Classical educator Ravi Jain dives deeply into the nature, purpose, and interconnectedness of the liberal, common, and fine arts, explaining how they are meant to form a rich education for the body, mind, and soul. The arts are to serve each other, uplifting wisdom, wonder, and the goodness of Creation. Jain describes the liberal and fine arts as more “soulish,” while the common arts (food production, architecture, medicine, etc.) are works done by the body or related to the needs of the body. The common arts ought to be learned and completed with dignity and as acts of service. Just as metaphysical and theological questions ought to guide study in the liberal arts, so must they guide the common arts. When the arts are grounded in piety and wisdom, they allow us to fulfill our creative duty of ora et labora.
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“The foundational distinction between traditional education and modern education is that the ancients believed education was fundamentally about shaping loves.” So write Ravi Scott Jain and Kevin Clark in their book The Liberal Arts Tradition: A Philosophy of Christian Classical Education. Originally published in 2013, a revised and enlarged edition of that book has recently been released. In the first of two interviews with the authors, Ken Myers asks Ravi Scott Jain about place of the Quadrivium — the four mathematical arts — within the larger framework of the classical approach.
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