Some foundational rules at St. Dunstan’s Academy
- Teenage boys should be outside more than inside.
- Growing food, building things, and going on challenging adventures all help young men don the mantle of responsibility.
- Virtue is both caught and taught, and good mentors are essential for both means of transfer.
- Risks and trials are not only not traumatic for teenage boys—they are essential for instilling maturity.
- The intellect is the chief faculty strengthened by education, but the intellect can only be reached once the heart has been gripped and attentiveness secured, so poetic encounters with reality should precede academic analysis.
- Prayer, music, and ceremony are not only an expression of our love for God but also the means by which we learn to love Him more, and so all three are vital to good education.
- The warmth and light of a fire bring friends together, while the glow of screens has the opposite effect. All mature people should know how to provide the former when called upon and forgo the latter for periods of time.
- Iron sharpens iron and good men are forged in a band of brothers.
- Regular solitude and quiet are necessary for contemplation, prayer, and self-awareness.
- “Multum, non multa.” Much, not many. A few deep and memorable encounters with reality are better than many shallow and forgettable glances at the world; a few poems learned by heart are better than one hundred briefly seen and then forgotten; a few good books read slowly with rapt attention are better than The Great Books, skimmed.
