Classics Vs. Classical Education

"Etenim omnes artes quae ad humanitatem pertinent habent quoddam commune vinclum et quasi cognatione quadam inter se continentur." Cicero, Pro Archia

“And certainly all arts which pertain to humanity have a certain common bond and are contained within themselves by a certain mutual recognition.”

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“What’s your degree in?”

“Classics.”

“Ah, so like, classic books like Jane Austen or Shakespeare?”

“No. Latin and Greek.”

I have this conversation all the time. The term “classics” has fallen a bit out of use to refer to the study of Greco-Roman antiquity, but this is an important distinction I wish to make, especially as the term “classical” is now being tossed around like a hot potato. What do these terms actually mean?

A classicist is someone who studies the Greeks and the Romans, and this encompasses probably about one thousand years of Mediterranean history. Classics (or “Classical Studies”) is a very broad field in terms of the variety of disciplines it contains within itself. However, any classicist worth their salt must know both Latin and Greek, even if they go on to specialize in archaeology or art history or some other sub-field that is a bit less dependent on being in the literature. Nevertheless, thorough knowledge of the language is the uniting factor.

I would consider myself a classical philologist for the simple reason that my primary love is the languages and literature of the Greeks and Romans, but I have also had a smattering of instruction in other disciplines such as archaeology, paleography (reading old manuscripts), epigraphy (inscriptions), historical methodology, art history, numismatics (the study of coins), and even statistical analysis in antiquity.

Classics as a field goes back many many centuries, even as far back as the Library of Alexandria. In fact according to the Roman historian Suetonius, the first person to formulate the meaning of the word “philologist” (word-lover) was a man named Eratosthenes of Cyrene. He used this word to define himself as a professional “word-lover,” and part of the group of scholars who formed the foundation of classical studies as we know it today, which is primarily text-based. (Nagy 1996: 4).

One of the earliest tasks of classical philologists was to create “authoritative” texts of the Homeric epics, which mean comparing manuscripts, editing spelling mistakes, eliminating redundancies and generally “cleaning up” the text for later study. This is the one continuous process that unites classics as a field over the centuries: the centrality of the languages and the texts in those languages.

The Alexandrian scholars of the Hellenistic era expanded their efforts into other genres such as tragedy and comedy and lyric poetry. It is largely due to these scholars that our canon of classical literature has taken on the particular shape that it has.

This pursuit formed the core identity of what it means to be a classicist: one who studies the Greek and Latin languages. (For more information see Greetham: 1994 or Thurston Peck: 1911 or Philology: The Forgotten Origins of the Modern Humanities by James Turner). Much of philology as a discipline entails "reconstruction” whether through linguistic means, or through the literature of the language in question.

As we moved further away from the time period that encompasses Greco-Roman civilization, classics as a discipline had to expand to include a number of other reconstructive practices such as archaeology or paleography, especially after long periods of disuse. Many of the contemporary reconstructive practices within textual criticism developed as a result of the Renaissance and the humanists who were rediscovering these classical texts and producing new texts for future generations to read. Again, the focus on language connected them to the foundation of classical philology as a field that began in Alexandria during the Hellenistic period (circa 323-146BC).

The advent of the printing press meant that classical texts in the original Greek and Latin could be disseminated at a dizzying rate, and the need for updated texts continued to be a primary concern. In 1602 the Flemish printer Balthasar Moretus complained to Justus Lipsius that “if error is the normal condition in any area, it is certainly so in correcting printed books.” (Source). Other scholars complained that a printed text would now mean that the same error would be disseminated hundreds of times over. This meant that the demands on a classical philologist remain as pertinent as ever in the continual attention paid to the reconstruction and preservation of texts, especially in the era of printing and the rapid spreading of printed books.

Today we are blessed by the centuries of efforts by such scholars, such as Richard Bentley, Richard Porson, A.E. Housman, Felix Jacoby, Wolfgang Schadewalt, and many others who have contributed to the texts that someone like myself enjoys today, and can teach from easily because they have been so expertly prepared.

So much for a classicist. It has a long history and a very weighty cloud of witnesses attesting to its importance.

It’s rather different from the other term I intend to explain:

The term “classical” has multifarious uses. It can be used to refer to someone who is interested in “classical art,” so if you like Greek vases or Roman wall painting, you might say you like “classical art.”

You might enjoy “classicizing” Renaissance art that was consciously modeling itself off of Greek and Roman exemplars. Usually you need context to figure out whether that’s how the word is being used. In art or decor style, “classical” has a fairly specific meaning that’s not too hard to figure out. We know it when we see it, usually.

“Classical” literature specifically refers to the literature of the Ancient Greeks and Romans, and that is also fairly straightforward to understand.

When it comes to education the term “classical” is suddenly much less clear. What people generally mean by it is “traditional,” and that can have half a million definitions depending on who you ask. Here are a few potential definitions you might hear in conversations with various people:

1. A classical education that focuses on the learning of Latin and Greek languages and literature as its foundation. This is the most “traditional” view, and this was the type of education received by someone like C.S. Lewis (as he recounts in Surprised by Joy), or any number of other British students before around the 1930s or so. Entrance into university was predicated on thorough knowledge of Latin and Greek (and other subjects as well). This was true in the United States as well for some time; to gain entrance into Harvard in the 1860s, one had to be able to translate English into Latin, among other skills. (Source).
   
   (Most people don’t actually mean this - nor do they want this).
   
   Judging by the incredulous questions I have received for years even from people who consider themselves fans of “classical education”:
   
   Most people do not see the point of studying Latin and Greek.
   

   “Hasn’t all this stuff already been translated? Why do we need to keep learning dead languages?”
   
   Some programs do indeed attempt to incorporate Latin and/or Greek into its curriculum because they are attempting to resurrect the rigor of past centuries. While such a pursuit is admirable, it often fails to produce the desired results because such reasons are proffered to parents as:
   
   - Boosting SAT/ACT scores
   - Boosting language scores
   - Heightened thinking skills
   - Being "conversant with other cultures” as an end unto itself (which often means “let’s look at this weird bunch of people under a microscope and compare them to us”).
   
   These are side benefits that a student may enjoy, certainly, but it tends to make studying classical languages literature a means to some other end and it loses all its vigor in the process.
   
   What I am observing now is that there are a large number of students in various classical language programs for 5+ years who still don’t have enough knowledge to read classical authors. That should not be the case.
   

2. Another vague definition that people appear to hold is a vague “old-school” (e.g. 1930s-40s general education before the Progressive ideology had taken full root) education that pays a bit more attention to history and literature and has more “rigor.”
   
   We have this notion that people in ages past were more “rigorous” than we are now. This may be true, but that does not mean that we actually understand how people were educated in centuries (or even decades) past, let alone that we can claim to be returning to some past paradigm. (This will be addressed in detail in future posts). Oftentimes this means more rote memory, memorizing historical facts and dates, geography, famous characters, maybe Bible verses and a smattering of poems. Maybe students will read more literature or “great books,” and get a bit more exposure to a wider array of subjects. This is being done in secular contexts as well as Christian ones, with the rise of “classical charter” schools across the US many of which do not have an explicit Christian creed but are also attempting to tap into the growing push for higher educational standards than the public schools have. Publicly-funded charter schools of this type (at least in my home state) cannot have a religious foundation in order to receive state funds, but the phenomenon of “classical” schooling in a secular environment does certainly exist as an attempt to meet some of the growing market demand.
   
   This definition, however, runs the hazard of basically selling the same modern practices and paradigms “repackaged” in misleading ways when there really isn’t anything particularly “classical” about it.
   
   This leads to my next point.
   

3. “Christian classical” education (especially the highly politicized variety) - maybe a smattering of both of the above paradigms. Lots of rote memory and the like.
   Often there is an attempt to teach Latin to its students (frequently with poor results in the long-term), maybe they teach the students to deconstruct literature and language but with a Christian spin rather than a postcolonial or critical theory spin. Frequently it focuses on “moral formation” because…well, clearly the public schools don’t care about morality and integrity (this is sarcasm, by the way). It often promises its participants that the students will fly the carefully-constructed nest of morality and Christian virtue as fully-fledged virtuous citizens who can quote Cicero and elaborate on Plato, and engage in “Socratic dialogue” with intellectual opponents. Not all Christian classical schools are the same, of course, and some of them do their job very well, and can produce admirable and competent students, but it will also produce its fair share of average or below-average students as well because no school or system can promise completely uniform results.
   

4. There is also the “classical" homeschooling movement, which also has smatterings of the above. Some people in this movement tend to rely heavily on “classical” curriculum publishers for their material, which means they are at the mercy of whatever any given company decides is “classical.” There is going to be tremendous variety of views amongst the “classical” homeschoolers, depending on their particular priorities and influences.
   
   For the sake of inclusion, I must also highlight the Charlotte Mason movement that has been growing exponentially in the past few years in the United States. (I think this approach is the closest we get to an actual “classical” education). I myself became aware of it in 2019. This movement is also difficult to describe because it has various branches and divergences, depending on how thoroughly one reads Charlotte Mason herself and implements her ideas. The Charlotte Mason movement is often derided as “frou-frou” or “child-centered” but this is not evidenced by her actual writing. She is just as concerned with habit-training and moral formation and excellence as anyone else, but her approach to these things is fundamentally different, and fundamentally at odds with a Progressive environment. This will receive at least one post in the future of this series so I will not focus on it too much right now.

Now, these are some basic summaries of what people tend to mean when they talk about “classical” education. It is a difficult term to pin down and it will depend on the person you are discussing education with. To be “classically educated” is often very different from being a “classicist” and the two frequently do not overlap, depending on the definition that you are using.

There is a whole other realm encompassing “classical” education which many of us call “neoclassical.” The primary spearhead of the neoclassical movement is Doug Wilson with his 1989 book Recovering the Lost Tools of Learning. Another author who participated in the early formation of the “neoclassical” movement is Susan Wise Bauer and her book The Well-Trained Mind, though I am careful not to lump these authors together as they different significantly (especially nowadays).

Nevertheless, they took their cues largely from a speech delivered by Dorothy L. Sayers in the 1940s called The Lost Tools of Learning. Apparently forgotten for decades and rediscovered in the 80s and 90s, this speech established the paradigm that modern classical education has taken. This part of the movement is also hard to pin down, and there is a lot of ideological disagreement within it, and one cannot dismiss it entirely because it responds to very real problems and generally seeks solutions in good faith like the other movements.

One of the problems I hope to address over the course of future posts is the fact that despite its best intentions, a lot of neoclassical education (that is modern attempts at reconstructing ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance education via Dorothy Sayers) is forced to resort to utilitarian reasoning in order to gain adherents. While most of us might be willing to acknowledge the failures of the public school system, we cannot reconcile ourselves to shedding our notions of “success” in society, and we find ourselves reaching for the same techniques and reasons that secular education uses to justify itself.

We want our kids to get into “good colleges” and to be able to get good jobs. That isn’t an inherently bad thing, but it misses the point of what is supposed to distinguish “classical” education from secular education. We end up focusing just as much on our test scores and on filling out all the soul-crushing worksheets and deconstructing our great books.

There is also this crucial fact: we do not need a pragmatic reason to learn things and to love them, and none of these educational paradigms held by most people really offer that as a justification for themselves. Making everything about practical utility crushes our humanity. Discerning one’s vocation tends to flow more easily out of an education that is motivated by love of real knowledge rather than one that is motivated by what is more pragmatic, or what might shape the student into whatever the school or parent wants them to be.

I had the freedom as a student to discern what my particular loves are, as did my siblings. I happened to find out that I loved Greek and Latin for their own sake, and I had absolutely no idea that I would ever make a career out of them. I just loved them because they are beautiful and worth pursuing. They are an indispensable part of my daily intellectual life, and by God’s grace, I have been able to use my love of classics for the benefit of others and for the support of my family. But it was because of love, first and foremost.

Love of beauty and knowledge is a vital part of what it means to be human, and to pursue a “humane” education, and that has no pragmatic value. That isn’t to say that one might not be forced to pursue a job that they aren’t suited for because their circumstances demand it. A talented classics or English major may be forced to work as a manager in a grocery store due to his circumstances, but he has something in himself that he will never lose if he loves his major subject.

Let us be human. Let us stop resorting to mere, crushing expedience and then perhaps we may find the pursuit of education less of a burden and something that actually lightens the load of living.

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"...and what is worst of all, he is often waked up out of his learned dreams to find that the irregular Greek verbs which he once fancied he knew well enough, are to be an object of steady contemplation for the rest of his natural life, and that with all his gettings he has still no end of work to do in the mechanical mastery, so to speak, of the language to which he has devoted himself." Basil Gildersleeve, quoted in a biography of him by Warren W. Briggs Jr.