Beauty for Truth's Sake: On the Re-enchantment of Education by Stratford Caldecott

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is a book about education and about education in the liberal arts. Education has been reduced to training and stripped enchantment. There are some really great chapters that show how the enchantment applies to the sciences, astronomy and how the Trinity is rflected in different aspects of that order.



Really very good indeed.



"> The Way we educate is the way we pass on or transform our culture. It carries within it a message about values, priorities, and the way we structure the world. The fragmentation of education into disciplines teaches us that the world is made of bits we can use and consume as we choose. This fragmentation is denial of ultimate meaning. Contemporary education therefore tends to the elimination of meaning - except in the sense of a meaning that we impose by force upon the world.



> The keys to meaning are (and always have been) form, gestalt, beauty, interiority, relationship, radiance, and purpose. An education for meaning would therefore begin with an education in the perception of form. The "re-enchantment" of eduaction would open our eyes to the meaning and beauty of the cosmos.



> Education begins in the family and ends in the Trinity. Praise (of beauty), service (of goodness), and contemplation (of truth) are essential to the full expression of our humanity. The cosmos is liturgical by its very nature". (p.17)



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