Saint Francis Xavier School is grateful to be able to offer our seventh and eighth grade scholars the opportunity to participate in our version of The Great Books Program. Great Books was begun in the 1920s and 1930s by Prof. John Erskine and others at Columbia University. Its aim was to improve the higher education system, returning it to the western liberal arts tradition of broad cross-disciplinary learning by exposing students to the important products of Western civilization and thought.

Great Books started out as a list of 100 essential primary source texts considered to constitute the Western Canon. The list includes: The Old and New Testaments; The Iliad and The Odyssey; The Works of Aristotle, Cicero, Virgil and Milton; Shakespeare's Poems and Plays; Rousseau's Essays; Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations"; The Federalist Papers; Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter"; Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn"; Alexis de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America" etc. While we are unable to attempt the list of Great Books comprehensively, we are striving to introduce our students to some of these monumental works of literature.

Saint Francis' version of Great Books consists of a selected work being assigned to the group for reading in increments followed by group discussion with the guidance of a facilitator. Our year 2008 Great Books group has been reading Romeo & Juliet in 30 to 40 page increments (reinforced by the 1968 Franco Zeffirelli movie) and meeting monthly for group discussion. This semester our students have discussed issues such as: why this great playwright chose Italy rather than England as the setting for the tale; the matter of teenage love; failure to control emotions; rushing to judgment; gang warfare, etc. Our discussion groups have been facilitated by two Catholic gentlemen: Mr. Mark B. O'Brien, President of O'Brien & Greene Co., an Investment Counseling Firm located in Media PA, who was instrumental in bringing Great Books to SFX, and Mr. Shariff Gerges, a Rhodes Scholar, currently studying at Princeton University. Both men volunteer their time and travel to Saint Francis to serve as facilitators during group discussion.

Great Books works well with our mission of providing a classical liberal arts oriented education for our children.