Reading the Great Books
An excellent education is best guided by excellent reading.
At Providence, we recognize that in the history of civilization, there is a canon of exemplary works of literature, philosophy, theology, and history that make up what we in the classical world call “The Great Books”. By reading the best works in philosophy and theology, it is our desire that students will grow in wisdom. By reading the best works in literature and history, we hope that students might be captivated by the stories and emulate the virtue of heroes. By reading the best works of poetry and the Scriptures, it is our desire that students would learn to love the beauty of language and the Maker of all things.
Lower School
In the Lower School, our main goal in the books we read is to cultivate the affections to delight in wonderful stories and train the appetite to crave eloquent speech. As these stories leave strong impressions on our very souls, we see it is an important responsibility to choose the very best books that will form students into men and women that will glorify God.
Some key selections that are included in our Lower School curriculum are:
- Frog and Toad, by Arnold Lobel
- The Boxcar Children, by Gertrude Chandler Warner
- The Ugly Duckling, by Hans Christian Anderson
- Winnie the Pooh, by A.A. Milne
- Little House in the Big Woods, by Laura Ingalls Wilder
- Charlotte's Web, by E.B. White
- The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis
- The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodges Burnett
- The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien
- Hound of the Baskervilles, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
- Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson
- The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame
Upper School
In the Upper School, students are well prepared to read and discuss the most important ideas discovered and debated in Western culture. We seek to challenge students to grapple wit hard questions and timeless issues, as well as experience wise thought processes and arrive at sound answers.
Some key selections that are included in our Upper School curriculum are:
- Pilgrim's Progress, by John Bunyan
- Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens
- To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
- The Iliad & The Odyssey, by Homer
- Beowulf
- Inferno, by Dante
- The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer
- Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, by John Milton
- Complete Sonnets, by William Shakespeare
- Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
- Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte
- Animal Farm, by George Orwell
- The Republic, by Plato
- On the Incarnation, by Athanasius
- The Confessions, by Augustine of Hippo
- Orthodoxy, by G.K. Chesterton
- The Art of Rhetoric, by Aristotle
- The Institutes of Oratory, by Quintillian
- Notes from the Underground, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson
- The Road, by Cormac McCarthy
