With eyes fixed and mouths open but motionless, a small group of boys from the dialectic school stood before Art. 

Now, Art, one should know, was the name of our docent at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum—Boston’s best-kept aesthetic secret.  He was, nevertheless, talking to these boys about art, and they were enchanted.  The piece at this particular point in the tour was Sargent’s famous painting El Jaleo.  Art began by making some comments about the artist and the piece, but before long he was asking the boys questions about the work itself.  Before much longer, the boys were, to my delight and amazement, responding not only about what they liked or didn’t like in the painting, but about the use of line and color, and how the stark contrast of white and black draws our attention to the woman’s dance.  Rather than merely teaching us about art, our docent placed us in contact with the work itself.

Aristotle said that the purpose of education is to teach the student to love that which is lovely.  He pointed out, however, that the only way to accomplish this sort of education is to experience the lovely things—truth, goodness and beauty—themselves. What our class encountered in this museum trip was, I believe, a poignant illustration of what Aristotle was talking about.  I see it also as a metaphor for what we are trying to do as teachers at The Geneva School.

John Singer Sargent, El Jaleo

As a faculty member in the dialectic and rhetoric school at Geneva, I seek to do with truth what our docent did with the artwork at the Gardner Museum.  As a theology and philosophy teacher in particular, this means placing my students in contact with the Word of God as written by Moses or St. Paul, the wisdom of such philosophers as Socrates or St. Augustine, and the profound insight of authors like Pascal or C. S. Lewis.  Rather than merely teaching my students about the Scriptures, philosophy or theology, I aspire, like the guide who knows the museum’s collection well, to lead the students to the very best pieces, placing them in contact with the works themselves.

Kevin Clark teaches logic, theology, and philosophy & apologetics in the dialectic and rhetoric school.