ABSTRACT
The curriculum of P+P education is described in seven cumulative steps, each consisting of a subject of inquiry and methods of inquiry, and culminating in contemplation of the whole. These steps are cumulative, not discrete and sequential: each step is added to the previous step rather than replacing it. P+P educational thought culminates in what has come to be called "Great Books" education, understood as a necessary preparation for freedom of thought. Formal education begins, as it does in the Isocratic heritage and as it must in any regime, with elementary education in literacy, numeracy, the sciences and civic education, although P+P education adds an early emphasis on education in the mimetic arts. The early stages of the Ladder of Learning includes the acquisition of literacy, numeracy and the liberal arts, as well as study of the history of ideas, founding documents, and political, economic and theological doctrine(s) of one's own regime.
