Video: Dr. Neumayr on the Order of the Arts and Sciences

What are the liberal arts? Why should one study them, and what role do they play in the curriculum of Thomas Aquinas College?

Dr. John W. Neumayr, one of the College’s founders, discusses these questions in the above video, which is excerpted from a recent interview he gave about the history of the College. The liberal arts, Dr. Neumayr explains, begin with the trivium — grammar, logic, and rhetoric — each one ordered to the next and, in turn, ordered to the quadrivium — geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and music — whose parts are similarly ordered to one another, and then to the studies of philosophy and theology.

It is through the liberal arts, Dr. Neumayr observes, that the student can first achieve an understanding of the natural world. And it is through this understanding of nature and nature’s order that the student can get a glimpse into the mind of the Creator.