What is the Trivium?
Dorothy Sayers was a British novelist and playwright through the late 1950s. She was a member of the famous Inklings literary circle that included C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien and the creator of a popular fictional detective. She sold many books and gained national prominence for her witty writing style. While she was an excellent writer, Sayers was never a teacher. She was, however, a serious student of human behavior. As she interacted with people after World War 2, she began to notice that they seemed to know very little and were very susceptible to government propaganda. To address the issue, she wrote an essay addressing educational problems in Britain called “The Lost Tools of Learning.”
In it she suggested that people had failed to learn because they hadn’t been taught.
Learn more: Can virtue be taught?
Dr. William Inboden is the executive vice president and provost at The University of Texas in Austin. Prior to his role at UT, he served as the director of the Hamilton Center for Classical and Civic Education at the University of Florida. In the following conversation, he discusses if virtue can be taught. This age-old question was first discussed by Plato in his short work called Meno.
Click here to watch or listen to Dr. Inboden’s discussion on the topic.
Mike Terry
National Director of Classical Education