Monday, April 01, 2024

Quadrivium and Trivium

The reason I've always been captivated by the Quadrivium and Trivium is almost certainly that these ancient western educational models happen to coincide with six main interests of mine: math, music, astronomy/cosmology, logic, writing, and debate. 

Moreover, philosophy, another one of my main interests, was considered such an obvious part of classic liberal arts training that it wasn't included in the list of subjects for either the Quadrivium or Trivium.

From the Wikipedia article on Quadrivium:

"From the time of Plato through the Middle Ages, the quadrivium (plural: quadrivia[1]) was a grouping of four subjects or arts—arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy—that formed a second curricular stage following preparatory work in the trivium, consisting of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Together, the trivium and the quadrivium comprised the seven liberal arts,[2] and formed the basis of a liberal arts education in Western society until gradually displaced as a curricular structure by the studia humanitatis and its later offshoots, beginning with Petrarch in the 14th century. The seven classical arts were considered "thinking skills" and were distinguished from practical arts, such as medicine and architecture."

One has to wonder what our society would look like if schools prioritized these essential subjects in grades K-12.

St. Ann Classic Academy is a school trying to implement such a curriculum.

For an excellent book on the Quadrivium, try Quadrivium: The Four Classical Liberal Arts of Number, Geometry, Music, & Cosmology. 

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