The Quest for More Knowledge

Do some research about Wilson. Find his website and listen to his sermons about family. Hear what he says about returning to the Old Testament tribal system. Find what he has said about slavery in the Old South. Think about what his ‘learning’ has done for him. This guy is nuttier than Lyndon LaRouche, yet he impresses the rubes with a little Latin and a bit of formal logic. “Classical Christian” education as described by Wilson and the Bluedorns is neither.
Rating: 1 / 5

The book contained many valid opinions about public education, and it wasn’t hard to agree with those opinions if you take a look at what our public education system is accomplishing (or rather, not accomplishing). However, his argument that private schooling should be the choice whenever that choice is available is based on some false assumptions, the most flawed of which is that private schooling can do a better job “raising” children than can that child’s own parents. Homeschooling is seen as a last resort for Wilson, and though he deals with it carefully, he nonetheless manages to portray it in a negative light. He fails to realize that private schooling, just like public schooling, cannot possibly provide for a wide spectrum of children’s needs. He claims that children will not receive a proper education at home beyond middle school, as if all homeschooling parents are local idiots incapable of researching curriculum and teaching multi-grade levels at the same time. Hogwash. Oddly enough, he calls on the theories of unschooling to prove some of his points, even though unschooling is the exact opposite of the model for classical education. He can’t keep his argument straight, if you ask me. In sum, if your child does not fit within the rather inflexible mold for private schooling, like mine did not, then this book is not for you. If you believe that you can do a better job than a private school in teaching your own children, then this book is not for you. But if you need to know that you are doing the right thing by sending your children to private school (or, basically, a Logos affiliated school), by all means, read the book. But read it with caution, and read it with the awareness that this is the same author who professes that southern slavery was essentially a “harmonious” experience for slaves and that our modern worldview of slavery is based on propoganda (read his Southern Slavery: As It Was if you don’t believe me). Douglas Wilson’s sanctimonious grip on reality has reached its breaking point.

Rating: 1 / 5

This book is outstanding. Mr. Wilson presents excellent information about the educational and moral decay of the public school system. His argument for classical education is convincing. Anyone debating if they send their child to public school or private Christan scchol (or even homeschooling) should read this book.
Rating: 5 / 5