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Celebrating Love & Friendship
Revisiting Dr. Rochefort's newsletter article
from February 2023
As we begin this month of February, it is fitting we explore how love and education are intertwined so we can teach well those people we both love dearly – your children. Understanding what love truly means in a culture that has degraded it into a sentimental, romantic, and cheap notion, at NCA we seek to instruct our scholars in wisdom and virtue, thus our sequence of learning proceeds from forming a love of language, the liberal arts and sciences, the grammar of the disciplines and ends in philosophy–the love of wisdom–all through the lens of learning to love the beautiful, seek the truth, and do the good.
In Plato’s Republic (380 B.C., 403c), Socrates reminds us the object of education is to teach us to love what is beautiful. The overarching question of this text, what should we teach our children, remains today as school choice abounds. At NCA, our educational approach follows the collective wisdom of the best minds who have gone before us. Directing young people’s thoughts to what is good, true, and beautiful; steeping them in the classics to offer stories with models of virtuous thought and deed; seeking to order their loves rightly not simply to see them follow rules, but rather to love and to do what is right; we understand that by these means, it is likely their lives will be likewise since, by nature, human beings pursue what they love, and a life that loves what is good will lead to joy. As parents, you are the primary educators and guardians of your children, and as such, you have chosen to entrust them to NCA for their education, a task we consider a privilege, a blessing, and a great responsibility.
In the Abolition of Man, C. S. Lewis (1943) insisted properly-trained sentiments, those that love the right things in the right measure and remain in harmony with objective reality, are vital for well-educated people. He wrote, “Aristotle says that the aim of education is to make the pupil like and dislike what he ought” to provide a stable foundation for determining what is true, good, and just. To that end, at NCA we do not engage in typical cultural practices that trivialize serious things into utter meaninglessness. While Valentine’s Day is a wonderful tradition, it means nothing unless we understand what love really is and what it really means for us to love others. We have an obligation to provide our children with the greatest ideas and models human history has to offer, thus we focus on cultivating appropriate affections to shape genuine human character.
How can we show our love in daily living here at NCA during this month of February (and beyond if we continue to habituate ourselves to doing the good, seeking the true, and loving the beautiful)? By looking for specific ways to encourage, support, and praise one another instead allowing ourselves to be judgmental and critical. By committing ourselves to honesty, unity, and humility in times of misunderstanding and conflict. By finding concrete ways to overcome evil with good. By actively devoting ourselves to learning with and from others to grow in wisdom and virtue. By regularly sacrificing our selfish inclinations in order to offer others love, respect, commitment, and gratitude.
So during this month when we celebrate love, let us remember why we do things differently at NCA. Recall the words of John Adams (1775) in a letter to his wife, Abigail, wherein he insisted: “It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue. If we suffer their minds to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel all their lives.”
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Here is a book that talks about St. Valentine, as well as this one: St. Valentine by Robert Sabuda. For beautiful stories and poetry, try reading The Book of Virtues by William J. Bennett.
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