Discussion alone cannot forge students’ “hardy, rough-handed obedience.” They require demanding physical work that integrates thought, feeling, and action.
Recent advancements in classical education are encouraging. Students now engage with great names and stories, encountering primary texts designed for active participation rather than passive observation.
Yet while modern academic programs teach virtues long out of fashion, a critical question remains: have we created conditions where these virtues can truly take root?
Students need raw contact with nature to embody virtue through cold hands and aching backs—not merely as abstract concepts debated in seminars.
In Xenophon’s Cyropaedia, Cyrus’ formative years are detailed. He endured rigorous discipline: combat, cold exposure, fasting, and corrections from warriors hardened by conflict. His education prepared him for military service, endurance of hardship, and the unapologetic practice of justice.
Similarly, Herodotus describes how Persian nobles were sent to frontiers under military commanders. They learned to ride, shoot bows, and speak truth—far removed from court intrigues and luxuries. Only after sufficient hardening were they deemed ready for political roles.
Both Greek historians highlight an education prioritizing nature, martial virtue, and straightforward communication over manipulative language of power. This, they argue, forms true leaders.
Yet this model is absent in today’s schools—public, private, or STEM-focused—even most classical institutions.
To address modern educational shortcomings, we turn to John Henry Newman, a theologian who critiqued contemporary book learning. In sermons, Newman warned that education today often separates feeling from action, resulting in well-mannered students without virtuous conduct. He noted: “The danger of an elegant and polite education is that it separates feeling and acting; it teaches us to think, speak, and be affected aright, without forcing us to practice what is right.”
This approach risks producing students who are emotionally responsive but not morally resilient. Today’s classrooms, even in the best classical schools, spend excessive time in intellectual arenas where students can detach feeling from action—environments where talk abounds but meaningful practice remains scarce.
The solution demands ruggedness for both educators and students. It requires relearning the feel of callouses and the alternation between sweating and shivering that unmediated life brings.
Robust physical training—fitness, athletics, or outdoor activities like camping and climbing—is essential. Students need raw nature to embody virtue through cold hands and aching backs, not abstract debate. They require hard labor—tilling soil or caring for animals—to cultivate patience, responsibility, and an understanding of human limits. This work also demands willingly forgoing modern comforts that obscure lessons in natural order.
Without treating physical challenges as mere supplements to education, we cannot expect students to achieve the “hardy, rough-handed obedience” Newman identified as the hallmark of great nations.
Patrick Whalen is the founder and CEO of Iliad Athletics.
