I’m posting this in response to a particular thread in which edonnelly says this:
but I wish to empahsize that this notion has been aired several times in this forum. Needless to say I myself continue to find it a bit bizarre to blame the decline of classical studies on the very people writing the textbooks (new ones every year), deepening our knowledge of the classical world via archaeology, history, etc., producing both beginning and advanced commentaries on classical works, etc., etc. But let us pass over my objections for now.
Let’s assume, for the sake of this thread’s question, that it’s true that classicists are the main reason for the decline in classical studies.
What do you all suggest we do to save this patient?
Before you answer, consider this hypothetical situation. Imagine your local school system has a small number of classics faculty — just Latin, say — and they’ve hit another budget crunch (taxes being sinful these days). They have two choices that’ll perfectly match the shortfall - they can remove the classics faculty, or they can remove the football program. Which choice would cause the most uproar in your community? I know what’ll get the cut in all the places I’ve lived.
With that thought in mind, I ask what workable plan for preserving the classics would people offer? For surely the minds so wise as to identify, without doubt, the classics profession as the primary cause of the decline, can with similar ease offer solutions to the problem.* I emphasize “workable” in my question — anything starting with “make people X” must consider the cost of making people do things.
I don’t have any solid ideas yet to offer here myself — I look forward to the results of collective Textkitten wisdom — but I know what isn’t working. Saying that studying Latin will improve your scores on college entrance exams reduces it to a merely instrumental study, something to leave aside once the tests have been taken.
No wonder Plato’s popular. Socratic sarcasm is so satisfying in impassioned rhetoric.
I think edonnelly made a necessary distinction between studying and teaching the classics. I wouldn’t go so far as to blame the decline of classicism on classicists quite so drastically as he does, however (not that he’s saying it’s the only cause). From what I’ve understood, he was only reacting to whiteoctave’s dismissal of Hans Ørberg.
I think the only way to save a classical education is to make it appeal to the popular mind beyond ‘improve your SAT scores (and then drop the bloody thing)!’ Though I don’t currently see how. Otherwise Oxford and Cambridge may be among the only institutions left teaching it, as most people can’t see the relevance of Skylla to themselves. English majors generally don’t care about etymology, much less learning languages to read poems, prose, and plays in the original.
I’m not even sure what drives me to learn, or if I want to figure it out (that might be the drive’s fall). This leads me to think that perhaps people just have tendencies which go beyond explanation (playing an instrument, for instance).
I was very interested last year in finding out what the relevancy of the classics (I use that word to include both the study of the languages and of ancient history) these days could be.
I felt I had to defend my interest in the subject somehow, to the rest of the world, even to myself.
I read a few books about it, but the plans they offered (if they offered any) to push the classics back to the forefront (“Think And Live Like The Greeks!” is one example) seemed totally out of touch.
It is my belief that the classics will not return to the forefront of education. But is there a real need for a plan to actually preserve the classics? It has receded into rank and no longer has a privileged place in our education, but it is not lost, I think. There will always be people studying it, may it be, perhaps, at a lower level than before.
Let me start by saying that it may not necessarily be the goal of the classicists to have the classics be studied widespread. They are free to study for their own reasons and do not “owe” anything to the rest of the world. Thus, for me to say it is their “fault” is a little of an overstatement – it would only apply to those classicists who see the preservation (or even growth) of interest in the classics as a part of their duty.
Personally, I think the answer to annis’ question is the same as the answer to another question often discussed here: “Why should I study the classics?” (or latin, or ancient greek, etc). Those of us who come to this forum probably all agree that there is value here, but the general consensus among most of the population seems to be that the value is not that great. Thus the decline. Perhaps, in fact, it is better that students spend more time on math & science at the expense of latin. I don’t think so, for I think a good study of the classics helps to develop the mind and general “thinking” skills in a way the other subjects alone cannot, but I may be wrong. [If I am wrong, then it would be a good thing that the study of the classics has declined.]
Getting rid of the football team would create a much greater uproar than getting rid of latin at the local high school. But what about football or math? Football or science? I would bet that getting rid of either math or science would cause a much greater uproar – because people see great value in these topics.
The other problem is that, while the classicists have been “writing the textbooks,” they have not necessarily been doing it well. Many students find the rote memorization of conjugations, etc. tedious. In the teaching of most other foreign languages, “direct” and “natural” methods are being used much more frequently with better results than the traditional grammar-oriented methods.
With out-dated teaching techniques and a general lack of appreciation for the value of the classical languages, it is no surprise to me that interest has declined.
So, to bring my uncharacteristically long post to a close, I will offer my opinion of what would help save the patient:
Better identify the benefits of studying the classics.
Do a better job getting that message out to the rest of the world.
Modernize the teaching of these languages, especially at the high school level.
(With, in Asimov style, a possible addition of:
Decided if the classics should be saved in the first place.)
When people ask me why I bother to learn Latin & Greek I tell them about all the texts found at Oxyrhynchus, the new discoveries in archaeology, being able to find out how people actually thought and behaved so long ago. By this time they are so keen they are just about signing up for Latin and Greek on the spot.
I think our teaching concentrates too much on the old tried and true texts, we should widen our field and study a much wider variety of material, including inscriptions, fragments from Oxyrhynchus texts, even old book-keeping records. People like astronomy and science because they feel they might discover something new, sports are exciting because there are records to break. What has Latin or Greek got to offer if we only translate Ceasar’s Gallic Wars or Xenophon for the 250,000th time? Sure, we need this stuff, but let’s introduce some more exciting material - even if only the odd words from an old hand written text.
Such as? And what sort of benefits? Economic? Intellectual? Esthetic? Ethical? Does a non-economic reason to study the classics have any chance of attracting a sturdy base of support among communities that elect school boards and pay for the schools?
(These are questions to the air, not edonnelly in particular.)
hi, yes i think the classicists are to blame for the decline. classics is currently taught completely through grammar. other languages aren’t. this grammar approach is fine for us here but most people hate it. that’s why they hate classics, not because they’re uninterested completely.
the unit of grammar is the word, while for language it’s probably phrases or clauses. the possible permutations of each word form kill off most people who begin greek, while if you started with teaching phrases or clauses, only later showing how these can be modified (i.e. where grammar is relevant), people would actually get through something in greek using the language parts of their brains. there are heaps of stock repetitive phrases and clauses in interesting genres of greek.
i’ve said all this before here, i think you could probably teach someone to read standard-form a)ne/qhken type inscriptions + repetitive parts of homer + repetitive rhetorical topics in lysianic speeches + repetitive clause-structures in aristotle (in each case teaching to understand at a clause level) before you could teach them to read even a book of xenophon word by word.
there’s no reason that this approach wouldn’t be practical if someone really wanted to bring back the classics in society, but like many here i’m not particularly fussed because i like all this stuff in its current form and i don’t mind if most people in the real world don’t.
This idea of “universal education” is something rather new in human history. It was not long ago that children were not expected to spend their youth in schools, let alone in universities.
Rather than looking at the “decline” of the Cassics, instead look at the vast increase in the number of students attending high school and universities. Far more people go to university now than in 1900.
When would be the “golden age” of the Classics – the 1800’s ? The early 1900’s? Whichever years it was, it makes sense to step back and ask, who was going to school at that time, and what did they expect to get out of it?
Today’s population of students are not necessarily looking for the same things as the few who attended colleges many decades ago.
To put it more simply: Why shouldn’t the number of people studying the Classics be small? It always was small.
Some of the people who skip the the Classics today might have skipped school entirely, in previous generations.
Quite a vexata quaestio
I think there are two main reasons to study classics:
You may know a famous anecdote about Euclide: someone who had begun to read geometry with him, when he had learnt a theorem, asked Euclid, “what shall I get by learning these things?” Euclid called his slave and said, “Give him three talents, since he must make gain out of what he learns.”
Latin language was not only the (dead?) language of Cicero, Caesar, Livy, Virgil, Catullus etc.
It has been the primary language of culture and science until the 18th century. Here’s the book that revolutionized physics (and possibly many other scientific disciplines): http://dibinst.mit.edu/BURNDY/Collections/Babson/OnlineNewton/Arithmetica.htm. And Newton wrote it in Latin.
Those who don’t know Latin are excluded from the whole cultural tradition: from theology to medicine, from natural sciences to physics; they are condemned to ignore the origin (the actual “roots”) of whatever knowledge domain they are involved in.
Due to all the work put into translating, by many diligent people, I would say that this statement is a little bit exaggerated. It is not all as black and white as that.
Yes, it is exaggerated, but, you know, translation is not the original text.
It is less precise and less universal: I think it is more difficult to understand translated theological or philosophical books than original versions.
Precise terms and concepts (e.g. ens, actus essendi and so on) were often universally accepted, recognized and precisely defined. A translation always involves a loss of precision and, since different translators choose different words, it may become very difficult to recognize and compare such concepts.
Surely, you are joking. The classics are alive and well. According to Rosetta Stone, Latin enjoys tremendous popularity among millions of people, including numerous very influential individuals:
Join NASA, Fortune 500® executives, U.S. diplomats and millions of learners worldwide in discovering the fastest way to learn Latin.
In the past several years where I live there have been many “budget crises” in different local school systems. Often it is the art, music and after school extracurriculars (like band) that the school board threatens to cut. People raise quite a stink when there is talk of cutting these things, not because they think they are necessary for the children’s future earning potentials but because they think they are important for the development of the full person.
Maybe a better analogy is history. What would we think of a high school that didn’t teach history? At one time, I think, the thought of not teaching latin in high school would be as untenable as the thought of not teaching history would be today. In a way, the reasons for studying the two are very similar. Neither is directly applicable to most future careers, but both can be important to intellectual development and can aid in the understanding of our modern world. Latin, however, has lost its position in the hearts of most people while history has retained its perceived value.
So, I do think that the population at large and the school boards, etc., would support such a program if they believed in it. We are likely too far down our current path, though, to change the way things are.
My high school has neither Latin nor a football team. We do have a four year Russian program and a mock trial team (the closest thing we have to a team sport). While the mock trial team has a dedicated core, and is very successful (we won the city championship last year), removing the Russian program would cause a far greater uproar.
In a high school which had both the Latin and the football, I think it would heavily depend on the popularity of the Latin teacher(s) and the football coach. If a school had a Latin teacher as popular as our Russian teacher and the football coach was unpopular or even just mediocre, I would bet in favor of Latin.
In my opinion, the best thing to expand the classics is to produce a greater supply of excellent teachers. This is far easier said than done, however I think it is unreasonable to demand this. I do not think the Classics have declined : as said above, more people attend school, and when Classical education was at its so-called peak many of the students were forced, by curriculum or by a need for social status, to take Classics, and were not searching for something to make them a fuller person. I prefer having less people studying classics, provided they are devoted to the classics, over having more people studying the classics simply because it is a duty.
Many references have been made to the argument that since modern languages are no longer taught like classical languages, the classical languages should follow the lead of the moderns. First of all, the old fashioned style isn’t as dead for modern languages as some here think. When I was in French class, I had to do some translations, and one of my favorite French books is very old-fashioned - many French-English and English-French exercises following a very grammar-oriented approach. I took the grammar approach in conjunction with the immersion/English-free/think-in-French approach. I was very grateful to have the whole grammar layed out for me in English so I could grasp the details, rather than having to blindly absorb it. I do not think the grammar approach should be used alone, in modern or classical languages, but I do not think it should be discarded either.
My school is so heavily football-oriented that there is no way Latin could even take root, even if the (rather large) amount of those who want to be law-students took Latin.
I quite like the grammar oriented way: it’s clear, simple and provided you can memorise, fast. I used it when I was doing French GCSE early; being stuck in the class is not pleasant especially if the other students are still pronouncing their final -s and mispronouncing their j’s.
And knowledge of Latin and Greek wasn’t even mandatory to major in Ancient History way back in 1988. Well, not at my university at least.
For a historian of Ancient History, I agree that translations are out of order. But wait, when I was a student, there WERE students with very bright minds, but without any knowledge of the classic languages, who nevertheless contributed a lot to the study of classical history. Hmmm.
And I confess that some texts I also only read in translation. And I don’t even feel guilty about it.
