Chelsea News

Note: This is the first in a series of reflections on liberal arts education and the Catholic intellectual life from our headmaster, Mr. John M. DeJak.

In the tradition of Western Civilization there is no shortage of good writers and good books! This is something that we attempt to impress upon our students and, I'm sure, that there is no small number of parents who attempt to do the same. While in ages past (and in places other than the United States currently) there was more discipline in learning languages other than English, we can be grateful that translators have brought the great non-English works of our civilization to our table. While not the same as the original, many fine scholars have been able to bring to a wider reading public the great thoughts of those who have gone before and have blunted the old Italian aphorism: “Traduttore, traditore" ("Translator, traitor!").

Lest anyone lose this treasury of wisdom, there developed a practice—an intellectual habit—in ancient times, which has continued through the Middle Ages and into the early 20th century, of keeping a commonplace book or what medieval monks used to call a florilegium ("a gathering of flowers").  In order to aid the memory, students and scholars would keep a notebook with them as they read and would jot down sententiae ("thoughts") from the authors that they were reading in various areas.  What would they write down?  Things that moved them; thoughts that inspired them; insights that could help them. This "gathering of flowers" allowed rhetoricians to offer brilliant speeches drawn from a variety of sources; it allowed the early Fathers of the Church and medieval monks to develop reflections on the Christian Mystery in both preaching and writing; and it created a more literate, reflective, and tradition-minded public. In more recent times, Maurice Baring, an author-diplomat and a great friend of Hilaire Belloc and G.K. Chesterton, published what could be called his own commonplace book entitled Have You Anything to Declare? This book is delightful in that it contains moving passages from literature (both in the original languages and translated) and is arranged for not only the edification of the note-taker, but also the reader.  In a word, the commonplace book is a way to preserve the memory and to slow down as one develops his intellectual acuity, asks the great questions, and meditates on primary things. Seneca put it well:

We should follow…the examples of the bees, who flit about and cull the flowers that are suitable for producing honey, and then arrange and assort in their cells all that they have brought in…. We also, I say, ought to copy these bees, and sift whatever we have gathered from a varied course of reading, for such things are better preserved if they are kept separate; then…we should so blend these several flavors into one delicious compound that, even though it betrays its origins, yet it nevertheless is clearly a different thing from whence it came.  

One of the aims of Catholic liberal arts education is to understand the whole of reality as God has so wonderfully designed it and to see the connections between things. Keeping a commonplace book is a reflective and practical way to aid in this intellectual adventure.  The beauty of the book is that one can keep it as he wishes—it is highly personal to each person. Some can take the tack of John Locke who famously made a complex index to the different subject areas that he considered in his commonplace book; or one can be more random in simply jotting things down—passages that he has read, poems that he has encountered, philosophical arguments made—as one reads or between books. Keeping a commonplace book slows one down and allows one to engage the text in a serious way that is an antidote to the modern habit of "skimming" and superficial reading. This is why a notebook with the old-fashioned pen or pencil is the way to engage this practice.  To so engage one's reading is a revolution in the truest sense of the word: a rebellion against what technocrats and educrats say education should be, and rather a means by which to cultivate self-discipline, freedom, and depth--a way to taste the freedom of the sons of God.

Finally, the commonplace book is not meant to be put on the shelf when completed. It is something to return to again and again. To jog the memory and meet again with the great men and women who have inspired one's thought.  In this way, it is a record of not only one's intellectual journey, but also a scrapbook of one's literary friendships.