Who sets language policy today? Who made whom the grammar doctor?
Lacking the equivalent of l'Académie française, we English speakers must
find our own way looking for guidance or vindication in source after
source. McGuffey's Readers introduced nineteenth-century students to
correct English. Strunk and White's Elements of Style and William
Safire's column, On Language, provide help on diction and syntax to
contemporary writers and speakers. Sister Miriam Joseph's book, The
Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric, invites the
reader into a deeper understanding--one that includes rules,
definitions, and guidelines, but whose ultimate end is to transform the
reader into a liberal artist.
A liberal artist seeks the perfection of the human faculties. The
liberal artist begins with the language arts, the trivium, which is the
basis of all learning because it teaches the tools for reading, writing,
speaking, and listening. Thinking underlies all these activities. Many
readers will recognize elements of this book: parts of speech, syntax,
propositions, syllogisms, enthymemes, logical fallacies, scientific
method, figures of speech, rhetorical technique, and poetics. The
Trivium, however, presents these elements within a philosophy of
language that connects thought, expression, and reality.
Trivium means the crossroads where the three branches of language meet.
In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, students studied and mastered
this integrated view of language. Regrettably, modern language teaching
keeps the parts without the vision of the whole. Inspired by the
possibility of helping students acquire mastery over the tools of
learning Sister Miriam Joseph and other teachers at Saint Mary's College
designed and taught a course on the trivium for all first year students.
The Trivium resulted from that noble endeavor.
The liberal artist travels in good company. Sister Miriam Joseph
frequently cites passages from William Shakespeare, John Milton, Plato,
the Bible, Homer, and other great writers. The Paul Dry Books edition of
The Trivium provides new graphics and notes to make the book
accessible to today's readers. Sister Miriam Joseph told her first
audience that the function of the trivium is the training of the mind
for the study of matter and spirit, which constitute the sum of reality.
The fruit of education is culture, which Mathew Arnold defined as 'the
knowledge of ourselves and the world.' May this noble endeavor lead many
to that end.
Is the trivium, then, a sufficient education for life? Properly taught,
I believe that it should be.--Dorothy L. Sayers
The Trivium is a highly recommended and welcome contribution to any
serious and dedicated writer's reference collection.--Midwest Book
Review
