Chaitanya Jyothi Museum Opening, 2000

RAMANAM
In the Name of The Father, and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit, Amen.

Quintivium I: The Integration of Inquiry, 1986-2010   (PDF)
Quintivium II: Call To Curriculum Re-Formation, 2012
Quintivium: University Of The Professional Guilds, 2021
Quintivium III: Development History In Pedagogy, 2022

Countrymen,

ORBIS NON SUFFICIT
SOLUS DEUS SUFFICIT

Phenomena To Study

The Rev.  David R.  Graham
Adwaitha Hermitage
Quintivium conflated July 12, 1986
Remainder, 15JAN92, 03SEP97,
01MAY99, 23NOV04 and 02JAN10

All Is Number

Nature is Mathematics patent.  Mathematics is Nature latent.  Mathematics is primal.  Nature is produced.

The modern academic study of phenomena (Latin curriculum, currere, an exercise in running whilst carrying; cf. English cursor) grew helter-skelter from a four-part curriculum developed in the Greek cultural areas during the 4th and 5th Centuries BCE.  That curriculum was called Quadrivium.  It was used throughout the Mediterranean world, including to North and East Africa, which were Greek areas long before Alexander’s time.  Roman teachers subsequently amended Quadrivium to seven parts, calling their configuration Septivium.

By custom, Quadrivium is attributed to quasi-Pythagoreans, Plato and others.  But this is a careless attribution.  Pythagoreans of that era were both reticent and renowned for setting decoys to draw the curious into fruitless endeavor — and away from themselves.  Quadrivium was developed by pseudo-Pythagoreans, whose number included Plato, not by quasi-Pythagoreans.

Pythagoreans were monastics, religious.  They were private and vegetarian.  Silent.  They established the principles of the professions (law, medicine, priesthood) and of the arts (engineering, music, drama, iconography).  They collated and preserved the Sacred Scriptures.

Pythagoreans supported those they taught or treated and, on principle, took no compensation for teaching or healing them.  They attended only those determined to learn, and these they accepted regardless of their condition of birth.

On principle, a monastic propagates wisdom freely, without charge, so confident are they of their holding.  This principle is illustrated by the Hippocratic Oath, which is the Pythagorean formulation of the medical profession.  (This Oath, incidentally, prohibits iatrogenic abortion and euthanasia.)

Pythagoreans were not academicians per se, although they engaged in academic activities.  Nor were they scholars.  They were creators and constructors, which is the central role of monastics.  Academicians, such as Plato, admired them and relied on them for curriculum content.  However, academicians are not monastics.  They are not seasoned and deepened by renunciation as monastics are.  This means their work is tainted with self-interest and therefore less than reliable as it comes to one.

The Pythagorean study of phenomena (curriculum) was expressed by the Star Pentagram, the emblem of the Order.  It was a five-fold study reflecting the five-fold nature of the Universe, which is combinations and permutations of the five Elemental Principles: Ether, Air, Fire, Water, Earth.

All Is Number

Pythagoreans placed before academicians, such as Plato, a decoy called Quadrivium.  This was a curriculum of four-fold nature, reflecting four Elementals, Air, Fire, Water, Earth, and absenting the first one, Ether.  The ruse worked.

Over the centuries, Quadrivium has undergone scission motivated by hope of supplying its deficiency.  The result is an omnium gatherum without hope of integration because Quadrivium, Itself, is an inadequacy.

Behind any discussion of education reform is this matter of correcting the structure of the study of phenomena from four to five.  This is a sine qua non of education reform.  In place of the Pythagorean decoy, we could employ the Pythagorean Archetype, which is Five-ness.

It is called Quintivium: The Integration of Inquiry.  Quintivium is the correct study of phenomena, reflecting accurate cosmology and ontology and being appropriate for all grades and manner of student.  Quintivium is a reacquisition of archetypal Indo-European structure of five-ness through a study of phenomena, both empirical and immediate.

Quintivium embodies the Five Elemental Principles, Ether, Air, Fire, Water, Earth.  It embraces the five essential activities of culture, Seeing, Teaching, Guarding, Producing, Crafting.  Its comprehension declares the great principle of the Universe: Non-Dualism (Sanskrit adwaitha, not two).  It asserts that all beings are brothers and sisters in the same family, belonging to God the Father and Effort the Mother.

All Is Number

Q U I N T I V I U M

Seeing/Philosophy
ETHER

Teaching/Science
AIR

Guarding/Government
FIRE

Producing/Industry
WATER

Crafting/The Arts
EARTH

Details of Quintivium are as follows:

Seeing/Philosophy

Reference
Mathematics
Logic
Philology
Chemistry
Ecology
Aesthetics
Systematics
Etymology
Cosmology
Chronology
Ontology
Epistemology
Archives
Libraries
Exegesis
Diet

ETHER

Teaching/Science

Piety
Saints and Sages
Anthropology
A Primer On Caliphism
Linguistics
Latin
Greek
Patriotism
Paleontology
Medicine
Physics
Oceanography
Hydrology
Geography
India
Russia
United States
Cartography
Geology
Botany
Zoology
Biology
Atmospherics
Astronomy
Homeschooling
MOOCs
Online Education
K – 12 Resources

AIR

Guarding/Government

Support Our Troops
The Solar Dynasty
Banking
Legislatures
Diplomatics
Executive Authorities
Military
Police
Physical Education
Care of Animals
Law
Agencies
Intelligence
Propaganda

FIRE

Producing/Industry

Agriculture
Apiculture
Mining
Logistics
Metallurgy
Manufacturing

WATER

Crafting/The Arts

Architecture
Engineering
Mechanics
Construction
Shooting
Warfare
Seamanship
Trades
Cooking
Cleaning
Sewing
Writing
Painting
Sculpture
Music
Chant
Drama
Dance
Photography
Web Design

EARTH

Since deciding to homeschool and adopting Quintivium as the structure of our study of phenomena, the central direction of our effort has not changed.  Our understanding of what we are about has expanded.  Our sense of going forward in a proper manner has deepened.  The success of our undertaking is gratifying.

We start by recognizing that these are not our children.  They belong to He Who made and is them.  We are care-takers, accountable as hired hands are to a property owner.

We try to discover and lead out the inner necessity of each child.  This is the nature of education (Latin ex, from + ducare, lead).  We lead by encouraging self-motivation.

More than anything else,
we desire that the children have good character.

This is possible only if the parents have good character and the children are constant beneficiaries of their careful attention.  Part of this attention is to keep off deleterious influences — bad company — much as a gardener keeps weeds and pests away from young plants.

We stress algebra.  The reason is simple: the unique characteristic of the human being is the ability to reason; this ability, therefore, must be fostered; and the best way to do that is to develop skill with algebra.  A person who can think can do anything needful.  A person who cannot think is useless to themselves and to society.

After algebra, we stress proper use of the English language.  Proper use is thinking, speaking and writing the Truth.  The word communication has a significant etymology: Latin com, being with + unus, one.  The word communication means at-one-ment, reuniting that which is estranged by virtue of having existence.  Thinking, speaking and writing the Truth is reunion, being at one.  Proper usage is thinking, speaking and doing the truth.

Elevating poetry is a central part of the literary diet.  Really, poetry is music and music is communicating.

The Word is The Beginning
Brahma Kavi
God is the Poet — The Poet is God

Each child’s life is unique.  A child takes birth in order to fulfill their own destiny, not the wishes of others, including parents.

Our public and private schools ask, How can we shape this child to our ends, making it obey our will, fulfill the goals we have established for it?  There are aspects of life that make this approach both desirable and imperative.  We may call these aspects and the teaching of them the primary school of life.  They include personal hygiene, diet and recreation, obeying parents and laws of the community and nation, reverence for elders, constant self-examination and other activities of reason.

However, these aspects are not the whole story.  Beyond this primary school are the secondary and post-secondary schools of life where we focus on character formation, self-confidence and the development of skills.  In these schools the inner necessity of the student more and more takes precedence.  Train the heart to be pure (character formation), the mind to be strong (self-confidence) and the hand to be useful (skill development).  This is the goal.  Detail emerges gradually as the child matures.

And all goes to leading out the vocation that is the child’s destiny to fulfill, not an occupation laid on him from the outside.  Each person takes birth with a destiny they are meant to fulfill.  The educator guides a student and himself to recognize what that destiny is, what knowledge is needed to support it and what skills are needed to fulfill it.

Each child, male and female, should learn a trade or blue-collar occupation.  They will have a livelihood that is simple, direct and always-in-demand, and they will have a reserve against uneven times, which always come.  Trade skill is an indispensable component of an educated person.

The trade chosen should be that determined by the inner necessity of the child, at about age 15 or 16.

Consider that Gandhi spun cotton to the day he died, Washington was a surveyor and Lee a civil engineer.  St. Paul made tents and St. Jerome wrote and translated books, one in particular.  Consider, also, that the study of phenomena at the United States Military Academy begins with the work of a Private Soldier and progresses through the Enlisted, NCO and Officer ranks.

Nothing is more debilitating to society than leaders (Officers) who do not understand and cannot do the work of trades-people.  Conversely, no situation is happier than one in which leaders empathize with their charges because they understand and can do their work.

The difference between leaders and managers may be expressed this way: managers minimize potentials and maximize actuals while leaders minimize actuals and maximize potentials.  Managers say what cannot and will not be done.  Leaders say what can and will be done.

God accepts but does not approve of prayer.  God appreciates self-reliance.  Just so, a teacher is happiest when a student is self-taught, operating on their own initiative.  Actuals are always less than what is required and potentials are always more than what is commonly wanted, while being also what is required.

Inner necessity is, by nature, ascetic and eremitical.
Self-reliance is a hallmark of an educated person.

Homeschooling is one of the ten aspects that comprise our system of education.  Homeschoolers are teachers of note.  Qualities they seek in an educated person are paradigmatic for the whole society.

A new day is come for our system of education (and here).  Gitche Manito has called us to the sacred river, to bury our weapons, to bathe and emerge clean, refreshed, not fighting.  The Call of the Divine is an Invitation that has to be accepted.  Let us take note and take heart.

Update XIV: Richard Grenier: The Gandhi Nobody Knows.

Update 15: The Sad State of Higher Education

AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA