Monument Academy

Background Statement

Monument Academy holds to the self-evident truth known to the ancients and to the Founding Fathers that virtue is the well-charted but too-little traveled road to true happiness. And we do mean virtue, not post-modern “values,” a term that implies “whatever I do, whatever my unruly passions and appetites urge on me, is okay; so don’t judge me!” There are right and wrong answers in human living no less clear than the simplest addition problem. We abandon or try to cheat these moral answers at our own peril and to the despair of those around us, especially those we care about. The right answers in every human life are to be attained through the practice of the virtues. Those virtues, sources of our moral excellence, consist in the bold ancient virtues— temperance, courage, justice, prudence—as well as the softer virtues, both ancient and modern—honesty, politeness, gratitude—that weave the noble tapestry of the “unbought grace of life.” Students at MA acquire the virtues through the Character First Program. They further study the virtues in the great stories, real and imaginary, that comprise the human pageant. In time, they read the philosophic truth of Socrates:

For I go around doing nothing but persuading both young and old among you not to care for your body or your wealth in preference to or as strongly as for the best possible state of your soul, as I say to you: “Wealth does not bring about virtue, but virtue makes wealth and everything else good for men . . .

Character pervades the curriculum. Character—not magic—is the source of Cinderella’s reward. Character—in the form of industry—leads Franklin to discover and to invent. Character—as we are told through the story of the Ring of Gyges—points to “the actions of a man if he knew he would never be found out” (Macaulay). Character is the hard currency—as Washington showed—with which heroism (or simply goodness) is gained and nations are made. At MA it is not our design to make students behave grudgingly and only when a teacher is in the room. Our sole concern is not just to keep them from cheating on tests. True, we insist upon discussion in the classroom, decorum in the halls. Yet our greater hope is that young people will do the good for the best reason of all: because they love it.