Recently, I received a question from Sarah Bryan, a college student at Grove City who did an internship for Veritas last year asking:

I am writing to you to inquire about the origins of the “classical” aspect of the Classical Christian Education movement. I am writing a paper and doing some research into the origins of the Trivium and their application in the Middle Ages. I wonder if you know why the term “classical” was chosen when, (from what I’ve heard, which may be incorrect) it’s more of a medieval model of education. Also, do you know any more specifically which periods of medieval history the ACCS and other classical educators would point to as the model? Perhaps the cathedral schools or the reforms of Alcuin and Charlemagne. I suppose my real question pertains to the current Classical model of education and to what roots those educators are returning.

Here is my answer:

1. Technically, I think that the title is legitimate. The reason is that the method of teaching the Liberal Arts—which is really what modern classical education is a return to—stretches back into classical antiquity. Thus, the method and the practice finds its origin in classical times. Andrew Kern and Gene Veith have written about this. There is an old lecture from Kern at the ACCS Conference that you can probably get on this from WordMP3.com.
2. Actually, I think that you are right. It would be more descriptive to call what we are doing Medieval Classical Christian Education. The time period that we really look back to is Medieval. This is important for two reasons: first, we need to see a time period when the method was being used in a Christian context; second, it is important to remember that the method (which in antiquity was made to produced a mature, perfect, and well rounded man for a free society) was altered in ways subtle and substantial. The end goal of Christian maturity is to be like Christ. The end goal for the Greeks was to be fitted to a form that did not really have a human incarnate antecedent (or had only imperfect ones). This alters everything in the system and makes it better. You are very right, however, that the Cathedral schools and the reforms of Charlemagne are some of the places that are very influential (and very unstudied at this point).
3. Practically, classical is a better word than Medieval in a marketing sense. This is the fault of the Renaissance in the main. I think that we need to continue reforming the word "Medieval" and helping people to see if for what it really was: one of the greatest times of the flowering of civilization and beauty in history. Trying to do this teaching on your marketing brochure is doom. We call it classical.