Trivium

In Plato’s Republic Socrates proposes a course of study that may be the original presentation of the idea of the “Liberal Arts.” These “arts” are divided into two groups of learning: the Quadrivium, (number, geometry, music, and astronomy) and the Trivium (logic, grammar, and rhetoric). The study of the Trivium develops mastery in reading, writing, speaking, and intellectual reasoning. “Trivium” means the crossroads where the three branches of language meet. In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, students studied and mastered this integrated view of language. Regrettably, modern language teaching keeps the parts without the vision of the whole. In the 1940s, Sister Miriam Joseph at Saint Mary’s College rescued that integrated approach with The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric. The Paul Dry Books edition provides new graphics and notes to make the book accessible to today’s readers.