?  Glad you asked. 

We are trying to provide a context for the flourishing of our students.  If they can flourish in our walls, receiving an excellent academic education from an unapologetically Christian worldview punctuated with rich music, deep fellowship, playful laughter, and appropriately rough handling, they will do well when they leave.  Those who have developed an appetite for meat are not easily satisfied with milk.  Likewise, we are wanting for our students to flourish and then to pass that cultural baton to their own children.   

Keeping the peace is a “peace” of cake compared to fellowship.  All you have to do is establish who is afflicted and submit to her.  Easy! There’s no need for repentance or figuring out who is actually right or wrong.  This is a terrible and dysfunctional inheritance to hand our children.  

Consider another example you could see in a school like ours.  In a freshman Omnibus class, Janet declares that she’s offended by something thought-provoking suggested by Susie, demanding that Susie apologize.  Susie has a choice: She can A) apologize, keep the peace, and tread lightly from now on, or she can B) respond that it was but a suggestion to provoke thought, which it evidently did.

And by the way, the rest of the class is paying rapt attention to this, taking notes for future reference.

But fortunately, the teacher in our scenario is not easily manipulated and puts the ball back in Janet’s court.  His shepherd’s crook is ready for Janet:

• Janet, what do you find offensive about Susie’s comment? 
• Should Susie’s aim be to not offend you, or to pursue the truth? 
• If Jesus was offensive, should our aim be to avoid giving offense, or to avoid giving needless offense? 
• Is Susie’s comment causing you or anyone else injury?  
• How would you refute her comment using reason and Scripture?

If feminization held sway in this class, Susie would need to apologize for causing offense before any forward movement occurred.  Rather, in this class, the masculine engagement in civil debate evidences that the pursuit of truth is the aim, and everyone is better for it. 

Let me reiterate: institutions, fields, and communities need both masculine and feminine contributions by men and women. I could easily write an article about the abuses of over-masculinization, and the problems to follow would be dire…but that is definitely not our problem, no matter what the feminists say.  Our problem is not too much initiative, nor too much sacrifice, nor too much rigorous debate in the interest of the truth and a way forward. No, our problem is the omission of these ingredients, as they’ve been replaced with emotionally-driven decision making and women who step into the void left by lazy men.  These women are bearing a load different from what they’ve been designed to carry, and it’s as sensible as a man carrying a baby under his T-shirt.  

As image-bearers (and especially as Christians), we get to glory in the uniqueness of manliness and womanliness as a display of God’s glory in creation.  When one is neglected and the other is over-emphasized, things get out of whack.

What we see in today’s woke culture is a great example.  Andrews says this: “Everything you think of as ‘wokeness’ is simply an epiphenomenon of demographic feminization.”  She later remarks, “Everything you think of as wokeness involves prioritizing the feminine over the masculine: empathy over rationality, safety over risk, cohesion over competition.”  

Andrews is right: We must get our priorities straight or we too will suffer the consequences.  It may not be the case that the masculine nerve our ECS is entirely owing to the presence of men on our teaching staff, but it sure helps! Having our men standing at the gates during recess or at the doors during lockdown drills brings a sort of sacrificial stability that is a good example for our younger men as well as a context in which all the students can be secure.  

Even if we need to keep getting better, may ECS feature both godly masculinity and femininity.

Risus est bellum.
Jonathan

I don’t know about you, but I want my kids growing up thinking that some of the things we do this time year are normal…even if they’re not. Singing and celebrating for weeks (Advent) is better than singing and celebrating for one day (Christmas). If the Incarnation of Christ is a big deal, it’s worth meditating on for weeks every year. We celebrate Advent with activities and little presents and parties all the season long, because I want them to grow up associating this time of year with fun memories and purposeful anticipation of Christmas.

Of course the songs we sing play a role in this, too. The second year of the school’s existence was the school year 2013-2014. I was teaching Omnibus II and in the first quarter of the school year we had studied the Nicene Creed. The Nicene Creed has a lot in it about Jesus, the second Person of the Godhead, as the Council of Nicaea was very concerned to address the heresy of Arianism. They established orthodoxy on the person of Christ with these words:

“We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one being with the Father.”

Imagine the fun weeks later when my students and I arrived at verse 2 of “O Come, All Ye Faithful:”

“God of God, Light of Light,
lo, He abhors not the virgin’s womb;
very God, begotten not created;
O come, let us adore Him,” etc.

Studying the Creeds helped me to better understand why the hymn writer saw fit to set this theology to music in order that we may rehearse it every Christmas.

Incidentally, this is another reason why we almost always sing all the verses of the psalms and hymns at school: there are hidden theological gems among some of the lesser-known verses.

Have you ever noticed too, that a bunch of our Advent hymns focus on the second Advent of Jesus (aka, the “Second Coming of Christ”), while we sing them remembering His first Advent?

This is because traditionally Advent served a dual purpose of 1) getting people ready to celebrate the first Advent of Jesus (at Christmas), and 2) getting people ready for the second Advent of Jesus. Many of the hymns we sing reflect this, and we should cheerfully lean into it. I’d encourage you to pay attention when singing Advent hymns this year, as you get ready for Christmas Day.

Celebrating Advent is fitting as the occasions we celebrate and anticipate are also a big deal. It is appropriate to extend the celebration to include the four Sundays leading up to Christmas because it’s too little to restrict it to one day.

So whether it’s singing or partying or watching It’s a Wonderful Life or The Grinch (2018 version!), THINK about what you’re doing, make it fun, and do it on purpose.

Merry Christmas!
Jonathan (or the U.H.)

by Dr. Grant Weinberg

Growing up going to school, I had written my share of thesis and research papers. I even passed most of them. When I started at ECS, I didn’t realize how little I knew about papers and even less about the Progymnasmata. Besides being a word that I can’t say quickly, the Progymnasmata is the set of pre exercises for students to do to learn Rhetoric. It stems from the ancient Greeks and flows through the years of education until the end of the 18th century. To say that it had longevity is an understatement. I could give a diatribe on why it went out of fashion, but for now, I would like to explain more of what it is.

First, why do we write? We write because it helps one to organize his thoughts. It also helps one to think logically. These exercises force logical progression of thought onto a person’s writing that is a gift to everyone: reader and writer. It builds vocabulary, grammar, and everything else that schools and colleges care about. The thing that I love most about writing though is that it trains one to communicate in a way that lasts for generations to come. The written word has changed my life, it is how God has chosen to communicate with us, and words have moved every great person in history. If we want to change the world, it always starts with words.

Now, when it comes to the exercises, there is a progression to them that build one to the other. The beginning exercises focus most on taking in information and putting it in the student’s own words. Fable, Narrative, Chreia, and Proverb are all exercises that focus on what was said and the truth and value of the saying. These are meant to focus on what is true and good and still say it beautifully. These exercises are meant for late grammar stage students and early logic stage.

From there, the exercises look to build arguments for what is right and wrong, looking at the ideas and the characters of literature. Refutation and Confirmation are the converses of each other. They both argue about the truth of an event. The Commonplace traditionally looks to amplify and expose a virtue or a vice but historically looks only at the negative vice and why is it wrong. Finally, the Encomium and Vituperation look to individuals, considering their parentage, education, and deeds and if they are great or terrible people. The final composition of this section is the Comparison, which is either a double Encomium or an Encomium and Vituperation. The two people are compared together, going back and forth in order to easily draw comparison between the two people. These exercises are ideal for later Logic and early Rhetoric stage students.

The final group of exercises are about creation and persuasion. It is not enough for people to know how to learn things and if they are true or false. Learning to write should give a person the ability to change people’s minds. It starts with Impersonation, which makes a student analyze the style of another person, jump into their mind, and create something from that mind frame. From there, we jump to Description which is all about being able to take an experience and make someone else feel what you feel. If you have ever felt a shiver run down your spine while reading a book, it was probably from a description that made you actually feel something. My most recent one was from R.C. Sproul’s Holiness of God when he describes himself feeling the Holiness of God while walking into a church. The final two are Thesis and Defend/Attack a Law. While their constructions are slightly different, they are both doing similar things. The Thesis gives an argument of some kind, normally putting multiple ideas together. While the Defend/Attack a Law is political in nature, arguing for specific enactment or redaction of a law or rule. These are the jewels of the Rhetoric stage that gives each person the tools they need to change society.

While Progymnasmata may be difficult to say, the value that these exercises provide an individual is worth the collective weight of all your Omni books in platinum, yet we seek to cram it into six years of Omnibus. It is a progression that if cut short in the beginning is a disservice, or not finished in the end is a travesty. It might seem silly in the moment or like a lot of busy work, but in reality, it is all about shaping a mind to fit with all the geniuses of the past. I hope this helped you see where you are at in your journey with a glimpse at the end. We hope to build something out of each of you. These exercises are the nails and boards of the structure. We need a few hundred of them to build anything of consequence.