Over the summer, I worked as an intern at National Review and was fortunate enough to see many articles about a variety of different topics published in real time. At the beginning of my internship, I read an article by Cameron Hilditch called “Without the Classics, Our History is Incomprehensible.” In this article, Cameron discusses the underlying influence that ancient Greek and Roman culture has had on American history and the roots of our civilization as we know it. He also addresses the recent decision made by Princeton University to drop the requirement that classics majors must learn Greek and Latin. Expertly weaving in the implications that the “pagan classics” have had on politics and the intellectual beliefs of our ancestors (moreso, he says, than even the Judeo-Christian Bible), Cameron forms a concrete argument that opposes the cancellation of classics in modern scholarship and makes the case for preserving a curriculum that educates students about the trajectory of Western civilization.
“Western civilization” as a term has become a sort of polarizing concept these days. Mahatma Gandhi is said to have made this joke when asked what he thought about Western civilization: “I think it might be a good idea.” And sure, that may be funny, but there are some who have taken this literally, arguing that there is, in fact, no such thing as Western civilization. Scholars are doing it, and schools are doing it. A couple of years ago, the classics faculty at Oxford University, for example, recommended that Homer’s Iliad and Vergil’s Aeneid should be removed from the “Literae Humaniores” (a famous undergraduate course at Oxford focused on the classics in particular). Apparently, this decision was made because of the differences in exam results between male and female undergraduates in addition to privately and publicly educated students. However, seeing as all of these people are at Oxford, for goodness sake, the axing of two of the most influential epics of the Western canon is preposterous at best and disgraceful at worst. The effort to erase these two works from the curriculum is a microcosm of the wider attempt by modern scholars to do away with the concept of Western civilization - along with its art, culture, literature, and enduring ideas - as a whole.
In 2019, I wrote an article for WestView News, a newspaper running out of the West Village of NYC, called “Keeping Ancient Greek and Latin Alive.” Back then, I was an idealistic senior in high school who was just beginning to appreciate all that the classics had to offer but was also aware that interest in classical languages and history was in decline. I had studied Latin since middle school, travelled to Rome through a summer “Latin immersion” program, and been exposed to Greek culture my entire life as a second-generation Greek American. At that time, I was also deciding the next major step in my life: where to go to college. I chose to attend Holy Cross, not just for its welcoming community and high-caliber academics, but for its robust and expansive classics department. I was impressed by the sheer number of professors in the department and the fact that all of them were so supremely knowledgeable about a vast array of topics, ranging from Greek tragedy to classical archaeology to even gender in antiquity. The opportunities to expand my own capabilities as a classics student were seemingly endless, and looking back as a junior, they have proved to be more fruitful than I could have ever imagined. I wholeheartedly admit that I would not be as well-rounded and capable of a classicist as I am today without the brilliantly and expertly crafted language and culture courses offered by the Holy Cross Classics Department.
Reading Cameron’s article, I was heartbroken to learn that Princeton University announced that its classics majors will no longer be required to learn Greek or Latin. As of June 2021, the “classics track” was eliminated altogether (which required intermediate proficiency in either Latin or Greek to enter), and the general requirement of taking Greek or Latin was removed. According to the members of the department, these changes to Princeton’s requirements for the Classics track were instituted in order to create a more “inclusive” and “equitable” program of study. Although the school claims that this change will incentivize more students to become majors, what are the true implications of their decision? Are the Princeton professors admitting to the fact that classics as a field is racist, thereby invalidating and tarnishing their entire academic careers spent studying and teaching the subject? Or are they saying that some students at Princeton University are in fact incapable of succeeding in these rigorous language courses? It’s impossible to wrap your head around this issue without coming to these conclusions. Instead of doing away with a subject that is undoubtedly extremely difficult, shouldn’t a school like Princeton and others following in similar footsteps utilize the colossal endowments they have at their disposal to provide better resources for mastering Greek and Latin? By means of tutoring, implementing better structures to courses, and improving professor-student relationships, the problem of the difficulty of the subject matter in question could slowly but surely be eliminated altogether.
I definitely understand that the privilege to study classics is not afforded to all and am grateful that I have been fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to study this subject for many years with countless resources at my disposal. It is not an unknown fact that communities of color and students in underrepresented groups in the United States have indeed suffered from a lack of access to the classics; however, the classics community as of late has begun to fundamentally change this, especially in the United States. There are a multitude of upcoming initiatives in middle schools, high schools, and universities to incorporate more BIPOC (black, indigenous, and other people of color) and underprivileged students into their classics departments. I personally have been involved in these types of programs: in high school, I volunteered through the Paideia Institute’s Aequora program, which is driven by the belief that “Classics [is] an inclusive, diverse, and socially engaged field.” I would go every week to a public school in Flushing, NY to teach elementary school kids from underprivileged families Latin. This experience was not just helpful for them, but was also gratifying to me, and I was able to witness firsthand the benefits that Latin had on these students: they absolutely adored both Latin and the act of learning itself. I am also currently on the Classics Inclusion Committee at Holy Cross, which upholds those same values as the Aequora program and is working to establish an equitable community here at Holy Cross without getting rid of or dumbing down the already established language requirements.
Classics has long been considered a very niche and “gatekept” subject, but this doesn’t have to be the case: with enough effort, classics can become open to all who wish to study it. Simply giving up and saying that students of color are at a disadvantage at becoming successful classicists is plain wrong and, frankly, offensive. If the classics departments of Princeton or Oxford do not truly believe in their students’ intellectual abilities along with their desire to fully immerse themselves in ancient languages, how are students expected to believe in themselves? Going forward, we have to be wary of the effects of this new and toxic cancel culture that is all too common in modern society. As Cameron so rightly wrote in his piece, “If anything, we need to expand the scope of classical education that kids receive, not further curtail it. Otherwise, we’re deliberately withholding from American children the conceptual tools necessary for contemplating our ancestors with sympathy and understanding.”