{"id":11536,"date":"2024-05-01T09:00:35","date_gmt":"2024-05-01T09:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/classicalconversations.com\/?p=11536"},"modified":"2024-05-14T18:22:43","modified_gmt":"2024-05-14T18:22:43","slug":"copper-lodge-library-home-school-literature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/classicalconversations.com\/blog\/copper-lodge-library-home-school-literature\/","title":{"rendered":"Copper Lodge Library: Classic Books and Literature for Your Home School"},"content":{"rendered":"
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What comes to mind when you hear the words home library<\/em><\/strong>? Hardwood bookcases and leather sofas? The earthy vanilla aroma of paper and the ridged spine of a hardback under the pad of your finger? Steaming tea and quiet afternoons spent leafing through pages populated by great and sad and odd and awful and wonderful figures?<\/p>\n

Maybe, but do the words family culture<\/em><\/strong> leap to the tip of your tongue when you think of home libraries? Probably not, and yet, they should.<\/p>\n

Copper Lodge Library is a series of classic books and literature curated by Classical Conversations with a mission to build a family culture of virtue through conversations about the world\u2019s greatest stories.<\/p>\n

If that sounds lofty, don\u2019t worry. We\u2019ll unpack that statement, look at the design philosophy behind CLL, and discuss how these books can support your home school.<\/p>\n

I. The Why of Copper Lodge Library<\/h2>\n

Once upon a time, there were two very clever brothers.<\/p>\n

When they were children, the brothers had received a Christ-centered education at home. At the time, that sort of education had fallen out of fashion, but the books they read, the skills they learned, and the faith they cultivated would serve them well later in life.<\/p>\n

You see, after their father died of winter fever one sad year, their family was plunged into deep poverty. They were forced to scrimp and save. They only ate once a day. But the brothers were both very clever, like I said, and they\u2019d received a Christian education, and so they both managed to get into law school. Things were looking up!<\/p>\n

Then their mother passed away.<\/p>\n

Life only became harder. The brothers had younger siblings to support, and law school was expensive. The elder brother quit his studies to support the family. The younger brother was in poor health and could only work from time to time. And, alas, there were no whimsical merchants selling magic legumes of any variety to be found anywhere in the country to save them from a life of hardships.<\/p>\n

But the brothers were very clever, and they\u2019d received a Christian education. They spent their days hard at work in the library, studying stories and poems and music from the past and developing theories.<\/p>\n

One day, they devised a plan.<\/p>\n

They would go out into the land. They would travel fen and field and forest and visit farm and village. \u00a0They would search out the forgotten corners of their country, and they would uncover good stories\u2014no, great<\/em> stories. Then, they would publish a collection of these tales, escape the clutches of poverty, and provide a better life for their family.<\/p>\n

Well, they succeeded, and in succeeding, accomplished more than they could have ever dreamed, reaping the rewards not only for themselves but for everyone who ever heard their stories.<\/p>\n

The Stories We Know, The Stories We Love<\/h3>\n

This is not a fairy tale. The two very clever brothers were none other than Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm\u2014better known as the Grimm Brothers\u2014and today, we\u2019re all familiar with the stories they collected in Grimms\u2019 Fairy Tales<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Rapunzel. Hansel and Gretel. Snow White. Little Red Riding Hood. The Frog Prince.<\/p>\n

\"BrothersJacob and Wilhelm saved the stories we all know and love from extinction at the hands of modernity. The Grimms\u2019 efforts led to the preservation of their heritage, the development of new fields of study, and significant advancements in historical linguistics.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, the stories they preserved would eventually prove to be a profound source of wonder and an education in virtue for generations of families.<\/p>\n

The stories they collected teach timeless lessons that are good and beautiful and true in their own way (not, of course, in the literal sense, but in the transcendental sense). The stories teach right from wrong, virtue from vice, and wisdom from folly in a way that\u2019s accessible to everyone, from children to adults, from the uneducated peasant working the field to the aristocrat studying philology at university.<\/p>\n

And, hey, they\u2019re also fun!<\/p>\n

The world would be a greatly impoverished place without the hard work of the Brothers Grimm and others like them. Modernity would\u2019ve killed a deep source of childhood\u2019s moral imagination.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, we face a similar situation today.<\/p>\n

The Vanishing Classic<\/h3>\n

Modern education has a problem. (Well, modern education has problems, plural, but let\u2019s start with one problem at a time!)<\/p>\n

Classic stories are vanishing.<\/p>\n

No, they\u2019re not going into shredding machines. They\u2019re not being deleted from hard drives and servers. They\u2019re not slipping away in the dead of night with their suitcases stuffed full of crocheted booksleeves and colorful bookmarks.<\/p>\n

(Although that would be adorable.)<\/p>\n

But they\u2019re vanishing.<\/p>\n

For the past few decades, public schools have been removing classic literature from the curriculum, and the consequences have been tragic. Here\u2019s a sad statistic<\/a>: In the 1970s, 60 percent of high schoolers read from a book or magazine at least once a day.<\/p>\n

By 2016, that number had dwindled down to a mere 16 percent.<\/p>\n

Instead, students are reading books of their own choosing or hyper-political books of no literary merit. (The less said about these books, the better.) And while there\u2019s certainly room for student choice in the course of a language arts curriculum, growth demands exertion. Students cannot grow without exertion. Students cannot grow on a diet of graphic novels written several notches below their reading level, nor can they grow on modern-day agitprop.<\/p>\n

Students need wise, beautiful, challenging stories<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Classic Solution<\/h3>\n

Here\u2019s the good news: there\u2019s a solution to the vanishing classic, and that solution is found at home. More specifically, in your home library.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s right. We don\u2019t need to reform the public school system\u2014talk about a Sisyphean task!\u2014or even develop a brand-new reading curriculum that will \u201ctotally work this time, pinky promise,\u201d to loosely paraphrase every administrative progressive<\/a> ever.<\/p>\n

We simply need to read. We need to read great stories together as families, and we need to reform our family culture (there\u2019s that phrase again!) around meaningful conversations drawn from great literature.<\/p>\n

Family Culture<\/h4>\n

Let\u2019s define our terms\u2014the classical way! What do we mean by \u201cfamily culture\u201d?<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with the word \u201cfamily\u201d. Merriam-Webster has a few definitions. This one is particularly relevant:<\/p>\n

\n

Family (noun): <\/em><\/strong>the basic unit in society traditionally consisting of two parents rearing their children.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Family\u2014not the state, certainly not the public school\u2014is \u201cthe basic unit in society.\u201d This is very much the biblical understanding of the family (see Genesis 2:21\u201324<\/a>), and so we can accept Merriam-Webster\u2019s definition for now.<\/p>\n

How about \u201cculture\u201d?<\/p>\n

Culture (noun): <\/em><\/strong>the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sounds straightforward. A family culture is a set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterize the basic unit in society, which consists of two parents rearing their children.<\/p>\n

So, when we\u2019re talking about building a family culture around literature, what we\u2019re really talking about is building up family attitudes, values, goals, and practices through reading.<\/p>\n

Why should we build our family cultures around literature? Here are three reasons:<\/p>\n