Veritas Press. Memoria Press. Both programs share something important: a belief that classical Christian education is one of the best things that you can give your child. Both have been doing it for over thirty years. Both teach Latin. Both care deeply about the great books of the Western tradition.

After that, they take two distinct paths, and understanding those paths is what this guide is about.

We'll cover how each program works, who does the teaching, what they cover, and how to figure out which one fits your family. If you're already using one and wondering about the other, you're in the right place.

At a Glance

What We Have in Common

Before getting into the differences, a word on common ground.

First, Veritas Press and Memoria Press are both Christian programs. We serve families who want their child's education centered in Christ, not as an elective, but as the entire foundation.

Second, we're both are genuinely classical programs. Both teach Latin. Both take the trivium seriously. Both believe a student formed in the great books and liberal arts is better equipped for life than one trained only to pass tests.

Third, we've both been doing this for a long time. We were both founded in the mid-90s. Neither is a newcomer. So, if you're trying to decide between the two of us, you're choosing between two programs with deep roots, serious content, and a shared conviction that classical Christian education is worth the effort.

Two Different Approaches

This is the core of the comparison.

Program Structure

Memoria Press Programs

Memoria Press's curriculum is built around grade-level packages that function as a complete school year in a box. Each package comes with a Curriculum Manual containing scripted daily lesson plans, student workbooks, teacher guides, and consumables. Families can then either purchase a complete package or mix and match individual subjects. The core subjects that make Memoria Press distinctive:

Latin: The backbone of the curriculum. MP's Latin sequence runs from Prima Latina (a gentle introduction, grades 2–4) through Latina Christiana and then four sequential Form levels (First, Second, Third, and Fourth Form Latin), continuing into Henle Latin and eventually Caesar, Virgil, and AP Latin in the upper grades. Cheryl Lowe wrote these programs, and First Form Latin alone has been used by more than 100,000 students. Latin begins in 2nd grade.

Classical Studies: An eight-year history-through-biography sequence built around the Famous Men series (Rome, Greece, the Middle Ages), D'Aulaires' mythology, and the great works of Homer, Virgil, and Dante. Students read primary texts, not textbook summaries.

Christian Studies: A three-part program covering Scripture (K–6), church history (grades 7–11), and Christian apologetics (grade 12). MP describes it as designed for Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox families alike, teaching "salvation history as real history" without imposing denominational doctrine.

Logic and Rhetoric: Martin Cothran's Traditional Logic and Material Logic series, followed by Classical Rhetoric. Rigorous, text-based, and sequenced across the middle and upper years.

Literature Guides: Whole-book study guides organized by Trivium stage, covering everything from The Courage of Sarah Noble in early grades to Homer and Shakespeare in the upper years.

Where Memoria Press is notably lighter: science and math are outsourced. For math, MP recommends Rod & Staff in the elementary years and VideoText in upper grades. For science, the early years emphasize nature study; high school science uses the Novare series. Families with students who need a strong science or STEM track often supplement MP significantly or look elsewhere for those subjects.

Veritas Press Programs

Who Does the Teaching

This is one of the sharpest differences between the two programs.

Memoria Press

In Memoria Press's core model, the parent is the teacher. That's the design. MP's curriculum is built to make that as achievable as possible: lesson plans are scripted, materials are thorough, and the sequence is clear. MP describes its curriculum as "accessible to all homeschoolers, including those new to a subject," meaning a parent without a Latin background can pick up Prima Latina and teach it, because the teacher guide walks them through every step.

For families who want live instruction in individual subjects, Memoria Academy offers that option. Founded in 2006, it provides live, teacher-led classes in grades 3–12, taught by instructors many of whom also teach at Highlands Latin School in Louisville. Memoria Academy serves around 2,300 students and employs 60+ teachers. Courses run live in a video format on a weekly schedule, with students attending class and completing work between sessions. For families deeply invested in the MP curriculum ecosystem, the ability to hand off specific subjects to Memoria Academy teachers is a meaningful option.

Veritas Press

Veritas Press starts from a similar respect for the parent, but offers more choices about who sits in the pilot's seat.

If you want to teach, You-Teach gives you everything you need: best-in-class curriculum, scripted lesson plans, and a clear path through the material. With You-Teach, you're the instructor, and we're the engine behind you.

If your student is ready to work independently, Self-Paced courses let them move through engaging, structured content at their own pace. These courses are designed to pull students forward — the material itself does the motivating.

If you want a professional teacher in the room, that's where Live Online Classes come in. Classes taken à la carte are a lifeline for homeschool parents who are confident teaching most subjects but want expert help with a few harder ones—high school math, logic, chemistry. Taken through VSA's Diploma Program, they become a complete classical Christian school experience. Many homeschool families make this shift as their student approaches high school, when the subject matter deepens and the stakes around transcripts and college admission start to feel real.

All 200+ VSA faculty hold at least a bachelor's degree; over two-thirds hold advanced degrees. All affirm Veritas's statement of faith. These are hired, trained, and accountable professional educators, which is what makes the accredited VSA transcript possible, and what makes the instruction something qualitatively different from what a smaller online school can offer at scale.

Curriculum and Academic Rigor

How Memoria Press Approaches Learning

The name says it all: memoria, the Latin word for memory. Memoria Press builds its grammar years around memorized poems, Latin declensions, historical facts, and literary analysis—content that sticks—with the conviction that reasoning and expression follow naturally once the foundation is solid.

MP's philosophy centers on three pillars: Christian, Classical, and Traditional. It is explicitly classical in the humanistic sense—Latin, logic, rhetoric, the great books of Greece, Rome, and Jerusalem—and deliberately traditional in its methods, favoring structured, teacher-led lessons and mastery-before-moving-on over discovery-based or student-led approaches.

At the center of everything is Latin. Memoria Press holds that Latin has more educational value than any other subject: that it trains the mind, orders language, and opens the door to the whole of Western literature. Their Latin sequence (Prima Latina through the four Forms and beyond) is one of the most complete and widely used in classical homeschooling, with more than 100,000 students having worked through First Form Latin alone.

The Christian identity is deliberately ecumenical. MP's Christian Studies program is designed to work for Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox families without imposing denominational doctrine. It teaches Bible literacy, church history, and apologetics, but leaves specific theological commitments to the family and the church. This is a genuine feature for some families, but it's also a limitation for others who want theology woven more explicitly into the academic content.

Where Memoria Press is thinner: science. MP's philosophy holds that students aren't developmentally ready for rigorous science until high school, so the early years emphasize nature study rather than survey science. High school science is covered through the Novare series, which is rigorous but requires parent engagement and, for lab work, significant equipment. Families with strong STEM interests often supplement MP's science offerings or look elsewhere for those subjects.

How Veritas Press Approaches Learning

Where Memoria Press centers on what the parent teaches at the kitchen table, Veritas centers on formation: academic, character, and faith, woven through every course, every subject, every interaction. The goal is a well-formed person.

That shapes how Veritas thinks about curriculum. Courses developed in-house are built to that standard from the ground up, integrating a biblical worldview not as an add-on but as the lens through which every subject is taught. And when Veritas selects outside curriculum, we choose from the best available — programs with the strongest track records, the clearest pedagogy, and the deepest academic integrity. In mathematics, for example, that means Saxon, Math-U-See, and Jacobs: time-tested programs chosen because they work.

The most distinctive element of Veritas's secondary curriculum is the Omnibus. There is nothing quite like it in classical homeschooling: a six-year Great Books program (grades 7–12) that integrates history, theology, philosophy, and literature into a single unified course. Students work through primary texts, from Homer and Plato to Augustine and Dante to Calvin and Locke, reading them together, discussing them together, and evaluating them through a consistent Christian worldview. It's demanding but rewarding, and it is unlike anything Memoria Press offers at the secondary level. MP keeps history, literature, logic, and Christian studies as separate parallel subjects. Omnibus weaves them into one.

At the VSA level, formation happens inside a fully accredited Christian school, where professional teachers bring it to life in real time, in live discussion, in the back-and-forth of a classroom that happens to exist online. Roughly 90% of VSA courses carry honors designation, and the weighted transcript reflects that. But the point is students who know how to think, who know what they believe, and who know why it matters.

Community

Memoria Press is built around the home. The curriculum is designed to be taught by a parent; the community lives in an online forum, a large Facebook group, an annual conference, and (for families near enough to access one) the Highlands Latin Cottage Schools. Cottage schools are a compelling middle path: students meet one or two days a week for teacher-led instruction, then complete work at home the rest of the week. They're available in a growing number of locations, and for families who want some in-person classical community without the full school model, they're worth knowing about.

Memoria Academy offers student forums and clubs (a Literature Forum, a Writing Forum, a Classics Forum, a Journalism Club) meetings twice monthly, plus a new annual Student Symposium tied to the Memoria National Conference. It's a genuine community, though perhaps a modest one relative to a larger online school.

VSA's online community is more robust and more intentional. Live classes create real relationships between students and teachers who meet weekly, discuss ideas together, and hold each other accountable. There are clubs, extracurriculars, a student yearbook, and a five-day in-person End of Year Gathering (EOYG) in Lancaster, PA that students and families plan around. The community forms because the school is designed for it, not as an add-on, but as part of what it means to attend VSA.

Which Program Fits Your Family?

The right choice depends on your family's priorities: who you want doing the teaching, how explicitly Reformed you want the theological framing, how much you value a broader subject range, and what role an accredited diploma plays in your plans.

If you want a print-based, parent-taught curriculum that is thorough, mastery-focused, and deeply Latin-centered, and if an ecumenical Christian identity matters to you, Memoria Press was built for families like yours. Their curriculum is genuinely excellent and earned its reputation over thirty years of classroom use at Highlands Latin School.

If you want the flexibility to teach it yourself, hand some subjects off to expert online teachers, or pursue a fully accredited classical Christian diploma—and if you want a Reformed Christian worldview woven into your student's humanities, a broader subject range including science, and a more substantial online community—then Veritas Press is worth a serious look.

And some families use elements of both. Veritas's Self-Paced Bible and History courses are used alongside MP's Latin and literature by families who want the best of each. Classical education isn't a competition, and a good fit for your family is a good fit, whatever it looks like.

What Families Say

See If Veritas Press Is the Right Fit

We'd love to help you think through the options. Talk to a Veritas family consultant. No pressure, just a real conversation about what your family needs. If you'd like to book a free consultation, just fill out the form below.