Founders

Before we were married we agreed that home schooling was the only possible route in a nation where the school systems were already growing toxic.  Any system based on John Dewey was bound to fail the human person.  Our educational philosophy involved reading both the good and great books with our children.  

As one of the first students at Thomas More College, Crystal was a student of Dr. Louise Cowan and Dr. Peter Sampo.  This was one of three of the new Catholic Liberal Arts colleges of the 1980s whose mission was to form the soul through the intellect, and to convey the true ideal of masculine and feminine being under God.  As Dante emphasizes, the spark that is given to us must become light for others around us.  Dr. Cowan made clear the role that women fulfill as culture bearers to their family and the world.  Here the goods of the Catholic Liberal Arts education are both universal and simultaneously, very intimate.

Dr. Russell approached the Liberal Arts first through the Fine Arts of poetry, music and drama, spending years in the practice of each.  Not being blessed with a Liberal education at Princeton or in graduate schools, he had to pull together the threads of Philosophy, Theology and History to begin properly to understand Literature.  D.W. Robertson taught him that one could not understand Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales without much knowledge of the Holy Scripture and the Church Fathers.  From there, it was only a short walk to see that the same is true of Shakespeare and most of the authors in the English tradition.

It was clear to both of us that education must be woven together from the rich threads of Western wisdom and lore.  The subject matters speak to one another of each era and the God behind them all.  It is not that young people are incapable of learning from these great masters, but that teachers had too long forgotten how to speak of them, even to know them as the formators of their souls.  

We spent our early married years teaching and developing great books or “honors” programs in small southern colleges, culminating in our work with the students of Franciscan University, where Dr. Russell developed the World Literature track, and moving on to Ave Maria College to be the first Chairman of its Literature Department.  Sharing our home with the students and engaging in the Liturgical Year and its celebrations with them was central to our family life and perhaps the truest expression of education.

St. Augustine’s was conceived by Crystal to offer these goods at a younger age.  Homeschool enrichment was designed to go far beyond what most homes or cooperative arrangements could offer.  With well-formed, well-educated tutors, students could receive a deep and rich education in a few days per week, while remaining lovingly in the families that had already done so much to form their souls and their willingness to learn.

What began as an outreach to friends has now, twenty years later, become, through the grace of God, a great tree surrounded by the lovely orchard of the families of our students, many now married and having children of their own.  Most have gone on to faithful Catholic colleges, growing into a fuller knowledge of the truth, and eager to raise their children in the Faith and her Wisdom.