by Patrick Whalen in The American Mind (July 6)
While positively acknowledging the surging growth of classical schooling, Patrick Whalen expresses deep concern that a critical formative element of classical education remains underdeveloped—and often overlooked: namely, physical training. Former Marine, headmaster, and athlete, Whalen understands that robust physical training—including athletics and manual work—provides an essential element to the full formation of men and women receiving a proper classical education…
Whalen argues that the recent revival of classical education is valuable because students are again encountering great books, historical figures, and primary texts. However, he contends that many modern classical schools focus too heavily on discussing virtues rather than creating the conditions in which virtues become habits. Students may learn the language of courage, justice, and self-discipline without being placed in situations that require them to practice those qualities.
To illustrate a more demanding model, the article draws on Xenophon’s Cyropaedia and Herodotus’s account of Persian education. In these works, young men destined for leadership undergo combat training, exposure to cold, fasting, hardship, and time away from luxury and political intrigue. They learn to “ride, shoot the bow, and speak the truth,” combining physical toughness, military competence, straightforward speech, and preparation for public responsibility. Whalen presents this as an education that forms statesmen rather than merely producing knowledgeable students.
The essay then uses John Henry Newman to criticize education based almost entirely on reading, discussion, and intellectual refinement. Newman warned that an elegant literary education can teach people to think and feel correctly without requiring them to act correctly. A student may admire heroic conduct in books and feel inspired by stories of courage, yet still retreat when confronted with real danger because admiration has never been converted into practiced obedience. Without repeated experience of difficulty, the connection between moral feeling and moral action becomes, in Newman’s phrase, “loosened and powerless.”
Whalen’s proposed remedy is to make demanding physical and practical experiences central to education rather than treating them as optional supplements. Fitness, athletics, camping, climbing, diving, farming, caring for animals, and other forms of hard labor expose students to discomfort, fatigue, nature, responsibility, and the limits of their own will. The article does not reject books or classical learning; instead, it argues that intellectual study must be joined to disciplined action. A truly classical education, in this view, should form students who not only understand virtue but can practice it under pressure.
[Read The American Mind article here.]
