Art
Modernity has done a great disservice to the most fundamental reasons why young people should be brought up on music, art, and great literature. Far from being regarded as noble enterprises for the discovery of objective truth, beauty, harmony and order, they are generally assumed to be merely tools for subjective, personal expression.
We believe that education in art sharpens our capacity for discriminating observation of the real world around us.
Music
At Abington Christian Academy we hold music to be a discipline fundamental to understanding mathematics. You may be interested to know why music is so highly esteemed in the classical curriculum, and why we can call it a “related” art. Many centuries ago music was included among the four mathematical disciplines – arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music – and, in fact, was considered fundamental to the other three. Arithmetic was the science of quantity; geometry, of shape; astronomy, of spatial relationship; and music, of time. All four were understood through numbers, but music was regarded as the discipline which united them all. We do not consider music as an expendable part of our curriculum!
Literature
Serious reading lets us travel to far-away places, and puts us in direct touch with characters who – like ourselves – grapple with the great issues of hard choices, moral behavior, and the consequences of leaving the path of right behavior. Students who read good books become better speakers and writers, while intuitively learning how to express their ideas logically.
