Quick Summary of “The Lost Tools of Learning” 1st and foremost, the Trivium, as described by Dorothy Sayer in “The Lost Tools Of Learning, is a guide to help in the proper use and understanding of the tools of learning. This is a map not for teaching subjects as such, but a guide for how to think. It is an “order” of learning, an “unfoldment” of the natural processes of thinking which evolves naturally with learning. These natural processes, independent of age, follow a well described path. Although Sayers does list age ranges for each of the three stages, I would argue that the more relevant point to her work is a focus on the natural stages of development, regardless of age. As she herself stated “what age shall the children be? Well, if one is to educate them on novel lines, it will be better that they should have nothing to unlearn; besides, one cannot begin a good thing too early, and the Trivium is by its nature not learning, but a preparation for learning. We will, therefore, “catch ’em young..” The tools of learning are described in the metaphor of the Trivium ( grammar, Dialectic and Rhetoric). This is a description of the three fold way in which our thinking and learning evolve together, naturally. The Trivium provides “the proper use of the tools of learning before applying to subjects”. Sayers describes these phases of overlapping cognitive evolution in the following ways. These are not discreet phases, they overlap, blending at the conceptual margins. The grammar phase constitutes the first stage of mental evolution where the basic building blocks of a subject area are learned. For children, this could apply to language, but for an adult, this would apply to any subject. So, no matter what the age, the process is the same. In language, structure is learned first (the basic nuts and bolts of the subject: what it is, how it works, etc.) along with reading, writing and “cipher” (meaning of symbols and such). This process is applied to anything in the c...