The great tradition: classic readings on what it means to be an educated human being

Plato: from the Republic

from the Laws

Xenophon: from the Memorabilia

Isocrates: from Against the Sophists

from the Panathenaicus

from the Antidosis

Aristotle: from the Nicomachean ethics

from the Politics

Cicero: from Pro archia poeta

from De oratore

from The orator

from De partitione oratoria

from De officiis

Vitruvius: from The ten books on architecture

Seneca: from "On anger"

from "On the private life"

"On liberal and vocational studies"

Quintilian: from the Institutes

Tacitus: from A dialogue on oratory

Plutarch: from "On bringing up a boy"

"On the student at lectures"

Philo: from On the special laws

from On mating with the preliminary studies

from On the life of Moses

Clement of Alexandria: from Christ the educator

from the Stromateis

Origen: A letter from Origin to Gregory, Bishop of Caesarea

Gregory Thaumaturgus, "Oration and panegyric addressed to Origen"

Basil the Great: "To young men, on how they might derive profit from pagan literature"

Gregory Nazianzen, "Funeral oration on the Great St. Basil"

John Chrysostom: from the "Address on vainglory and the right way for parents to bring up their children"

Jerome: Letter to Eustochium

Letter to Magnus, an orator of Rome

Letter to Laeta

Augustine: from the Confessions

from On Christian doctrine

Cassiodorus: from Institutions of divine and secular learning

Gregory the Great: from Homilies on the Book of Ezekiel

Alcuin: from Charlemagne's "Capitulary of 787"

Alcuin on St. Peter's School, York, 732-86

Letters

Rhabanus Maurus: "Education of the clergy"

Hugh of St. Victor: from the Didascalicon

John of Salisbury: from the Policraticus

from the Metalogicon

Thomas Aquinas: Letters to Brother John

from On the teacher

Bonaventure: from The journey of mind to God

Petrarch: Letters

Pier Paolo Vergerio: from The character and studies befitting a free-born youth

Christine de Pizan: from The book of the body politic

Leonardo Bruni: On the study of literature

Aeneas Silvius: from The education of boys

Erasmus: from The antibarbarians

from On education for children

from The education of a Christian Prince

Martin Luther: from To the councilmen of all cities in Germany

Ulrich Zwingli: Of the upbringing and education of youth in good manners and Christian discipline

Juan Luis Vives: from The transmission of knowledge

Thomas Elyot: from The book named the governor

Philip Melanchthon: "Preface to Homer"

Johann Sturm: from The Latin letters of Roger Ascham and Johann Sturm

John Calvin: from Institutes of the Christian religion

Commentary on Titus 1:12

Roger Ascham: from The schoolmaster

The Society of Jesus: from Ratio studiorum

John Milton: from Of education

Giambattista Vico: "On the proper order of studies"

from On the study methods of our time

The academies and the relation between philosophy and eloquence

Edmund Burke: from Letter to a member of the National Assembly

Edward Copleston: from "Reply to the calumnies of the Edinburgh Review against Oxford, containing an account of studies pursued in that university"

Thomas Arnold: from "Rugby school

use of the classics"

John Henry Newman: "Discourse V, " from The idea of a university

"Christianity and letters, " from The idea of a university

Irving Babbitt: from Literature and the American college

Paul Elmer More: "Academic leadership"

A.G. Sertillanges: from The intellectual life

Albert Jay Nock: from The theory of education in the United States

Simone Weil: "Reflections on the right use of school studies with a view to the love of God"

C.S. Lewis: "On the reading of old books"

Dorothy Sayers: "The lost tools of learning"

T.S. Eliot: from Notes towards a definition of culture

Christopher Dawson: from The crisis of western education

Michael Oakeshott: "Learning and teaching"

Eric Voegelin: "On classical studies"