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The Christopher Perrin Show

The Christopher Perrin Show

Written by: Christopher Perrin
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Dr. Christopher Perrin has been a leader in the renewal of classical education in the United States for 25 years. In this podcast, he traces the renewal of the American paideia exploring the recent history of the American renaissance in light of the 2500 years that have preceded it. Christopher is the founding CEO of Classical Academic Press and the founder of ClassicalU.com. The Christopher Perrin Show is part of the TrueNorth.fm podcast network.©TrueNorth.fm Social Sciences
Episodes
  • Episode 61: Hildegard College: Restoring Polymathy and Redemptive Entrepreneurship

    Episode 61: Hildegard College: Restoring Polymathy and Redemptive Entrepreneurship
    May 27 2026
    Description Christopher Perrin welcomes Dr. Matthew J. Smith, founder of Hildegard College, to discuss why he left a tenure-track literature career to build a deliberately small, relationship-centered “micro college” in Southern California. Smith describes modern higher education as expensive, bureaucratically bloated, and often unable to offer a unified vision of learning—especially when general education becomes a “Wild West” and majors drift toward professional specialization rather than formation. Hildegard’s alternative model centers on a common great-books curriculum organized around six foundational questions, paired with “entrepreneurial arts” that train students to design and launch real ventures rooted in meaningful work. The conversation explores why generalist formation matters in an AI-saturated economy, and why polymathy may be a more realistic pathway to flourishing than narrow specialization. Perrin and Smith then turn to Smith’s forthcoming book The Lost Tradition of Beauty, arguing that modern education has lost beauty as an intellectually serious category—reducing it to ornament or aesthetics rather than a transcendent that illuminates truth and shapes goodness. They close by discussing what it would mean for schools to recover beauty not merely in décor, but in the lived environment of learning: sound, space, attention, and shared life that draws students out of themselves and toward the whole.Episode OutlineSmith’s academic journey: graduate school motivations, love of the liberal arts, and entering college teachingThe problem in contemporary higher education: cost, debt, bureaucracy, specialization, and lack of a unified visionDiscovering the “alternative college” movement and visiting models (great-books and classical micro colleges)Why relationship matters: mentorship, friendship, shared curriculum, and non-anonymous learningHildegard College’s distinctives: one degree, one major, one shared curriculumThe six foundational questions that organize Hildegard’s great-books “Foundations of Thought” sequenceLiberal arts + entrepreneurial arts: “creative action” as redemptive work and practical formationWhy “Hildegard”: Hildegard of Bingen as a model polymath and cultural contributorStudent and faculty profiles: internships, civic partners, and bivocational teachersLiberal education in an AI economy: generalists, adaptability, and meaningful workThe Lost Tradition of Beauty: why beauty is intellectually muscular, objective, and formativeBeauty in schooling: beyond ornament to vocabulary, participation, attention, soundscape, and lived wholenessHow to learn more: admissions, preview weeks, and online “redemptive entrepreneurship” coursesKey Topics & TakeawaysHigher education often lacks a unified telos. A “comprehensive university” can produce radically different educational experiences across majors, without shared formation. Cost and debt intensify the crisis. Smith describes the economic burden alongside a weak “return” in both formation and earnings. Micro colleges can rebuild the human scale of learning. Smallness protects against anonymity and makes mentorship and accountability unavoidable. A common curriculum can generate a true academic fellowship. Shared books and shared questions create shared rites of passage and shared intellectual language.Polymathy is increasingly practical. As AI changes entry-level work, broad formation and transferable habits may matter more than narrow competencies. Entrepreneurship can be “creative action,” not mere profit-seeking. Hildegard frames entrepreneurship as participation in God’s redemptive work through building and service. Beauty is not optional decoration. Smith argues beauty is objective, rationally discussable, and essential to moral and intellectual renewal. Recovering beauty begins with recovering vocabulary. Schools cannot pursue what they cannot name, describe, and practice.Questions & DiscussionWhat is the “accidental shape” of higher education you’ve experienced—and what does it do to formation?What would a “unified vision for learning” look like in one concrete institutional decision?Why does relationship matter so much for transformational learning?Describe a time your learning changed because of mentorship or friendship rather than content alone. What are the strengths and limits of a single, common curriculum?What do students gain when everyone reads the same books and wrestles with the same questions? Are “polymaths” a luxury—or a necessity in an AI-shaped economy?How could schools cultivate breadth without becoming shallow (depth-through-few, long apprenticeships, layered skills)?What do you think of pairing great books with “entrepreneurial arts”?If students must build real things, what guardrails ensure the building remains ordered toward the good?Suggested Reading & ResourcesThe Lost Tradition of Beauty by Dr. Matthew J. Smith (...
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    1 hr and 26 mins
  • Episode 60: A Living Tradition: Classical Education Without Nostalgia

    Episode 60: A Living Tradition: Classical Education Without Nostalgia
    Apr 22 2026
    Description Christopher Perrin welcomes Dr. John Mark Reynolds for a extensive conversation about the renewal of classical education—and why the term classical often confuses more than it clarifies. Reynolds shares how family life, great teachers, and deep reading (especially C. S. Lewis and Plato) shaped his intellectual and spiritual journey, eventually drawing him into the classical Christian education movement. Together they explore how classical education is not nostalgia or narrow Greco-Roman elitism, but a living tradition rooted in wonder, dialectic, and a “great conversation” that has always been broader than the modern West. The conversation turns to virtue formation and liberal education, arguing that education should prepare students not only for work, but for judgment, sacrifice, and even death. Perrin and Reynolds also address how the classical movement can avoid becoming a guru-driven ideology, how it must remain open to science and modern technological change, and why false dichotomies distort educational debates. The episode closes with Reynolds’ vision for St. Constantine School, a K–16 “grown backward” model that integrates tutorial-style liberal arts education with practical formation for diverse vocations.Episode OutlineWhy the question “What is classical education?” is harder than it sounds (and why it matters for renewal)The paradox of learning: the more you know, the more you know you don’t know Reynolds’ early formation: pastoral family life, reading, and learning to “get to the bottom” of ideasInfluential teachers and the life of wonder: Plato, the Socratic habit, and learning as lifelong pursuitReturning to Christian faith and integrating faith with the life of the mindWhy the word “classical” can mislead: the tradition is global, multi-ethnic, and not limited to Greco-Roman textsClassical education as the “great conversation”: local cultures rooted in mother tongue, connected to a shared metaphysical realityThe liberal arts, virtue, and human freedom: what education once aimed at (and what modern credentialing often replaces)Education as preparation to live well—and to die well: Plato, Scripture, and the moral seriousness of formationAvoiding two dangers in the renewal: guruism and ideological “compounds”Science, technology, and modernity: why classical education must have room for Newton (and for contemporary scientific callings)St. Constantine’s model: tutorial liberal arts, K–16 integration, dual enrollment, and forming “souls fit for paradise”Where to learn more: St. Constantine’s website and ongoing workKey Topics & TakeawaysClassical education is bigger than the word “classical.” The tradition is not inherently ethnocentric; its sources and conversations span regions and cultures, including the Near East and Africa.Wonder and dialectic are central. Reynolds frames classical learning as rooted in Socratic inquiry and a habit of getting to the bottom of things.Liberal education aims at freedom and virtue. True liberty includes self-governance, responsibility, gratitude, and service—virtues modern schooling often thins into mere credentialing.Education should prepare students for ultimate realities. The conversation repeatedly returns to the claim that the one certainty is death, and education should form people who can face it with moral seriousness.The renewal must remain humble. Classical education collapses when it becomes guru-centric, novelty-driven, or triumphalist.Classical education must remain intellectually modern. A classical school should have room for mathematics, science, engineering, and technological prudence—not a nostalgic retreat from modernity.Multiple models are needed. St. Constantine is presented as one viable “iteration,” not the only faithful expression of classical education.Formation serves many vocations. Reynolds argues that tutorial-style liberal arts can prepare nurses, engineers, builders, and citizens—not only professors and “cocktail party” intellectuals.Questions & DiscussionWhat do you mean when you say “classical education” in your own context?List the assumptions you hear most often (elitist, Greco-Roman-only, anti-science, ethnocentric). Draft a two-sentence explanation that highlights both aims (virtue/wisdom) and methods(dialectic/great books/literacy).How should liberal education form freedom and virtue today?Contrast “credentialing” with “formation.” Where does your institution drift toward one over the other? What habits would actually train self-governance (attention, honesty, courage, sacrifice) in students?What does it mean to prepare students to die well?Discuss whether your curriculum implicitly prepares students for comfort and success more than moral endurance. Name one text, practice, or tradition that could restore seriousness about mortality, judgment, and ultimate goods.How can classical education avoid becoming an ideology or “...
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    1 hr and 31 mins
  • Episode 59: American Education: What It Was and Can Be Again

    Episode 59: American Education: What It Was and Can Be Again
    Apr 15 2026
    Description Recorded at the 2026 Great Hearts National Symposium on February 25, 2026, this edited episode features Christopher Perrin’s keynote speech exploring the history, meaning, and renewal of classical education, asking a foundational question: what exactly are we trying to recover? Drawing from sources as diverse as Augustine, Herodotus, Tocqueville, and C.S. Lewis, he traces the transmission of the liberal arts from ancient Greece and Rome through Christendom and into early America. Along the way, Perrin reflects on the gradual fragmentation of this tradition in the modern era, illustrated through the story of the Adams family and the rise of progressive education. Perrin challenges educators to embrace the humility at the heart of true learning—that the more we know, the more we recognize our ignorance—and to see themselves as perpetual students. The episode also highlights the remarkable resurgence of classical education today, describing it as a reawakening of seeds long buried but now beginning to flourish. Perrin emphasizes that education is not merely a science or technique, but the transmission of a living tradition aimed at forming wisdom, virtue, and love. Listeners will come away with a renewed sense of purpose, encouraged to tend the “fire” of learning and to participate faithfully in handing down a rich inheritance to the next generation.Special thanks to the Great Hearts Institute. Episode OutlineWhy the question “What is classical education?” is harder than it sounds (and why it matters for renewal)The paradox of learning: the more you know, the more you know you don’t know “Begin with the end”: death, wisdom, and the purpose of education Tradition as “handing down”: language, culture, and education as inheritance Athens and Rome: Greek paideia, Roman educatio, and the liberal arts as a transmitted curriculumThe Church and Christendom: incorporating Greco-Roman learning, theology as “queen,” and widening accessEngland to early America: grammar schools, Boston Latin, Harvard, and the rise of popular literacy The Adams family as an educational case study: formation, thinning, and the modern fracture Progressive education: what changed, what was gained, and why education can’t be reduced to a quantitative scienceThe modern renewal: early schools (1979–1981), today’s ecosystem, and the need for teacher formation at scaleFinal exhortation: preserve humility, avoid pride, resist false dichotomies, and tend the “fire” of wonder in schoolsKey Topics & TakeawaysClassical education is a tradition before it is a “renewal.” A renewal only makes sense if we can name what is being renewed.Teachers must be perpetual students. The classical teacher models humility—seeking wisdom while resisting the pretense of having arrived.Education is measured by ultimate aims. Human life is fleeting; education gains its meaning from what it prepares us for—virtue, wisdom, piety, and a life rightly ordered.Tradition is unavoidable. Even rejecting tradition requires using language and capacities that were first handed down as a tradition.The liberal arts are an inheritance with a genealogy. From Greek and Roman culture through Christian adaptation, the arts endure because they correspond to human nature.Modern fragmentation reshaped education’s purpose. When technology and “force” become central categories, education shifts from transmitting culture to preparing for flux.Progressive vs. classical is not a simple binary. Many educational “heresies” are partial truths held out of balance (false dichotomies distort practice).The renewal must be sustained by love, not mere critique. A movement fueled only by opposition cannot endure—formation requires positive vision and shared goods.Classical education belongs to humanity. It is deeply shaped by Christianity, but not owned exclusively by Christians; it welcomes seekers and strangers.Questions & DiscussionWhy do you think “classical education” is so difficult to define clearly?Name what you most often hear from parents or colleagues when they ask what “classical” means. Try writing a two-sentence definition that includes both aim (why) and means (how), then compare with others.How does the “perpetual student” posture change the way you teach?Where are you tempted to project certainty or expertise instead of wonder and humility? Identify one practice that would help your faculty model learning (shared reading, teacher seminar, public “I don’t know yet”).What is education for when you “begin with the end” (mortality in view)?How does remembering death sharpen what matters in curriculum and school culture? If you had to prioritize one outcome—wisdom, virtue, piety, civic responsibility—what would you choose and why?What can we learn from the Adams family arc—formation to fracture?In your own experience, where do you see education becoming “garments that no longer fit”? ...
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    1 hr and 11 mins
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