Humanitas: American Origins

Humanitas: American Origins is designed to be a one-semester course for high school students seeking American History studies.

Rooted in the Renaissance humanists’ clarion call to return ad fontes, this brand-new upper school humanities curriculum promises to bring students “back to the sources.” Geared towards history, humanities, and humane letters courses, the Humanitas series offers a continuous, unfolding narrative of Western Civilization through a series of carefully curated primary source documents that trace the founding and beginnings of the American experiment.

Book 1 begins with the myths and politics of peoples indigenous to the North American continent, then moves into a select tour of the peoples, ideas, and events that were most responsible for defining the historical epoch between the Protestant Reformation and the establishment of the American colonies. Book 2 picks up the fascinating narrative, beginning with the intellectual renaissance known as the Enlightenment and then moving into a select tour of the peoples, ideas, and events that led up to and were involved in the American Revolution.

Unlike most contemporary approaches to history, which reflect the fashions and biases of the fleeting present, the Humanitas series offers students something more substantial. Following C. S. Lewis’ stout defense of reading primary sources in “On the Reading of Old Books,” Humanitas will help “persuade the young that firsthand knowledge is not only more worth acquiring than secondhand knowledge, but it is usually much easier and more delightful to acquire."