On the Decline of Classical History in Education

Are the Ancients winning new victories in the modern education system? The classics--Latin, Greek, Roman and Greek culture, history, and literature--is the foundation of the West because classic antiquity was the period that laid the seeds of foundation for Western hegemony, but where has it gone? Study of the classics in modern education has been in decline for many years and seems to have been forgotten. Although the decline of the Classics in the modern world began at the turn of the 19^th century, it's been in decline since the 1600's parallel to the decline of Latin, and has only been accelerated with further blows to Latin such as the the Catholic churches abolishment of Latin being required in Latin Mass in 1962 ("Classic Case of Ancient Cool").

So why did interest in the classics decline? According to one journalist, "The classics have slumped in education from the weighty baggage of being deemed to be fusty, old-fashioned, largely irrelevant and reflecting an inflexible education system which places great store in the prominence of classic thought" (Christopher Bantick "A Date with the classics").

Christopher Richards who writes for The Age, an Australian World Newspaper, reinforces Bantick's oppinion by saying, "[...] Instead of seeking innovative ways to preserve it, some administrators have seemed to forget that the foundation of their universities, not to mention their society, is on the extraordinarily resilient classical culture" ("Cure for Classics; SUBJECTS UNDER THREAT[sic]"). The problem with interest in the classics is also close to home from a survey I gave to my English 101 class I found that both knowledge of and interest in the classics was dreadful (Adams Survey); why are they declining though?

In a personal interview I conducted with the World History 103 teacher at Victor Valley College Dr. Eric Mayer, in response to my question of why, he said, "It's hubris, after all what can an ancient people still teach us that we don't already know? There is also possibly an ethnic-bias there; it's not Anglo-Saxon," and he also indicated further in his interview that its because the educator's teaching it are refusing to modernize their style (Personal Interview, Appendix A). Hubris? Is this true? Well Anthony O'Hear, a journalist in the UK, confirms that to some degree in an article he wrote for The Daily Telegraph, where he relates that the higher education minister of the UK said it is not necessarily a bad thing that there have been sharp falls in the number of students applying to study history and the classics at university [...] ("Ignorance of the Past Makes us Impotent Before the present"). So, basically there is some degree of arrogance involved, and if you think about who is saying this, the -English- higher education minister, you definitely can't ignore the truth in the ethnic-bias component.

Okay, so classics are declining because they are becoming outdated and we're growing too arrogant to learn from some backwards ancients, but are the classics really in bad shape?

Kevin, Driscoll thinks so,"Out of a million BA's awarded in 1994, only 600 were granted in Classics" ("Casualties of the Culture Wars: Saving the Classics"). In 1934, 900000 students were enrolled in Latin, at the turn of the century it was around 50% of all students, but in 1976 there was only 155,500 students enrolled in Latin (Bartlett, Ellen J. "Reading Classics in Latin, and Liking it; For Baltimore Class, the Old Tongue is - get This - Fun."). Out of 5.7 million GCSE, fewer then a thousand are in classical Greek (O'Hear). These are some dire figures in regards to the state of the classics have declined by at least 85% looking at these statistics.

Although all signs say the classics are dead or dying, the situation actually seems to be recovering. Latin is helping students pass exams and is gaining a growing following as "cool" which is boosting its numbers yearly.

The number of students taking the National Latin Exam has gone from 101000 in '98 to 134000 in 08' (Winnie Hu "Latin Returns From Dead in School Language Curriculums"). The cause of this rise in interest is Modern media: Holly Wood, and electronic games, and teaching the classics differently now. What's killing the classics is holding on to the traditional ways of teaching them in a modern world (Mayer).

Works Cited

Adams, Julius. Class Survey. Victor Valley College. Victorville, CA. 30 Oct. 2008.

Bantick, Christopher. "A date with the classics." Sunday Tasmanian 4 Dec. 2005: A09. Lexus-Nexus. Victor Valley College Lib. Victorville, CA. 30 October 2008. http://ww.lexus-nexus.com.

Bartlett, Ellen J. "Reading classics in Latin, and liking it; For Baltimore class, the old tongue is -get this- fun." The Boston Globe. 20 Feb. 1990: 45. Lexus-Nexus. Victor Valley College Lib. Victorville, CA. 30 October 2008. http://ww.lexus-nexus.com.

Hu, Winnie. "Latin Returns From Dead In School Language Curriculums." The New York Times. 7 Oct. 2008: n.p. Lexus-Nexus. Victor Valley College Lib. Victorville, CA. 30 October 2008. http://ww.lexus-nexus.com.

Mayer, Eric. Personal Interview; See Appendix A. Julius Adams. Victor Valley College. Victorville, CA. 28 Oct. 2008.

O'Hear. "Ignorance of the Past Makes us Impotent Before the Present." The Daily Telegraph.

17 Feb. 2006: 26. Lexus-Nexus. Victor Valley College Lib. Victorville, CA. 30 October 2008. http://ww.lexus-nexus.com.

Richards, Christopher. "Cure for Classics; SUBJECTS UNDER THREAT[sic]." The Age.

13 Oct. 1998: 20. Lexus-Nexus. Victor Valley College Lib. Victorville, CA. 30 October 2008. http://ww.lexus-nexus.com.