Dr. Richard Brake is headmaster of St. Francis Classical Catholic Academy in Valley, Pennsylvania. Before that,

he was headmaster of St. Michael's High School in Michigan, as well as president of the Institute.

Before that, Institute for Family Studies and Vice President for Education at Intercollegiate Studies

Institute. Welcome, Richard. Thanks, Mark. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

All right. Well, we're going to talk about classical ed from the position of an administrator.

Now, the Michigan school you led was part of the Chesterton network.

How was or is actually Chesterton an inspiration for the classical education

movement in America? Yeah, great question, Mark. You know, when I got up there to the northern

part of Michigan, this was a school that kind of wanted to be classical, wanted to be liberal arts,

all of that, and kind of didn't know how.

So I always believe that why reinvent the wheel if you've got a better model out there?

So the folks at the Chesterton network, you know, Dale Alquist and the like, they were very helpful in us kind of getting started.

And, you know, Chesterton, boy, didn't he see things well in advance the situation

that were in, you know, he knew, he knew, I think he said that most curricular, most children

are older than the curriculum that teach them. So, you know, so I think Chesterton was somebody

who saw the problems with public education heading down the path.

And so, you know, I think that, you know, just the curriculum, the anthropology, Chesterton kind of knew it all.

You served earlier in your career as a legislative assistant in Pennsylvania and I believe in D.C.

And your doctorate is not an education. It's in American politics.

What brought you into the classical education world?

Yeah. You know, I think, you know, at some point, I think you think that you're in charge of

your life and then you realize that God is. And so I was hammering, knocking out the door,

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