The next few years will be a critical period for the classical movement in the United States. As our schools emerge onto the radar of the negative world, hostile press will increase, as will the temptation to save face by compromising everything our movement gets right: our commitment to Christianity, our national heritage, and the wisdom of the liberal arts and the Western canon.

The movement to resurrect classical, Christian education has flourished beyond what many of us thought possible. Its graduates have shown what can be done with a little piety, imagination, and the daring to trust that Providence works through tradition.

But in many important respects, the movement now stands at a crossroads.

Latent tensions are fast coming to the surface, as American Reformer has repeatedly warned. At stake is the future faithfulness of American classical schools, especially as they plunge deeper into the pressures of the “negative world.” What does it mean to be “classical?” What exactly is the “Western canon?” To what extent should classical schools embrace “elitism?”

The way these questions are answered will set the future trajectory of the movement, for better or for worse. And, for all the excellent answers that have been given, I would suggest one of the most important is often least talked about in the wider Protestant world: the need for a classical education that is more intentionally American – that is, one that more deeply roots students in the specifically American branch of the Western tradition and prepares them to “face the conditions of modernity” in the modern American context.

America and the Canon Wars

The need for clearer emphasis on the American ends of classical schools became glaringly evident when last year’s debate about the CLT author bank exposed how much disagreement lurks beneath classical educators’ unity around “the Western canon.”

There are many problems with the way Jessica Hooten Wilson argued for an “assortment of voices” in classical curricula, but she did expose how platitudinous “classical” lingo can become. It’s not as simple as selecting “Great Books” that are “excellent,” or that embody “truth, goodness and beauty.” They all fit that bill. The next question we must ask is, what standard do we use to choose among these? “Good, true and beautiful” to what end? “Excellent” for whom?

Without a concrete standard, even well-meaning schools will end up defaulting (like Wilson) to thinly veiled versions of our cultural shibboleths: that we should define the canon, and select texts from it, to promote some form of “equality” and “inclusion.”

Many otherwise sound responses to Wilson left this vacuum unfilled, until Lue-Yee Tsang pointed out that classical education has “civilizational boundaries.” All classical schools are part of a particular nation, and that simple fact dictates what part of the classical tradition they should emphasize. American classical schools must ask what “excellent” and “beautiful” Western texts, arts and skills will form virtuous Americans.

Compare John Senior’s famous list of “good books” with the curricula of many modern classical schools. To be sure, classical schools have put a great deal of thought into forming good citizens. But, if faced with the choice, how many seriously consider reading James Fenimore Cooper over, say, Charles Dickens? How many graduates can talk as intelligently about the early republic’s Protestant establishment as about the Investiture Controversy, or about the great Winslow Homer as about Vermeer? How many “integrated” humanities programs teach American history in the depth needed in an age where existential questions abound?

Entrepreneurialism and the Trades

Classical schools that are more intentionally American will also better prepare students for the realities of modern American economic and political life. As Aaron Renn reminds us, “facing the conditions of modernity” requires more than the Great Books.

It’s a well-known fact at top-tier conservative colleges that too many graduates of classical programs, habituated to prefer the “contemplative life,” end up being essentially boxed into teaching careers – many of them low-paying. They then face a choice between a job they’re equipped for and the ability to adequately provide for their families.

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