A room the Society keeps unlisted (opens in a new tab)
Legimus antiqua, ut simus minus recentes.
“We read the old books, that we may be less new.”
Convening the Last Thursday of Every Month · Kansas City · Anno MMXXVI
The Society closes its Milton — Paradise Lost, then Paradise Regained, with the Lewis Extra Credit brought to bear; both now stand in the Annals. The next three campaigns are set: Heretics opens October 29, A Christmas Carol follows in November, and Richard II opens the march into the Henriad in December.
A proposed order of march for the current campaign — subject, as all things are, to amendment from the floor. (After the manner of the great-books societies: a schedule, some questions, no mercy.)
In the manner of Shared Inquiry: every claim must be argued from the text. Book and line numbers are a courtesy; conviction is mandatory anyway (see Charter, Art. IV).
After the manner of Dr. Franklin’s Junto, whose members did “once in three months produce and read an essay of his own writing, on any subject he pleased” — the Society maintains one Lectern per convocation. Claim it, compose upon any subject you please, and hold forth before the peerage. One essayist per meeting; the ambitious may wait their turn.
A record of every campaign the Society has waged and won, each concluded — as all things must be — on a last Thursday. From Uruk to Camelot, the Society has now covered some four thousand years of literature.
Democracy, as practiced by the ancients: loudly, and with strong opinions about translations.
Each card starts in first letters: every word shrinks to its initial, and you supply the rest aloud. Pulling a line out of your own head fixes it far better than reading it again. Tap Full text to check yourself.
The Mnemonicon, the house's memory room, does this daily and brings each line back just before you would forget it, so a minute a day carries a passage into memory for good.
In the tradition of Marcus Aurelius and Emerson: lines worth stealing, stolen honestly. Add your own — attribution required, on your honor as a member.
Titles are self-conferred, non-transferable, and carry only so much authority as that member has attained to prior to taking the title unto himself.
Instituted after the manner of Dr. Franklin’s Junto (1727), whose rules banned “all expressions of positiveness in opinions” under small pecuniary penalties. The Society keeps the Junto’s forms and its penalties, and parts with it on one point, recorded in Article IV.
We, the assembled readers of Kansas City, being of sound mind and excessive opinion, do ordain and establish this Charter.
Done in convocation assembled, Anno MMXXVI. ❦ S·P·Q·KC
Admission to the Society
Requirements: a love of Truth, a willingness to interact with old books, a readiness to be examined on them, and one (1) snack tribute, presented without ceremony and consumed with plenty. Apply at the next convocation.
The Society, in its magnanimity, entertains requests to attend the next convocation as its guest — the last Thursday, the current reading, one snack tribute. Answer plainly; the Examining Committee reads everything and forgets nothing, and an invitation, if one is extended, will reach you before the day.
❦ THIS SOCIETY FLOURISHES UNDER THE MUNIFICENT PATRONAGE OF ❦
VERITAS ESSENTIAL SERVICES
Patrono Optimo, Benefactori Benevolentissimo
Great and benevolent benefactor of these proceedings: for the bounty of its support and its lavish contribution to the state of the liberal arts; for its labors toward the reclamation of a culture consonant with reality, and with the way God made the world, in an age turned upside down — the Society, in convocation assembled, extends its perpetual gratitude and this plaque.
May its ledgers balance, may its inspections pass, and may its name endure to the last Thursday of all.
