The Liberal Arts

The seven branches of knowledge that initiate the young into a life of learning.

• The Trivium — three arts of language pertaining to the mind
  • Logic: art of thinking
  • Grammar: art of inventing and combining symbols
  • Rhetoric: art of communication

• The Quadrivium — four arts of quantity pertaining to matter
  • Discrete quantity: Arithmetic (theory of number) · Music (application of the theory of number)
  • Continuous quantity: Geometry (theory of space) · Astronomy (application of the theory of space)

Those who first perfect their own faculties are better prepared to serve others in a professional or other capacity.

The Trivium
Sister Miriam Joseph

The essential characteristic of the liberal arts is that they are immanent or intransitive activities, whereas the utilitarian and fine arts are transitive activities.

In exercise of:

• Utilitarian and Fine Arts: The action begins in the agent, goes out from the agent, and ends in the object transformed (produced).
• Liberal Arts: The action begins in the agent and ends in the agent, who is transformed (perfected) by the action.

There are three classes of goods that illustrate the same type of distinction that exists among the arts.

• Valuable Goods: Not only desired for their own sake but which increase the intrinsic worth of their possessor. Examples include: knowledge, virtue, and health.
• Useful Goods: Are desired because they enable one to acquire valuable goods. Examples include: food, medicine, money, tools, and books.
• Pleasurable Goods: Are desired for their own sake because of the satisfaction they give the possessor. Examples include: happiness, an honorable reputation, social prestige, flowers, and savory food. Do not add to the intrinsic value of their possessor, nor are they desired as means.

Different goods may be associated with each other. For instance, knowledge, which increases worth, may at the same time be pleasurable; ice cream, which is nourishing food, promotes health, and is, at the same time, enjoyable.

• Utilitarian or Servile Arts enable one to be a servant — of another person, of the state, of a corporation, or of a business — and to earn a living.
• Liberal Arts teach one how to live.
  • They train the faculties and bring them into perfection.
  • They enable a person to rise above his material environment to live an intellectual, a rational, and a free life in gaining truth.

And ye shall know the truth,

and the truth shall make you free.

Holy Bible — KJV
John 8:32

"Facio liberos ex liberis libris libraque."

I make free men of children by means of books and a balance.

Motto of Saint John's College · Annapolis, Maryland

Each of the liberal arts is both a science and an art.

• there is something to know (science)
• there is something to do (art)

The trivium is the organon — the instrument — of all education at all levels.

• The arts of logic, grammar, and rhetoric are the arts of communication.
  • They govern the means of communication.
    • Reading
    • Writing
    • Speaking
    • Listening

Thinking is inherent in these four activities.

The trivium was the training that formed the intellectual habits of Shakespeare and other Renaissance writers.

Grammar is an exceptional knowledge of the uses of languages as generally current among poets and prose writers. It is divided into six parts: 1) trained reading with due regard to prosody; 2) exposition, according to poetic figures; 3) ready statement of dialectical peculiarities and allusion; 4) discovery of etymologies; 5) the accurate account of analogies; 6) criticism of poetical productions, which is the noblest part of grammatical art.

Dionysius Thrax

These three arts — logic, grammar, and rhetoric — are the fundamental arts of education, of teaching, and of learning.

• They must be practiced simultaneously by both the teacher and the pupil.
• The pupil must cooperate with the teacher; he must be active, not passive.