Announcements · Winter Term 2026

Humane Letters, Volume I: The Birth of Philosophical Reason

October 22, 2026

Humane Letters is not a writing class. It is a reading class that produces writers.

It is also not a Latin course. It is Emerson Latin’s course in classical English reading and writing, built on the great books, for students in grades 9 to 12 who want to write for the international essay competitions. It is demanding, it is unlike anything a school or hagwon offers, and it is not for the faint of heart. It returns this winter by request.

How it is built. Each Volume is built as an argument, not a reading list. An idea is set out, challenged, and tested, and what survives is carried into the next book. Across all five Volumes, the course follows one long argument of Western thought: the birth of reason, its trials, its unmasking, and its rebuilding. Readers of Hegel will recognize the shape; no one needs to have read him to follow it.

How a session runs. Every session moves in the same order.

• Explication: a close reading of one poem, set beside the week’s book.
• Seminar: discussion in the Socratic manner.
• Commonplace: notes kept in a commonplace book, the practice John Locke himself followed, now kept in Notion.
• Imitatio: the composition of sentences after the masters.
• Roots: the Latin and Greek beneath the week’s words.

What it leads to. Fellows do not write one or two essays a year. They write many: polished compositions through the academic year and the summer, as many as time, readiness, and interest allow, each grown from the commonplace book and entered where it fits, among them the John Locke Institute Essay Competition and the Ayn Rand essay contests. Emerson Latin students have written winning submissions, taken top prizes, and been published in The Concord Review, and have gone on to leading universities and liberal arts colleges in the United States and the United Kingdom.

What it reads. We do not publish the reading list. Fellows meet each book in class, where it belongs.

Who may apply. Students in grades 9 to 12, whether or not they study Latin with us. Admission is rolling.

Admission

• The report card. Your child’s report card from the most recent term, with grades in English and in humanities subjects (history, philosophy, psychology, sociology, government, and the like), and any teacher comments.
• Scores, if you wish. A recent verbal or reading score (SAT, ACT, PSAT, SSAT, or ISEE), taken within the last two years, is welcome but not required. If you send one, include your child’s full name, the grade in which the test was taken, and the percentile.
• The Viva. A short conversation with Ioannes Magister about a poem, in the tradition of the Oxford admissions interview. The Viva decides. It carries an assessment fee; if your child is admitted, the fee covers the Matriculation session.
• Matriculation. A student who is admitted receives a letter of admission and becomes an Emerson Fellow. Before Volume I begins, each Fellow attends a single Matriculation session, which prepares them for the course and sets up the commonplace book they will keep throughout it.

When

Saturdays or Sundays, 1 to 3 PM Korea time, from November 21 or 22. Ten sessions. Every session is recorded, and Fellows have the recordings for the whole Volume. Each Volume closes with the Collections, a written letter on the Fellow’s work, after the Oxford end of term report.

To apply, write to us on KakaoTalk in Korean, WhatsApp in English, or at contact@emersonlatin.com. We reply within one business day. If you would rather talk first, book a free fifteen-minute conversation.