Scholars Online Course Sequences

Use the links below to explore our teaching goals and methods, discover the courses available, and choose the best starting levels for your students or yourself. For help determining which courses to take together, see our Planning your Curriculum page.

Core Subject Areas

• Greek
• Latin
• History
• Literature
• Mathematics
• Philosophy
• Science

Supplementary Areas and Skills

• Programming
• Writing
• Summer Courses

Core and Supplementary Courses

Until the nineteenth century, a classical education (Oxford or Cambridge style) was limited to a small portion of the population. It focused on the humanities. Students read philosophy and logic, the classical works of literature in Greek and Latin, history, and often other ancient or modern languages. What science there was included mathematics and “natural philosophy” (astronomy and physics), and medical biology if a student was aiming for a career as a medical doctor. But most students preparing for or attending universities were looking at governing their own estates, participating in conversations with other learned members of their society, perhaps serving in Parliament, or at following a call to ministry, military, or civil service. Some went on to become teachers at the universities they attended, of course. This classical education gave this group a common background against which they would make moral, legal, and political decisions.

Most of the rest of the population learned trades by apprenticeship, with little need for formal education beyond the necessary levels of reading and writing to keep records for farm or shop.

The Enlightenment changed attitudes toward education, and the industrial revolution changed the levels of knowledge required to support factory operation, international banking and trade, engineering, and chemistry. New educational institutions arose and older ones adapted, accepting students from a broader range of applicants and offering a growing number of subjects, particularly in the practical sciences. Some of these new courses were required to train engineers to increase energy efficiency, speed up transportation, enable telegraph communications, and create infrastructure systems for the growing cities. Others trained scientists in chemistry and medical research, or in finance and trade. At these schools, the emphasis shifted from understanding and governing ourselves to training for jobs that supported the growing levels of service that were now necessary.

The challenge before us is clear: in our modern society, we need scientific and engineering skills to maintain our complex and interdependent agricultural, urban, financial, and communication systems, but we also need human experience and moral examples from history and philosophy to help us choose the best ways to do this, and we need art and literature to help us explore possibilities beyond our own direct experience. A modern classical education has to balance humanities and sciences while recognizing the practical limitations of a student‘s time, talents, and resources.

In order to support these goals, we offer seven core areas of study, starting in middle school. Each area includes a sequence of courses that build on a student‘s existing skills to develop close reading and critical analysis of sources, recognition of the advantages and limitations of a discipline's methods, and a charitable approach to the complexity and interrelationships of people, their pasts, and their environments. During the summer, we provide enrichment courses so that students can learn to play with essential concepts while developing basic reading, writing, programming, and lab science skills in a less formal context.