The Lost Tools of Learning

Introduction and Study Guide

Dorothy L. Sayers is best known to the general public as the author of the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries, but her work includes far more than those fantastic stories. Sayers wrote numerous essays ranging over topics in theology, culture, vocation, art, and more. She produced several wonderful translations including most of Dante’s Divine Comedy and the unknown medieval French poet’s The Song of Roland. Sayers also wrote several full length non-fiction works like The Mind of the Maker and a number of plays for stage and radio theater such as The Man Born to be King and Busman’s Honeymoon. She was quite a brilliant lady and her work deserves a larger audience in our own day.

Her essay, The Lost Tools of Learning, was originally delivered in 1947 as a lecture at Oxford University and it was subsequently published in its present form in the year after. This brief essay has had a large influence on the renewal of classical Christian education in the United States and abroad. Many schools make this essay required reading for newly hired faculty, or sometimes even require applicants to the school to read it and comment upon it, and they often express their desire that their teachers and administrators should be well able to articulate the ideas presented therein.

In my own estimation, the essay has become once loved and twice hated in our present day. It is loved by many in the classical school renewal and seen as a foundational document in the movement (akin to the Declaration of Independence to the United States). It is strongly disliked (if not hated) by some within the broader classical school movement because they think it presents a naive or mistaken view of classical education that should be rejected for another model. It is also hated by a whole other group, namely progressives in the realm of education, who see her ideas as holding on to an antiquated system of learning that has long passed its expiration date.

To be sure, The Lost Tools of Learning provides much for educators to think about, discuss, debate, and implement. Sayers’ most fundamental point is this: that which has been crafted and honed for centuries, indeed millenia, should not be lightly set aside. To put it in Solomon’s words, “Do not move the ancient landmark that your fathers have set.” Indeed the discarding of the liberal arts (that is to say the real liberal arts and not what many colleges and universities today often call the “Liberal Arts”) has been a net negative for society and the effects of this are increasingly showing more and more.

As Sayers wrote towards the beginning of this essay, “Too much specialisation is not a good thing.” Overspecialization turns humans into beasts and enslaves them to a small set of particular skills, it keeps them from being able to talk with and relate to their neighbors, it narrows their range for both work and play, it doesn’t allow them to bloom fully as an image-bearer of God who made all things and not only one thing. Having highly trained skill is a good thing, but it ought to rest upon a broad base of knowledge so that the mind is fully free.

In The Lost Tools of Learning Sayers offers us a path back towards education as it should be. She cuts the modern notion of education by “subjects” down to the quick and exposes it as a misguided attempt to merely pass on information in isolation, cut off from connections with other branches of learning, while ultimately failing to produce people capable of really learning anything which they are not spoon-fed. The plan she lays out will seem wondrous, radical, and revolutionary to those who’ve never seen the like before. To some it will be exciting, to others it may seem a nightmare, to others still it might seem like only a beautiful pipe-dream which cannot be attained. In reality, however, Sayers simply outlines what has been done before (and with great success) and what can be done again if only we will commit to pursue what’s best for our students (and ourselves) and stop caring about what the modern world thinks. This essay is not about educational revolution, it’s about reformation.

Regardless of your take on this essay, it is well worth reading. It is worth reading because Dorothy Sayers had a beautiful mind and she is always worth our time. It is worth reading because, whether it is always well understood or not, this essay has had a tremendous impact on the renewal of classical Christian education in our own day. It is worth reading because you shouldn’t let either the lovers or the haters tell you what she said, you should go and wrestle with the essay personally so you can better determine what she said for yourself. It’s also worth reading because progressives in the field of education hate it and that is typically a good sign that something is worth reading!

If you care about education at all, your own, your children’s, your grandchildren, or even just what is good for the education of the general populace, this is one essay that deserves to be a part of your consideration. I do not say it is the final word on anything, nor do I say that we must agree with her on every point, I only say that this essay matters and that it invites us all to think more deeply about education (particularly the education of children) and why it is of critical importance that we get this right. The Lost Tools of Learning gives us a leaping point for further important discussions about the content we include in our classrooms and the pedagogy we employ. Too many of us have given precious little thought to the matters of what, why, and how in regard to education and it is ever so important that we do so. So let’s begin now.

Below you will find links to each section of the study guide for Dorothy L. Sayers essay “The Lost Tools of Learning” as they become available. If you would like to pick up a copy of the book to join in the study you may do so by clicking HERE. For a list of other Great Books study guides already available, in development, or planned for the future you can click HERE.

Lesson 1: The Need for Educational Reform

Lesson 2: Poll-Parrot/Grammar Education

Lesson 3: Pert/Dialectic (Logic) Education

Lesson 4: Poetic/Rhetoric and Quadrivium Education