This is how the Academy summarises the education it offers:
In order to engage the imagination as the foundation for higher intellectual activity, St. Gregory’s students read some of the world’s best literature and history, memorize poetry and songs, and participate in a wide variety of cultural activities. The Academy boys have themselves given vocal and theatrical performances throughout the area and at the school. Reasoning skills are cultivated by means of such courses as Euclidean geometry, physics, and classical logic. Academic and cultural activities are balanced by soccer, rugby, hiking, camping and other physical activities, all of which build the body while at the same time providing pleasurable recreation. However, the center of life at St. Gregory’s Academy is our religion. Our students study, work, and live in an environment steeped in the spiritual and intellectual tradition of the Catholic Faith. At St. Gregory’s Academy, our students find more than simply an education, but also a way of life.And here is a post I wrote on the Civitas book The Corruption of the Curriculum which analyses a ... different approach to education.
17 comments:
Must be good - they play rugby!
This post about St. Gregory’s Academy brings to mind an astonishing discovery that I’ve made in the past few days:
The Association of Christian and Classical Schools This is an association of a very rapidly growing number of schools based on the The Lost Tools of Learning by Dorothy Sayers. They are springing up all over the US- some two hundred to date. They seem to have their own publisher, http://www.veritaspress.com/ and if you will poke around their offerings, you will see that Latin figures prominently. These schools are in the Evangelical/Reformed tradition, I believe. They seem to be endeavoring to recapture the ethos of the Founding Fathers, who were a very highly educated bunch.
Certainly St. Gregory’s is in the classical tradition, though from a Catholic standpoint, of course. Another example of Catholic efforts in this direction is Ecce Veritas in Portland, Oregon. Of course, these Catholic initiatives are very heartening, but the Evangelical efforts are simply explosive. This is a sea change in education here in the US, and not a moment too soon, either.
Nothing would surprise me less than eventually to see many conversions to the faith result from this immersion in Latin, Scripture and the classics.
Does anyone know the song that is sung in the second half? Strangely, the tune is that of one of the most famous German soldiers' songs, which is sung at every military funeral, "Ich hatt' einen Kameraden", by Uhland, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ich_hatt%27_einen_Kameraden
Also, what's with the juggling and the strange swinging of the thurible?
Inducat te angeli.
Those words struck me immediately.
Of course, they come from the Requiem.
This is the Requiem that I want to have at my death.
Oh! that it may be so!
JARay
Rugby !
Not all year round, surely.
I suppose it's too much to hope they play cricket ?
Their curriculum sounds fine, as long as it includes Greek, Latin, and Ancient History.
Art, Music and Literature would be nice, too.
And the traditional Mass ?
It begins to sound like my schooldays ..
Berolinensis: it looks cool, but I want to know too! ;-p
St. Gregory's Academy is indeed a wonderful school where boys receive a classical education, as well as the opportunity to daily assist at the traditional Latin Mass. If I had a son, I would definitely be sending him there.
Elena in Pennsylvania
That song stuck with me all day and I ended up transcribing as best I could. Hopefully someone can figure out who wrote it. Perhaps a student at the Academy?
Fighting bravely in the battle
Gathering on and on,
Riding in the ranks of horsemen
Thou wert my dearest comrade
Thou the one I loved the most
Thou the one I loved the most
[And the rogue and cavalier...
The strongest of his Lord
Until we in thirst of blood
But thy faithful heart show no fear.]
And thy heart thy lands did fight
And thy heart thy lands did fight
I'll avenge this mortal wound
And release it in my step
Deep and deep into the dark of night,
I have wept for thee my comrade,
Kneeling by thy holy grave
Kneeling by thy holy grave.
In my sadness how I wander
Without feeling I must ride
From this O so deadly ambush,
I have lost my dearest comrade.
I will never laugh again
I will never laugh again.
O Prince, pray thee hear my ballad,
Listen to my fleeting call
I pray God who loves the soldier
To quickly place him my comrade
at the right of Christ the Lord,
at the right of Christ the Lord.
Well, regarding the query about the juggling and the strange swinging of the thurible, I think this piece is best understood as poetry. The quote in the beginning about the tongues of fire descending on the disciples followed by the flames of fire in the film are saying, in effect, that the Holy Spirit burns ardently in the heart of St. Gregory's. The liturgy is understood as a battle in which our dearest comrade, Christ, is fallen, hence the swinging of the thurbile like a mace and other elements of battle and comradeship in battle throughout the piece. At least I think so. It moves me deeply, and I've played it again and again.
It isn't every school whose promotional film would be throughout a meditation on friendship, conflict, death and resurrection- set in the context of the Mass.
They do have a juggling team and I've no doubt they make the eyes of young boys in the area pop when they visit their schools.
BTW I wonder if anyone has burrowed deep enough into this site to encounter their faculty, esp their sculptor- http://andrewwilsonsmith.com.
Mama mia, talk about an art department. This guy is the real thing.
Also worthy of note is that many of their faculty come from schools such as Thomas Aquinas College and the University of Dallas, schools that are well worth a closer look.
What? No morris dancing?
Having been to a school myself that had an exceptionally slick promotional mini-industry going on to convince parents that it was a "traditional" Catholic school, I'm intensely sceptical of this sort of thing. (Would it be uncharitable to mention that St Gregory's was the school where the Society of St John used to have priests teaching, with the full cooperation of the Fraternity of St Peter? Yes, probably, but even so...)
On the other hand, we certainly never had prayers before rugby matches, and we didn't have the old Latin Mass either. (Mass "in Latin" was considered a special treat.)
And it would have been cool to have learnt to juggle too.
Berolinensis: When I listened to the song I wondered if it was meant to be a translation of or in the same mood as Ich hatt' einen Kameraden?
The second song you heard, that begins "Fighting bravely," is always sung by old boys of the academy in honor of one of their classmates during the school's first years, who lost his life in a diving accident. I heard it sung at the wedding of an old Gregorian last fall - intensely moving.
As for the rather odd clip of the boy showing off with the thurible -
it made me think of a lad from Adelaide who served the closing Mass of the Christus Rex pilgrimage from Ballarat to Bendigo
http://www.crex.org/Front.html
a few years ago. I have never seen anyone handle incense with such
skill and assurance and grace and - dare I say it - APLOMB. LIke
watching a great halfback in action. I would like to see the
academy video show a thurifer in action at Mass, not performing for
the camera.
But I should not pick holes. The movie is magnificently done.
Kirk Kramer
The words to the ballad are as follows:
Fighting bravely in the battle
Galloping on and on
Riding in the ranks of horsemen
Thou wert my dearest comrade
Thou the one I love the most
Thou the one I love the most
An arrogant cavalier
The strongest of his corps
Lunged at me in thirst of blood
But thy faithful heart showed no fear
And thy heart the lance did find
And thy heart the lance did find
I've avenged this mortal wound
That thou received in my stead
Deep and deep into the dark of night
I have wept for thee my comrade
Kneeling by thy holy grave
Kneeling by thy holy grave
In my sadness how I wander
Without meaning I must ride
From this o so deadly ambush
I have lost my dearest comrade
I will never laugh again
I will never laugh again
O Prince pray thee hear my ballad
Listen to my pleading call
I pray God who loves the soldier
To quickly place him my comrade
At the right of Christ the Lord
At the right of Christ the Lord
This is origianlly a German ballad which was adopted by the French. It was brought to St. Gregory's by a French chaplain who translated it into English for the Academy. The recording featured in the film introduction is sung by the boys of St. Gregory's.
The images of fire presented in the film are intended to touch upon both the pagan and Christian symbolism of fire as a teacher, referring of course to Prometheus and Pentecost. Also, considering the myth of Prometheus, the fire stealing might be interpreted as an act which mirrors the stealing of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil (fire bearing both the qualities of good and evil as a nourisher and a destroyer). Hence the portrayal of the boys juggling fire, representing a balance and beauty of action despite our fallen nature. To this notion is added the reference to the flames of Pentecost, where fire appeared as a sign of the strong union with the Divine plan of evangelisation. Another idea that the fire juggling carries is the fact that male adolescence is a fiery point in a man's life, being passionate, strong, alive. The education of St. Gregory's seeks to harness these qualities and teach young men to be masters of themselves and control these manly traits in order towards the accomplishment of beautiful and ordered action.
The parallelism in imagery presented in the juggling, the Mass, and rugby intends to express the integration of all things that occur in the educational and formative experiences that make up Academy life. All things are affected by the presence of and participation in the holy sacrifice of the Mass, from juggling to rugby etc.
I could go on. My name is Sean Fitzpatrick, a graduate of St. Gregory's Academy and now a teacher there as well as the director of the promotional film. The entire film will be available for viewing very soon on our website.
The entire film is now available for viewing at the St. Gregory's Academy website, www.stgregorysacademy.org.
Many people have been impressed by the five minute video about St Gregory's Academy circulated in recent weeks.
A longer, 24-minute version is now posted on the Academy website:
http://www.stgregorysacademy.org/
I encourage everyone to take a look. And if you have sons, to think seriously about taking them to visit. A friend from the West took one of his boys there to look the school over. They met the students and teachers and dorm fathers and clergy, went to Mass and dinner and class and a rugby game, joined in the singing (maybe the most important thing about the
school), spent a couple of days getting a feel for the place. At the end of the visit, the dad asked his son what he thought. The lad said, "I knew five minutes after we got here that I wanted to come to school here." He and his brother are now in their second year as students at the academy.
Along with Clear Creek Monastery, St Gregory's Academy is among the choicest fruits of the great work of John Senior, Dennis Quinn and Frank Nelick.
Kirk Kramer
Thanks guys - I have posted the link. (It would be a good idea for the Academy to make it available for embedding or to post it on YouTube. that way, bloggers could just paste it into their blog.)
The name of that song in English, by the way, is "My Comrade". The french version (sung often by the scouts and pilgrims to Chartres) is La Cavalcade. It begins "Un jour, dans la fusillade / Galopant à l’inconnu". The full text is here: http://club-acacia.over-blog.com/article-2938996.html
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