Leader’s Day Speaker
Aristocratic Education and the American Tradition – Leader’s Day Panel
At this panel, key signers of the AGOGE statement engage with Matthew Freeman’s provocative essay, Toward a Classical Counter-Elite, exploring its implications for the classical education movement in America. Freeman’s call for an education that forms a new aristocracy—rooted in Greek and Roman vision of virtue—raises questions about the role of classical education in shaping a nation’s future.
Is this vision compatible with the American tradition? How can classical educators balance the ideals of hierarchy and civic virtue with America’s historical commitments to democratic self-government? Can classical schools serve as the training grounds for a counter-elite capable of restoring cultural and political order?
This panel will discuss these themes, addressing both the challenges and opportunities of integrating Freeman’s ideas into classical education today. Panelists will offer insights on how classical institutions can foster a generation of leaders prepared to navigate and reshape the modern world without compromising the core of the American experiment.
Joshua Gibbs is the director of The Classical Teaching Institute at the Ambrose School in Meridian, ID. He has taught classic literature for nineteen years and he is the author of a number of books, including Love What Lasts and Something They Will Not Forget, a handbook for teachers about the use of classroom catechisms. He is also the creator of the Proverbial podcast and a prolific blogger, having authored more than six hundred articles for the CiRCE Institute between 2014 and 2024. In 2020, he created Gibbs Classical, an online classroom where he teaches classic literature. He proudly keeps in touch with many former students.