Once upon a time, a long time ago, I read Richmond Lattimore’s translation of the Iliad for an English class.  The professor was a medievalist whose hobby was Greek literature, and it was unclear whether or not he knew Greek. Certainly, his teaching was uninspired and his observations trite.

And so I enrolled in Greek, and then in Latin, and spent hours, then years, reading the mysterious Aeschylus, the enchanting Homer, witty Catullus, brilliant Virgil, bubbly Ovid, etc., and then  I had a master’s degree in classics.

I am awestruck that I made this excellent decision.  I could have been another English major (I love English literature), but classical literature is gorgeous, profound, and pertinent, the poetry, plays, and philosophy of ancient civilizations that shaped western culture and literature, and still remain, in some ways, alien and unknowable. Without the universities, we would have been like Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure: Jude teaches himself Greek and Latin in a desolate village, and when he finally makes it to Hardy’s fictitious counterpart of Oxford, the professors decline even to meet him.

The humanities are in jeopardy now. One wonders if future generations will have the pleasure of reading Latin and Greek classics.  I do not say this lightly. Several universities and colleges have eliminated classics programs or severely cut department budgets.  The University of Chicago is winnowing its classics program and will not accept new Ph.D. students in classics in the 2026-2027 year. 

According to Jeffrey E. Shulman in his article, “Cuts to the Liberal Arts Will Backfinre.” in Real Clear Education,  “The University of Chicago prides itself on teaching obscure and dead languages. Although most lack their own major or minor, the Classics Department—which offers ancient Greek and Latin—counts 12 enrollees a number insignificant compared to a STEM subject like computer science, with 382 enrollees. Such numbers are typical at other elite universities: Harvard University’s 2024 graduating class included 10 classics majors and 184 computer scientists. “

The numbers were about the same in my day. But then It was a given that the value of classics and other humanities courses was beyond numbers and money.

Let’s hope some powerful people will save classics.