Carpe Scientiam: Why Classics at Tufts is Still Important
November 30, 2007
Quam multas nobis imagines — non solum ad intuendum, verum etiam ad imitandum — fortissimorum virorum expressas scriptores et Graeci et Latini reliquerunt?
-Cicero, Pro Archia
The largest college within Tufts is the College of Arts and Sciences, which currently enrolls about 4,600 undergraduates and 1,000 graduate students. Tufts enjoys the reputation of a prestigious liberal arts school that professes to endorse a liberal arts education. This requires that each of us complete various “foundation” and “distribution” requirements, set in place so that we become acquainted with the important areas of inquiry: the humanities, the arts, the social sciences, the mathematical sciences, and the natural sciences. Interestingly enough, most of these areas of inquiry are etymologically linked to the Latin verb scio (“to know”) — because, in a liberal arts education, we are acquiring knowledge.
In the history of a liberal arts education, there are cornerstones. Traditionally, Classics has always been one of them — it used to be an integral part of one’s academic career, and in fact, in the beginning of the 20th century, more than half of all students in America were studying Latin. A reading knowledge of authors like Caesar, Cicero, and Virgil was considered a major part of the academic vocabulary of an educated person. But Latin began to decline in the 20th century, and in the year 2000, only 1.3% of American students were learning Latin in public high schools, with over 30% of students studying Spanish (figures from Draper and Hicks, 2002).
Of course, I acknowledge the fact that times have changed. Our country is a very different place than it was a century ago — wars, policy changes, and global influences have certainly had a major impact on education in America. Our fiber as a country is far less homogeneous than it was in 1905, when 56% of students were studying Latin, and we have adapted to the changes. In doing so, we encourage students to be practical and choose majors that will be useful to them in their futures. But I contend that a Classical education is practical and useful, and it should be given importance in the realm of higher education — especially at Tufts.
From what I can gather, “global citizenship” is the main tenet of a Tufts education. We are known as a school that has produced dozens of Fulbright scholars, that sends 40% of junior undergraduates abroad each year, and that encourages an understanding of the global community. This is certainly a noble image to project — I’m proud to be a part of a university that strives, in a way, to save the world.
At the same time, however, I wish we could recall the roots of a liberal arts education, because humanities and the arts are firmly rooted in an understanding of the Classics and antiquity. When we sign up for a liberal arts education, we’re signing up to acquire knowledge, and perhaps when we are completing our foundation requirements, we should bear in mind the foundations of a liberal arts education. Without a working knowledge of the Classics, students fulfilling the language requirement might forget that the romance languages all stem from Latin, and biology majors might have a difficult time memorizing the Latin anatomical terms. English majors might miss allusions and metaphors that would enhance their appreciation and understanding of the work they’re studying — for how can you truly appreciate Joyce without knowing who Daedalus and Odysseus are? How can you appreciate Shakespeare’s histories without at least knowing who Titus Andronicus and Julius Caesar are?
In all this, I am attempting to demonstrate the integral role that philology plays in the realm of education. And it’s a little known fact to some that Tufts is a pretty good place to study Classics. Some of our recent endeavors include two major archeological digs — R. Brice Hitchner, chair of the department, just completed his first season on a dig in the French Alps, and Emma Blake, assistant professor, completed her second season on her dig in Sicily near Marsala. Both of these digs are potentially groundbreaking (no pun intended) — they both serve as studies of the interaction between cultures in the Ancient Mediterranean and the French Alps. Hitchner’s dig is in Embrum, France, possibly near where Hannibal famously crossed the Alps with his elephants in the Punic Wars. His site is being endorsed by National Geographic, and his colleague on the excavation, Mellon Fellow Dr. Maxence Segard, will be teaching a class this spring on the archeology of the French Alps.
On campus, the annual Balmuth Lecture Series has served as way for the department to reach out to the greater Classics community. A distinguished scholar is selected to give a four-part lecture series on a topic of their choice in an attempt to give modern relevance to the Classical world. Interestingly enough, after the Classics department started this recent tradition, the Political Science and Physics departments modeled their department lectures on the Balmuth Series. These are published lectures, and they draw colleagues and students from other colleges and universities to Tufts. This year, the highly anticipated series will feature Elizabeth Fentress, vice-president of the International Association of Classical Archeology. Her lectures will take place from February 25 to 28, and are expected to draw acclaim from the Classical community. Moreover, in April, Tufts will be hosting Helen Evans, curator of Byzantine art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Tufts Classics and Archeology Department is also renowned for Perseus, a digital library filled with translations of Classical texts, online exhibitions, and various reference and dictionary works. The site, administered by Professor Gregory Crane, is known throughout the world. It is used not only in higher education, but also at the high school level. In fact, had I not used Perseus in preparation for my Latin AP exams in high school, I never would have heard of Tufts in the first place, and I never would have applied. The website is excellent advertising for the University, but it is hardly ever mentioned in any of the University press releases or bulletins. I know there are other students at Tufts like me, who researched Tufts initially only because of its association with Perseus. And Perseus is not the only cyber P.R. for the university associated with the Classics Department: Peter der Manuelian’s Giza Archives Project is gaining recognition as one of the most innovative interactive web pages for an archeological site. It is a joint project through the Museum of Fine Arts, and is a catalog not only of artifacts found at the Giza pyramids, but also of archeological journals and other texts associated with the site. Both Perseus and the Giza Archives Project are currently expanding and constantly gaining recognition for Tufts in the Classical community.
For being a relatively small department, the Classics and Archeology department is clearly doing big things. At a university that as of late seems to emphasize the more scientific aspects of a liberal arts education, it would behoove the Tufts community to reconsider the importance of Classics in higher education. It’s relevant to almost any path of study: according to the Association of American Medical Colleges, students who major or double-major in Classics have a better chance of acceptance at medical school than students who major in biology, microbiology, and other branches of science alone. Classics majors also have the highest success rates in law school, far ahead of political science and economics majors. And the final nail in the coffin of the misconception of a Classics major: we have some of the highest scores on the GREs (Princeton Review).
So, in conclusion, I am not trying to persuade you to change your major to Classics. I do, however, implore you to consider the importance of this department here at Tufts and in the greater academic community. It seems easy to write off Latin as a dead language and Classics as an impertinent field of study, but it is truly a foundation of a liberal arts education, and it is relevant in almost every field of study. Regarding the Cicero quote at the beginning of this article, it translates to “How many portraits, images vividly drawn not only for contemplation but for emulation, of the bravest men have been left to us by Greek and Latin writers!” (Pro Archia, 14. 178-180). The fact that we still have an abundance of remnants from the Classical world is emblematic of its importance and continued relevancy. As Horace writes in his Odes, his poetry is “a monument more lasting than bronze”(Ode 3.30) — we should take these lasting monuments and acknowledge them, because in and of themselves, they are a monument to the humanities and a liberal arts education. Other majors are valuable as well, and some may seem more practical or trendy than Classics, but hardly any of them would hold any water without their roots in ancient Rome, Greece, and Byzantium. And in the end, if we’re acquiring knowledge here, shouldn’t we know where it came from?