Principia Journal

Over the last 40 years, classical education has emerged as its own subfield in education. Original writing and research on classical education doesn’t fit into the categories of existing peer-reviewed journals. That’s why a small group of master teachers from several institutions created Principia: A Journal of Classical Education. Principia is the first peer-reviewed journal on classical education.

The second biannual volume of Principia was recently released. The articles in this volume open discussions about a variety of topics, including three articles about little-known educators from the history of classical education. The volume also has articles from two of our Senior Fellows, Dr. Erik Ellis and Dr. Andrew Seeley.

Dr. Ellis wrote a fascinating article titled “The Historical Semantics of the Contemporary Classical Education Movement.” In it, he examines how the different terms modern classical educators use to describe the movement reflect historical disagreements about Western culture and education.

Dr. Seeley published a cautionary review of Oliver Byrne’s Elements of Euclid: The First Six Books with Coloured Diagrams and Symbols. He first shows how Byrne’s method may be superficially appealing. However, he quickly exposes the underlying modern assumptions of Byren’s method which detract the classical focus on learning from the great masters.