Mary Ellen Barrett on instilling a joy of learning in our children and why Seton Home Study School is adding more Read-Aloud books to the Pre-K curriculum.

When he was bored, John Clark's mother said 'read a book'. Now, he's amazed at how that little adage has transformed western culture, and we need it back.

Dr Kalpakgian delves into a scene in Alcott's 'Little Women' to show how tactfulness is a cultivated art, one that Amy understands and Jo comes to rue.

In the course of a year, all persons are aware of the weekdays and the weekends, of work days and national holidays like Independence Day, Thanksgiving, and Labor Day and ...

by Mitchell Kalpakgian | So often in relationships arguments arise in which both parties are convinced that they deserve an apology for an offense...

by Mitchel Kalpakgian | Macbeth learns that daggers draw blood, and murder produces guilt. Man’s conscience and soul are real, alive, and active—especially at night.

by Ken Clark | Back in the golden age of Hollywood, major studios made religious movies that actually praised God and religion. Charleton Heston alone seems to have played most of the Apostles and Prophets. Who can forget his roles as Moses in The Ten Commandments or John the Baptist in The Greatest Story Ever Told, two excellent religious movies.

by Mitchell Kalpakgian | In Willa Cather’s My Antonia, Jimmy Burden, the narrator who relates the story of his life in Nebraska and the lives of the immigrant families who settled in the Midwest, recalls an illuminating moment in his study of Virgil at the University of Nebraska.

by Mary Lou Warren | Recently I came across a Wall Street Journal article on homeschooling in China which caught my attention. I was surprised at the concept that homeschooling might even be considered in China of all places. Surprise, surprise, according to the article, homeschooling is becoming popular there.

by Mitchell Kalpakgian | The world’s great writers never cease to marvel at the world’s lack of common sense. Why does man, famously identified by Aristotle as a “rational animal” with an inborn desire for truth (“All men by nature desire to know,” he writes in the Metaphysics) demonstrate so many forms of folly that another great writer, Henry Fielding, remarked that a comic writer can never lack material for satire and laughter because “life everywhere furnishes an accurate observer with the ridiculous.”

by Mitchell Kalpakgian | It is common to hear students dismiss certain fields of knowledge as useless to their profession and career. Why should students majoring in information technology, accounting, music, or biology study philosophy, literature, or Latin? Surely they will not need this knowledge in their specialized, technical fields of study.

by Ginny Seuffert | Theme 4: Repeated exercises in the forms of good manners and politeness. Gatto’s fourth theme is that elite private boarding schools offer their students repeated exercises in the practice of good manners and courtesy based on the utter truth that politeness and civility are the foundations of all future relationships and the key of access to places a person might want to go.

by John Clark | Years ago, I inquired of a wise, old friend as to what her favorite religious movie was. Her answered surprised me. She said: “I don’t watch religious movies. The images in them can effect your reading of Scripture for the rest of your life.” Her point was that, after seeing a film, your meditations are influenced by what you have seen. The more I thought about it, the more I realized she had point.

by Mitchell Kalpakgian | According to the worldly wise, the end justifies the means. If one achieves his ambitions, he need not be scrupulous or squeamish for doing what most people do—even if they are dishonest.

by Mitchell Kalpakgian | The custom of visiting on Sundays and holidays, once a natural part of a human life, has waned in the last fifty years. Visitors feel the obligation to call in advance and ask permission lest they impose or inconvenience their hosts. Hosts who receive visitors sense the need to have ample provisions...

by Bob Wiesner | The Te Deum is an ancient prayer of praise, dating to the 4th Century. Traditionally ascribed to Saints Ambrose and Augustine, composed to commemorate Augustine’s baptism, scholars now also argue for the authorship of Saint Hilary or Bishop Nicetas of Remesiana. Whoever wrote it, it has a long history in the Church.

by Mitchell Kalpakgian | The French phrase “déjà vu” (already seen) carries a negative connotation. If something is déjà vu, it means that one has done something, been someplace, or had an experience that he does not want to repeat, revisit, or undergo again.

by Mitchell Kalpakgian | In the “Preface” to The Great Divorce C. S. Lewis explains the nature of moral error in the modern world as an endless progression on the wrong road-- the assumption that all roads sooner or later lead to the same destination.

Marc Postiglione unpacks Pope St. John Paul II's encyclical, 'Redemptor Hominis' - 'Redeemer of Man', a message of personal dignity, freedom and truth.

by Dr Kalpakgian | By giving Curdie “some” of the truth Irene led him to “all” of it. By giving Curdie time and being content to be misunderstood for a short period, Irene led her friend to the fullness of the truth. To be a messenger like Irene is to speak the simple truth and let God do the rest.