A Case for the Ancient Set of Exercises
Growing up going to school, I had written my share of thesis and research papers. I even passed most of them. When I started at ECS, I didn’t realize how little I knew about papers and even less about the Progymnasmata. Besides being a word that I can’t say quickly, the Progymnasmata is the set of pre exercises for students to do to learn rhetoric. It stems from the ancient Greeks and flows through the years of education until the end of the 18th century. To say that it had longevity is an understatement. I could give a diatribe on why it went out of fashion, but for now, I would like to explain more of what it is.
First, why do we write? We write because it helps one to organize their thoughts. It also helps one to think logically. These exercises force logical progression of thought onto a person’s writing that is a gift to everyone: reader and writer. It builds vocabulary, grammar, and everything else that schools and colleges care about. The thing that I love most about writing though is that it trains one to communicate in a way that lasts for generations to come. The written word has changed my life, it is how God has chosen to communicate with us, and they have moved every great person in history. If we want to change the world, it always starts with words.
Now, when it comes to the exercises, there is a progression to them that build one to the other. The beginning exercises focus most on taking in information and putting it in the student’s own words. Fable, Narrative, Chreia, and Proverb are all exercises that focus on what was said and the truth and value of the saying. These are meant to focus on what is true and good and still say it beautifully. These exercises are meant for late grammar stage students and early logic stage.
From there, the exercises look to build arguments for what is right and wrong, looking at the ideas and the characters of literature. Refutation and Confirmation are converses of each other. They both argue about the truth of an event. The Commonplace traditional looks to amplify and expose a virtue or a vice but historically looks only at the negative vice and why is it wrong. Finally, the Encomium and Vituperation look to individuals, considering their parentage, education, and deeds and if they are great or terrible people. The final composition of this section is the comparison which is either a double Encomium or an Encomium and Vituperation. The two people are compared together, going back and forth in order to easily draw comparison between the two people. These exercises are ideal for later Logic and early Rhetoric stage students.
The final group of exercises are about creation and persuasion. It is not enough for people to know how to learn things and if they are true or false. Learning to write should give a person the ability to change people’s minds. It starts with Impersonation, which makes a student analyze the style of another person, jump into their mind, and create something from that mind frame. From there, we jump to Description which is all about being able to take an experience and make someone else feel what you feel. If you have ever felt a shiver run down your spine while reading a book, it was probably from a description that made you actually feel something. My most recent one was from R.C. Sproul Holiness of God when he describes himself feeling the Holiness of God while walking into a church. The final two are Thesis and Defend/Attack a Law. While their constructions are slightly different, they are both doing similar things. The Thesis gives an argument of some kind, normally putting multiple ideas together. While the Defend/Attack a Law is political in nature. These are the jewels of the Rhetoric stage that gives each person the tools they need to change society.
While Progymnasmata may be difficult to say, the value that these exercises provide an individual is worth the collective weight of all your Omni books in platinum, yet we seek to cram it into 6 years of Omnibus. It is a progression that if cut short in the beginning is a disservice or not finished in the end is a travesty. It might seem silly in the moment or like a lot of busy work, but in reality, it is all about shaping a mind to fit with all the geniuses of the past. I hope this helped you see where you are at in your journey with a glimpse at the end. We hope to build something out of each of you. These exercises are the nails and boards of the structure. We need a few hundred of them to build anything of consequence.