The minds of youth today have a serious problem, and it’s rooted in the demise of classical education. With the loss of classical education, we have also been robbed of the values, visions, and ideas of Rome and Greece. It was these values and ideas that shaped Western civilization and our nation.

Ironically, these are the ideas that have come under scrutiny in our own universities. Very few people in America know about the origins of the West in ancient Greece.

Unfortunately, American citizens are drifting further away from the important ethical an philosophical theories that are necessary if we want to understand, appreciate, and keep the freedoms we enjoy.

Greek wisdom was key in building our nation, and it’s vital that we remember this.

We applied many of these philosophies into our governmental make-up: a constitutional government, individual rights, freedom of expression, an open economy, civilian control of the military, separation of religious and political authority, private property, free scientific inquiry, and open dissent. These are some of the things that we need now more than ever in our changing culture.

We need to also remember that the Greeks insisted that these freedoms be monitored and controlled by civic responsibility, philanthropy, and an absolute world view.

Other characteristics that helped keep things in check were beliefs that life was not nice, but tragic and momentary, and self-criticism.

With the demise of classical education, we lose a complete way of seeing the world. We instead see the world through new lenses that paints everything with moral relativism, therapeutics, blind allegiance, and worshiping a material culture.

For good or ill, the Greeks gave us the power to change the spiritual and physical universe. They also gave us the tools to control our most animal-like instincts so that we can contribute to the common good.

We could stand by and hope that when the classics completely die, our children will get through the educational Dark Age and enter a new Greek era– or we can fight the demise of classical education now.

If we don’t want our children to be a part of this overwhelming darkness, we need to find a way to teach our children how to think for themselves and how to be thankful to the Greeks for what they modeled for our nation.