Spring enrollment is open · See the catalog
Selected chapters · Ages 12–14
The same book, the same instructor, at a pace a twelve-year-old can genuinely sustain, about fifteen pages a week from selected chapters.
New this term. Reviews from students and parents appear here once families have taken it.
Younger students read a curated path through Volume One and the most approachable chapters of Volume Two, roughly fifteen pages a week, always from the actual text. Every meeting begins by reading a paragraph aloud together before anyone is allowed to have an opinion about it.
This course accumulates. The class reads the same pages at the same pace and each meeting picks up the argument where the last one left it, so joining halfway means joining an argument already in progress.
Because there is a whole body of work at the end of it, this one is graded (narrative) and can be carried to a transcript. Enroll before the second meeting.
Weeks 1–3
Tocqueville’s voyage, his purpose, and the America he actually saw.
Weeks 4–8
Local self-government and why he thought it was the school of liberty.
Weeks 9–12
Public opinion, the press, and what he worried a majority could do.
Weeks 13–15
Civil society, religion, and the closing conversation.
Democracy in America (selections)
Alexis de Tocqueville
Reading packet supplied by the instructor at no cost.
None. Any student in the age range can enroll.
Age-appropriate but not simplified in its honesty: students at this level still encounter Tocqueville’s criticisms of America, including his chapters on slavery and on the treatment of the Indian nations.
Read our academic philosophyMeetings are recorded and released to enrolled families for fourteen days. Recordings capture the instructor and shared materials; student video is not published.
Full refund up to seven days before the first meeting; inside seven days, everything paid is credited to your Lyceum balance. No refunds or credits once the class has begun. Cancel any section from your parent account.
These describe how this instructor has been trained, reviewed with educators and accessibility specialists. They are not a diagnosis and not a marketing claim.
Students and parents review separately, on different questions, and the two aggregates are never blended. Every review is verified and moderated.
No parent reviews for this class yet.
Reviews from students are published as “Student, age 13”, never with a full name. Photo and short video reviews are supported and moderated before they appear.
Conservative Thought
Burke to Kirk
The first course in the Lyceum’s core sequence: what conservatism has actually claimed, from Burke’s Reflections to Kirk’s canon, critics included.
Dr. Alan HaleNew this term
Reviews appear once families have taken it.
$10/wk
$70 in total
$28 for add’l siblings
Great Books
The year-long seminar · Ages 15–18
A full year inside Tocqueville: both volumes, forty pages a week, discussed live every Tuesday with twelve other students.
Dr. Alan HaleNew this term
Reviews appear once families have taken it.
$8/wk
$56 in total
$22.40 for add’l siblings
Great Books
A whole-book seminar
Douglass in his own words: the Narrative read whole, plus the Fourth of July speech, with attention to how a man argued his way into freedom.
Ms. Imani BellNew this term
Reviews appear once families have taken it.
$8/wk
$56 in total
$22.40 for add’l siblings
