Academics
The Life of the Mind
Promethia's curriculum is built on the conviction that a boy who has read Thucydides for himself, worked through Euclid, and argued over Plato is better prepared for the world than one who has merely read what someone else has told him to think about such things.
Latin
Latin is the spine of the curriculum. Students begin in the first year and continue throughout their time at Promethia. The language trains precision of thought, demands attention to structure, and opens the primary sources of Western civilization — law, theology, philosophy, and literature — in their original form.
French
French is the living complement to Latin — a modern language of precision, diplomacy, and literature. Students read Montaigne, Tocqueville, and Camus in the original. The goal is not conversational fluency alone, but the ability to think in another tongue.
History from Primary Sources
Students do not read textbooks about history. They read Herodotus, Thucydides, Livy, Plutarch, and the documents of the American founding. History is encountered as argument, character formation, and an illustration of the enduring human questions, not a collection of names and dates.
The Great Books
From Homer to Dostoevsky, from Plato to Burke, students read the books that have shaped the Western mind. The seminar table is the primary classroom. Students learn to read carefully, speak precisely, and defend a position under pressure.
Mathematics
Mathematics is taught with rigor. Students work through Euclidean geometry, algebra, and into calculus. The discipline of proof — of knowing why something is true, not merely that it is — is central to the mathematical program.
Science
Science at Promethia is empirical and demanding. Students conduct experiments, read original scientific texts, and are held to a standard of precision in observation and argument. The history and philosophy of science are woven throughout.
How We Teach
The Socratic method is not a technique at Promethia — it is the culture. Teachers ask questions. Students are expected to answer, to defend, and to revise. A boy who cannot explain why he believes something has not yet learned it.
Class sizes are small by design. Every student is known, every absence noticed, every paper read with care. There is no hiding in the back row.