We were deeply honored to have Dr. Wilfred McClay of Hillsdale College as our commencement speaker. In his excellent talk, “Whatsoever Things Are True” he said, he spoke of an educational philosophy rooted in Philippians 4:8:
“Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”
He added:
“You’ve heard it said by doctors and dieticians that you are what you eat. Well, it’s even more true that you become the things you think about. That’s what Paul is saying to us. A steady diet of triviality, mediocrity, baseness, and political indoctrination in education does not elevate us; instead, it leaves us far less than what we could have been. On the other hand, those things we regard as exemplary become, in the end, a window onto what we believe that it means to be most fully human, most fully the creatures that God meant us to be—the subject that is at the bottom of all other subjects and pursuits, in a real education.”
More: “There are some deep paradoxes at the heart of education. In the first place, education is most useful when it does not consciously strive to be useful. And second, it is an unending task, because it engages us in seeking to become more fully what we already are–or rather, to become what we are meant to be, fulfilling some potentiality that is already inherent in what we are. Not that we are necessarily “meant to be” some one particular thing–an architect, a doctor, a welder, a software engineer, a teacher, or the most noble thing of all, a mother of 10—whatever. That is not what I mean. Instead, I mean that the fullest measure of our humanity is not something merely given to us. It is an achievement, as well as an endowment. Virtue, excellence, is something we have to acquire by very considerable effort.”
Thank you Dr. McClay, for holding up the higher purpose we aspire to as a classical Christian school.
Watch the full video here:
https://youtu.be/wjjxc-AUEFE
