✦Essential Texts Reading List✦
Foundational texts exploring John Senior's philosophy and Catholic intellectual tradition
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Essential Texts Reading List
This curated guide introduces the foundational texts and excerpts behind the Senior Schools Network philosophy. These works explore poetic knowledge, Catholic formation, wonder, and the restoration of innocence — essential for anyone seeking to understand and apply Senior's educational vision.
A Note on Tradition: The ideas you'll encounter here are not novel inventions of the 20th century. They represent an unbroken stream flowing from the greatest educational traditions across the ages — from classical Greece and Rome, through medieval Christendom, to the present day. It is modern educational schemas, with their systematic abstraction and factory-model schooling, that are radically out of step with the whole of human history. What seems "alternative" today was once simply education itself.
Integrated Program in the Humanities (IHP)
Integrated Humanities Lecture
Authors: Dr. Dennis Quinn & Dr. John Senior (University of Kansas)
Description: In this introductory lecture to their Integrated Humanities Program, Quinn and Senior explain why modern education fails — and what must come before scholastic or scientific studies. They argue that students have been deprived of essential prerequisites: sensory experience, wonder at the obvious, and knowledge gained through observation rather than authority. The lecture critiques the "machine metaphysics" of memorized formulas and champions a poetic mode of learning grounded in seeing, hearing, and experiencing reality directly. They reject systematic curriculum design itself, insisting education cannot be schematized without killing it.
Key Themes: Poetic vs. scholastic knowledge, rejection of premature abstraction, observation before authority, the "obvious" as most overlooked, critique of methodized education, prerequisites for philosophy
Why Read It: This lecture reveals the why behind Senior's approach — why fairy tales before textbooks, why wonder before analysis, why experience precedes system. It's a devastating critique of modern educational assumptions and a call to recover what was lost.
G.K. Chesterton
The Outline of Sanity
Author: G.K. Chesterton (1927)
Description: Chesterton's defense of distributism — an economic and cultural philosophy emphasizing small-scale ownership, local community, and resistance to both capitalism's concentration and socialism's collectivism. His critique of modernity's "insane" priorities (mass production, urbanization, mechanization) aligns with Senior's vision of cultural restoration.
Key Themes: Distributism, sanity vs. insanity, family economy, cultural critique, localism
Why Read It: Chesterton provides the social and economic context for Senior's educational philosophy. Both reject industrial modernity's dehumanization and seek to restore human-scale communities.
Boethius
The Consolation of Philosophy
Author: Boethius (c. 524 AD)
Description: Written while awaiting execution, Boethius's masterwork blends philosophy and poetry to explore fortune, fate, divine providence, and the nature of true happiness. Lady Philosophy consoles the imprisoned author, guiding him to see beyond worldly suffering to eternal truth. This text was foundational to medieval education and remains essential for understanding the Western tradition.
Key Themes: Providence, fortune, happiness, medieval scholasticism, faith and reason
Why Read It: Boethius exemplifies the integration of philosophy, poetry, and faith. His work models the "poetic-scientific" synthesis Senior advocates — reason grounded in wonder and imagination.
St. Thomas Aquinas
Summa Theologica (Excerpts on Understanding)
Author: St. Thomas Aquinas
Description: Selected questions from the Summa Theologica exploring the nature of human understanding, abstraction, and knowledge. Aquinas's rigorous scholastic method — presenting objections, counter-arguments, and resolutions — demonstrates how faith and reason cooperate. These excerpts reveal the intellectual foundations of Catholic education.
Key Themes: Epistemology, abstraction, faith and reason, scholasticism
Why Read It: Aquinas represents the summit of medieval philosophy. Understanding his method and conclusions helps parents and educators see how poetic knowledge ultimately supports, rather than opposes, rigorous intellectual inquiry.
Hugh of St. Victor
The Didascalicon (Excerpts)
Author: Hugh of St. Victor (12th century)
Description: Excerpts from Hugh's treatise on learning emphasize the soul's ascent through sensory knowledge to intellectual understanding. Hugh describes how the soul "grasps similitudes" from nature, progressing from wonder to wisdom. These passages directly inform Senior's concept of poetic knowledge as intuitive, sense-based apprehension.
Key Themes: Sensory knowledge, wonder, medieval education, soul's ascent
Why Read It: Hugh provides the medieval philosophical foundation for poetic knowledge. His vision of education as beginning with sensory delight in creation directly challenges modern abstraction-first pedagogy.
J.R.R. Tolkien
Mythopoeia
Author: J.R.R. Tolkien
Description: A poem defending myth-making against rationalist dismissal. Tolkien argues that myths, fairy tales, and imaginative sub-creation participate in the true nature of reality — revealing truths inaccessible to bare reason. Written in response to C.S. Lewis's skepticism, Mythopoeia became foundational to both authors' defenses of fantasy and wonder.
Key Themes: Myth, sub-creation, imagination, truth in fiction, fairy tales
Why Read It: Tolkien articulates why stories and myths are essential, not frivolous. This poem justifies Senior's emphasis on fairy tales, adventure stories, and imaginative formation.
G.K. Chesterton (Poetry)
The Ballad of the White Horse
Author: G.K. Chesterton
Description: Epic poem recounting King Alfred's defense of Christian England against Viking invasion. Chesterton celebrates Alfred's courage, faith, and hope against overwhelming odds. The poem exemplifies heroic verse, liturgical rhythm, and Catholic cultural memory.
Key Themes: Heroism, faith, cultural memory, epic poetry, Christian civilization
Why Read It: This is the kind of poetry Senior recommends for gymnasium-stage boys — rousing, heroic, and morally clarifying. It cultivates courage and cultural identity.
St. John Bosco
The Preventative System
Author: St. John Bosco (1877)
Description: St. Don Bosco's foundational address on his educational philosophy, delivered at the opening of St. Peter's Youth Centre in Nice. This work outlines the "Preventive System" in contrast to the "Repressive System" — emphasizing loving guidance, vigilant supervision, and formation through reason, religion, and kindness rather than punishment and fear. Bosco advocates for making students "unable to do wrong" through fatherly presence, frequent sacraments, and creating environments of trust and joy. His approach revolutionized Catholic education and remains profoundly relevant for parents and educators seeking to form virtue without crushing the spirit.
Key Themes: Preventive vs. repressive education, loving authority, vigilant supervision, reason and religion, frequent sacraments, practical pedagogy, formation over punishment
Why Read It: This text provides a practical, pastoral model for Catholic education that complements Senior's emphasis on wonder and poetic knowledge. Where Senior focuses on what to teach (fairy tales, nature, adventure), Don Bosco shows how to teach — with love, presence, and preventive care. His system demonstrates how discipline and freedom, authority and affection, can coexist in forming virtuous young people. Essential reading for anyone implementing a Catholic educational vision.
Additional Excerpts
Other Textual Excerpts
Description: A compilation of passages from various authors (including Hugh of St. Victor, medieval scholastics, and others) providing context for poetic knowledge, sensory formation, and Catholic intellectual tradition.
Key Themes: Varied — medieval philosophy, sensory knowledge, imagination
Why Read It: These excerpts offer deeper dives into specific philosophical concepts undergirding Senior's vision.
How to Use This Reading List
- Start with the IHP Lecture: Begin with the Integrated Humanities lecture to understand the practical implementation of Senior's philosophy.
- Explore Companions: Move to Chesterton and Tolkien to understand the cultural and imaginative context.
- Deepen with Medieval Sources: Boethius, Aquinas, and Hugh of St. Victor provide the intellectual and spiritual foundations.
- Return to Application: Revisit the IHP lecture with new eyes, enriched by the tradition it draws upon.
This is not an exhaustive list but a curated entry point. These texts will equip parents, educators, and founders to understand why poetic knowledge, wonder, and adventure are essential — and how to implement them faithfully.
Note: Links point to full texts available on this site. Print or download them for deeper study. Further resources will be added as the network grows.
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