The heart of classical education is the Liberal arts. These are the skills and proficiencies and the essential knowledge that have always been understood as necessary in order to make one a free and responsible member of society. The Trivium is the first three of the seven Liberal arts – Grammar, Dialectic, and Rhetoric; the final four are the Quadrivium – Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy. The Quadrivium may be understood as general subjects. For example, in the ancient world, the subject of Astronomy included what we call Psychology. The Trivium, on the other hand, is a series of three specific subjects.
Grammar, Dialectic, and Rhetoric are related in the first place to language. Grammar has to do with letters and words themselves and how these are formed and used together in order to make sentences. Dialectic, or logic, deals with how sentences are combined into paragraphs in order to express coherent thoughts and arguments. Finally, Rhetoric is about the effective use of language in speech and writing so that we might communicate our ideas and achieve our goals. Grammar, Dialectic, and Rhetoric are subjects in their own right, but they are also simply the means by which we acquire the mastery of every other subject.
The Trivium as a whole is a universal subject or paradigm for all learning. In any field of study, first, we learn the basic facts, the grammar, and then we learn how the facts relate and influence each other, their dialectic or logic, and finally, we learn how to use this knowledge for ourselves, this is rhetoric. The Trivium is thus a method. It serves as a set of tools for learning or as the keys that open the door to every other subject. This is why the Liberal arts of the Trivium have always been understood as the indispensable preparation for advanced study of all the sciences and professions.
Classical education emphasizes the Trivium as both subject and method so that it might become thoroughly internalized. As a method, the Trivium is used throughout the curriculum and throughout all grades of the school. The subjects of the Trivium, however, are taught as subjects in the years when each appeals most to the child’s natural stage of mental development. Accordingly, Grammar is taught in the early years when children are particularly good at memorization and for this reason enjoy memorization. Dialectic is taught in the middle years when children demonstrate a growing capacity to reason and a tendency toward logical argument. And Rhetoric is taught in the upper years when, as they are now becoming young men and women, children focus on how best to present themselves and to use what they have learned.
This correspondence between the Liberal arts of the Trivium and the natural stages of a child’s mental development is a critical insight of classical education and one of its greatest advantages. At each stage of development, that method is emphasized which appeals most to the student and which prepares him or her for the next stage of development. It is a sequential and cumulative approach that is organic both to the student and to the subject. The end result of this approach is a trained mind, an ability to learn, for the mind’s powers have been disciplined and perfected. In this way, classical education becomes finally our permanent possession and strength.
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