“We think it our duty to notice that, outside of and, so to say, beyond his faith, the bishop had an excess of love.”1 This is Victor Hugo’s description, in his novel Les Misérables, of the Bishop of Digne, a man who gave away his bishop’s palace to the local charitable...
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Even apart from profound connection with mathematics, music is pre-eminent among the arts for the order and clarity, the sharply defined character, of its elements. Music moves us, sometimes to overpowering emotion. It does so through well-defined structures, through an order of tones and rhythms. It is not...
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We have spent the past few months discussing the enigmatic thirds in Latin: third declension, third conjugation, and now, third declension adjectives. Let us review the basics of the thirds. Third conjugation verbs have –ere (short “e,” in contrast to the second conjugation which has a long “e” with a...
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If you have ever read Robinson Crusoe, you may remember one of his most serendipitous discoveries. Crusoe, the shipwrecked castaway, finds barley growing by his homemade shelter and realizes that he himself must have grown it, however unintentionally. He deduces that the grain has grown from what he believed to...
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WARNING: Before you read this article, please know that if you proceed you will inevitably become acutely aware of something that will, henceforth, continually unsettle you. If you are prepared for that eventuality, then read on. A few years ago, my family and I were traveling through Oklahoma City....
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A few years ago I began to make a list of qualities that I see in the best schools I visit. I measure the quality of the school by the depth of its investment into each student’s soul, which may cause this to be a not very practical list....
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I think I am pretty safe in stating this prediction: there is an educational revolution on its way and it is, indeed, already afoot and trampling hard. When distance learning was first introduced, it made some ripples. Then when online classes and, indeed, entire online colleges came on the...
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I have decided to take a different tack when I talk to someone about music. Usually, I ask a person what he likes to listen to, or what artists he likes. Why do I ask this question? Recently I heard a lecture on music and the arts by Dr....
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I know I’m a few years late on this one, but as history’s longest running science fiction TV series becomes even more of a cultural phenomenon, I thought I’d offer a critical perspective on what makes Doctor Who significant to classically minded people. A quick disclaimer: Classical Conversations is not in...
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In a 2011 article for the American Mathematical Society, mathematician Cai Tianxin made a striking claim. He wrote, “It could be said that mathematics and poetry are the freest intellectual activities of human beings.”1 His suggestion is doubly daring: first, because it brings together two arts that are typically...
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If I asked you, “Do you like math?” would you answer that you dislike it? Would you complain that you “never use it in real life”? Would you claim that you are not a “math person”? If you would answer in those ways, consider a follow-up question: “Do you...
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In Lamentations 3:22–24, the author encourages us with these words: “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him’ ” (ESV). February 2, 2013, was Groundhog Day. The tradition...
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