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Training in the skills of Grammar, Logic and Rhetoric should be the central focus of elementary education. The goal of the Trivium is to prepare students to be masters of language so that they understand with precision what they hear and read, and speak and write with precision what they think with clarity.
Trivium studies also introduce students to the stories, characters and rhythms that mark their culture. The careful analysis and representation of the finest models was essential to classical education. Reading, understanding, memorizing, reproducing and imitating a speech like the Gettysburg address or a Shakespeare soliloquy develops students at many levels. As adults, they will draw upon this storehouse to inspire their choices, guide their reflections, and excite their fellows.
Although the formal study of each of the Arts of the Trivium is important, their use, exercise and development occurs throughout the curriculum. Teachers of literature, history, theology, must constantly encourage students to develop their skills of reading, analysis and expression. Mathematics and the natural sciences provide an excellent opportunity for learning clarity, order, completeness and even the beauty of presentation. Making students capable of a lifetime of learning is usually as important as the particular subject matter they are studying.
Dorothy Sayers in her essay Lost Tools of Learning points out that the arts of the Trivium correspond to developmental stages in children. The memorization that characterizes Grammar is easy and often pleasant to younger children. Catching logical errors in adults and arguing through apparently logical (usually sophistical) forms is a favorite pastime for the pre-teen. The desire to form one’s own ideas and express them beautifully is strong in the adolescent.
