We find our voice, so to speak, by studying rhetoric primarily and by reading widely and engaging with the world in a deep way. Rhetoric, as the trivium treats it, is the art of finding and ordering the available means of persuasion in speech, ordered to what is true and good and not merely to persuasion itself. In a certain sense, of course, the use of rhetoric does not wait until we have studied the art of grammar, simply because we speak, read, and try to persuade others all the time without having studied grammar.
Nevertheless, the art of rhetoric presupposes grammar and logic, even if only in a rudimentary way. Someone who cannot form a statement or follow an inference can only really offer an audience his own character and personal influence; sometimes, of course, that is enough, but not usually.
Moreover, training our speech is a key part of how each of us becomes able to communicate meaning to others and to offer a considered judgment on decisions or open questions; and that is the goal of self-expression itself.
If our primary aim is to express ourselves well and to find a mature voice, we may take up rhetoric sooner than the usual order. But most students should begin with grammar, and then logic, because teaching and learning are always already done in speech. (If nothing else, training in grammar and logic will help us to digest and learn the most from the great authors and speakers we study in rhetoric.)
In the next section, we consider the general question of why we must begin with words in a course of higher studies. If we are still concerned to find a voice for self-expression, these experiences and skills will undoubtedly serve as a way of training and refining that capacity.
Continue to Why the Classical Tradition Begins with Words.
Or go back to Where to Begin for Higher Studies in General to explore another starting point.