Fig

There are many beautiful fig trees in Los Angeles and throughout southern California, with their great roots allowing for their shapely trunks and weighty branches.
    The word also forms the acronym for "Foundation In Grammar," and grammar is the intellectual foundation of a classical education—the roots of its tree. The word is also sometimes short for "figurative": Often times language carries great figurative meanings—a point discussed in the subject of rhetoric, which if grammar be the roots of a classical education, then rhetoric be the trunk upon which it rests. Logic, which sits between grammar and rhetoric in the trivium of classical education, would be where and how the roots coalesce into the trunk. And one can often see the roots of a fig tree give shape throughout its trunk, showing something of the general relationship among grammar, logic, and rhetoric.
    And, besides being one of the healthiest foods for human beings, figs have a similarity to human beings themselves: that though they come in beautiful, distinct colors on the outside—purple, green, brown, and black—they're all essentially the same on the inside, a sinewy red.
    Lastly, they're of great importance to many of our world's religions. They're mentioned in the Torah and the Bible. They're mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita. The Buddha is said to have attained Enlightenment under a fig tree. And they're sworn by in the Quran.

A classical education is to have read the great works of one's civililzation and the works of other civilizations which have had a major impact on the world—the many branches and leaves of the tree.
    And it is to have the tools to be able to understand these works, the tools of grammar, logic, and rhetoric.