Rembrandt van Rijn's "The Return of the Prodigal"

“Rembrandt van Rijn was the greatest Dutch artist of his time, and ranks as one of the master-painters of the world. He worked within the pious Protestant ethos of the 17th-century Netherlands, yet his art has a rare universal quality that is capable of appealing to all men and women,” opens Douglas Mannering’s The Art of Rembrandt.
Thus far we’ve been studying for Picture Study in my class at Clapham one of his most well-known and celebrated biblical paintings, “The Return of the Prodigal,” which portrays the touching moment from Jesus’ parable when the wayward son is clasped by his loving, waiting father, even as the elder brother and servants look on. While it is not how many of us might have pictured the scene, Rembrandt’s vision is undeniably vigorous in its expression and its message must have been powerfully felt by Rembrandt himself.
John Durham provides moving a moving interpretation from the perspective of faith in his book The Biblical Rembrant: “it is the father’s face that is the heart of this painting: a face of such compassion and tenderness, a face suffused with so much relief mingled with love, a face glowing with a transcendent light.”

Elementary English Composition

At Clapham School I am using this as our textbook for teaching composition. This marvelous composition course of study published in 1902 is no idle compilation. Written by Fred Newton Scott, Professor of Rhetoric in the University of Michigan, and Joseph Villiers Denney, Professor of Rhetoric and English Language in Ohio State University, this is a textbook that has been rigorously and painstakingly planned out. EEC aims to build great writers on a solid and comprehensive foundation, beginning with overviews of oral and written composition, proceeding to description, narration, explanation and argument both oral and written.
The preface explains its unique methodology, which beautifully complements Clapham’s reliance on Charlotte Mason’s pedagogy: “the indifference of the pupils to their English composition is due in part to the isolation of written from spoken discourse. The artificial separation of two things which naturally belong together takes the heart out of both of them. Hence we find in the schools writing that is feeble and impersonal, and oratory that is flamboyant and insincere. That the simple utterances of daily desires and needs are as truly compositions as the most labored essays, that essays are best when they are the simple utterance of daily desires and needs, are lessons which pupils, if they have not already learned them, cannot learn too early in their secondary education.” Scott and Denney have laid out a plan to raise the level of all of students’ discourse, so that composition becomes for them as natural as life itself.

Alexander Pope's "An Essay on Criticism"

Alexander Pope represents one of the greatest poets of the period known as the Restoration, as well as the Eighteenth Century. His work stands at the pinnacle of a whole classical tradition of poetry, shortly before the Romantic period subverts almost everything that came before it. At Clapham School our class is navigating that transition this year by studying Pope for the first half, and following up with William Wordsworth for the second.
Pope's "An Essay on Criticism" is a poem on a grand scale, an essay of heroic couplets in fact, reaching the length of 18 pages in Times New Roman font on a Word Document. Pope boldly and humorously criticizes the critics and scholars of his day. At the same time, he presents a whole philosophy of what makes for good poetry, good criticism, good sense, and good art.
We've been memorizing the first 3 paragraphs in class, and I've been quite pleased with how much the students have grown in their ability to understand Pope, as we've studied this poem. Take a moment to read through the first three paragraphs and see what you can make of it:

'Tis hard to say, if greater Want of Skill
Appear in Writing or in Judging ill,
But, of the two, less dang'rous is th' Offence,
To tire our Patience, than mis-lead our Sense:
Some few in that, but Numbers err in this,
Ten Censure wrong for one who Writes amiss;
A Fool might once himself alone expose,
Now One in Verse makes many more in Prose.

'Tis with our Judgments as our Watches, none
Go just alike, yet each believes his own.
In Poets as true Genius is but rare,
True Taste as seldom is the Critick's Share;
Both must alike from Heav'n derive their Light,
These born to Judge, as well as those to Write.
Let such teach others who themselves excell,
And censure freely who have written well.
Authors are partial to their Wit, 'tis true,
But are not Criticks to their Judgment too?

Yet if we look more closely, we shall find
Most have the Seeds of Judgment in their Mind;
Nature affords at least a glimm'ring Light;
The Lines, tho' touch'd but faintly, are drawn right.
But as the slightest Sketch, if justly trac'd,
Is by ill Colouring but the more disgrac'd,
So by false Learning is good Sense defac'd.
Some are bewilder'd in the Maze of Schools,
And some made Coxcombs Nature meant but Fools.
In search of Wit these lose their common Sense,
And then turn Criticks in their own Defence.
Each burns alike, who can, or cannot write,
Or with a Rival's or an Eunuch's spite.
All Fools have still an Itching to deride,
And fain wou'd be upon the Laughing Side;
If Maevius Scribble in Apollo's spight,
There are, who judge still worse than he can write.