Cherish No Grudge

Liberty students are blessed to be educated, at all levels, by loving, merciful adults. Last week, in all-faculty memos framing the upcoming Presidents’-Day holiday, our three principals jointly declared, “Liberty scholars deserve to understand the prerogative of mercy in the practice of justice sufficient to both be merciful, and to be shown mercy.”

 

The admonition was anchored by a quotation attributed to the 16th US President Abraham Lincoln: “I have always found that mercy bears richer fruit than strict justice.” The President’s own experience was reminiscent of books he loved – in particular, an ancient Judaic tome advising, “Take no revenge and cherish no grudge against any of your people. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  

 

An enormously tall order, it guided Lincoln in deciding the fate of recaptured Confederate Soldiers. This profound historical lesson, as others like it, can be a life-changing moral example for our young scholars.

 

All Liberty instructors, too, are wont to deepen content mastery and fortify our command of weighty lessons like Lincoln’s.  Accordingly, over the course of this week and next, the school is investing considerable sums in high-level instructor education. 

 

On the heels of today's Professional-Development Day, we’re flying 30 Liberty educators to next week’s annual National Symposium for Classical Education in Phoenix. It alone represents a substantial investment in travel, logistics, registration, plus out-of-classroom faculty time (3 expensive days). 

 

We’ve sent delegations to Phoenix over the years, yet never one larger. It’s well justified.

 

This symposium focuses upon tradition as the best strategy to acquire knowledge in any domain. Indeed, tradition informs the classical-liberal arts. I am confident all will notice positive, value-added, institutional improvement. Our Board of Directors will receive a briefing at its upcoming retreat.

 

Few public schools, in fact, invest as much as Liberty Common School does in this level of teacher-training activity.

 

Please CLICK HERE to follow along with our splendid delegation.  Watch for subsequent reports about our symposium experience and our team’s earnest pursuit of “the prerogative of mercy” – the true, the beautiful, the good, and the perfect.