The Scriptorium Daily

Category: Education

  • Growth into Great Things (Augustine)

    Growth into Great Things (Augustine)

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    by

    Fred Sanders
    in

    There’s an Augustine quote, widely available on all of the “Swell Quotations” websites, that just seems too good to be true. Here it is: “Really great things, when discussed by little men, can usually make such men grow big.” When a quote is extremely quotable, widely applicable, attributed to somebody famous, but not footnoted, my…

  • A Few Questions for You (Commencement 2023)

    A Few Questions for You (Commencement 2023)

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    by

    Fred Sanders
    in

    This was the commencement address I gave to Torrey Honors College’s class of 2023. Torrey is a Socratic Great Books program, where the pedagogical coin of the realm is questions. So I put together an appropriate commencement talk. It’s for a very specific audience, has some in-jokes that were designed to appeal to exactly these…

  • Do You Believe in Jinn? (Torrey Convocation 2022)

    Do You Believe in Jinn? (Torrey Convocation 2022)

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    by

    Todd Thompson
    in

    I believe questions can be gracious gifts. Last time I gave a convocation talk, I spoke about themost important question any professor ever asked me. Tonight, I want to speak about the firstquestion I ever received from a student. I had just completed my PhD on the history of Christian-Muslim relations and accepted aposition to…

  • Speak Again (Torrey Convocation 2021)

    Speak Again (Torrey Convocation 2021)

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    by

    Diane Vincent
    in

    In these first weeks together, we have experienced the joys and sometimes the challenges of building and renewing our community of friends with a common love and a common way of life together: reading, talking, and writing. That life has a rhythm, almost like music, shared by faculty and students alike, as we do what…

  • Torrey’s Two Houses (2009)

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    by

    Fred Sanders
    in ,

    In celebration of the 25th anniversary of Torrey Honors College, we’re looking back at some important moments in our history. One of those is the expansion and division of the College (then known as an Institute) into two distinct houses. To get the fell and the flavor of what that moment was like, we’re re-posting…

  • Four Great African American Books

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    by

    Fred Sanders
    in ,

    Here are four books that Torrey Honors officially recommends, and by “officially” I mean that we have built them into the heart of our great books program. So we will be cycling through them every year with students, because they are proven masterpieces that bear careful reading and re-reading. Narrative of the Life of Frederick…

  • Classical Christian General Education

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    by

    Fred Sanders
    in

    The cover story of the September issue of Christianity Today is about Christian homeschoolers who read classic books by pagan authors. Yay! It’s kind of a rambling article, but the author (Lou Markos of Houston Baptist University) has some fun with the irony, or at least the surprise, of fundamentalists, or their heirs, being the…

  • The Bible in Socratic Instruction

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    by

    Fred Sanders
    in ,

    This is a brief talk I gave last week during orientation for Torrey Academy, our high school program. It addresses, for one particular, local audience, an issue with broader application: how should Christian teachers handle the Bible in a course of instruction that is Socratic? The goal of Torrey Academy’s instruction is to help equip…

  • On the Shoulders of Farmers

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    Adam Johnson
    in ,

    Thucydides’ Revelation of Our Indebtedness Thucydides opens his “History of the Peloponnesian War” by tying the capability for a truly great war with the stable growth of a culture. He argues that the Peloponnesian was the greatest war because no cultures, to his knowledge, had attained sufficient stability and wealth to wage a greater war.…

  • Redefining Freedom on the Frontier

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    by

    Adam Johnson
    in ,

    If Western civilization as we know it were to collapse, I think I will last a week, month, or maybe even a year longer, simply for having read the Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Pa and Ma are simply amazing. I’ve learned much “looking over their shoulders,” as it were, as they…

  • Following and Sight: Lewis’ Retelling of “The Bacchae”

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    Adam Johnson
    in ,

    “‘Till We Have Faces” is not the only myth Lewis retold. In fact, he loved retelling myths. And while you may have noted the conspicuous presence of Bacchus at the end of Prince Caspian and the amazing feast that follows, you may not have caught some of the other details Lewis wove into his retelling of the Bacchae.…

  • Al Geier at Torrey: Learning in Leisure

    Al Geier at Torrey: Learning in Leisure

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    by

    Adam Johnson
    in

    One year out of college, I was invited to return to Biola to work for John Mark Reynolds, the founder and then director of the Torrey Honors Institute. One of the unquestionable highlights of the three years which followed have to do with certain memories and experiences with Dr. Al Geier, who taught classics at the University of…