Are you interested in philosophy? Does poetry push your
button? Perhaps you enjoy a story of grand struggle, the showdown at
high noon between personalities larger-than-life. Maybe you need to convince
your parents (or your children) to do something. Rhetoric, history, literature,
languages, philosophy, history of medicine, military history... Classics has
it all!
In the last century classical studies has
sufferred, but I believe that for the 21st century students could do
no better than to make Classics the foundation for their education.
It is said that before today's average college students retire they
may have as many as four or five jobs. Why study something practical
if you are not even going to practice it? Classics gives you so much:
history, philosophy, literature, law, historiography, scientific patterns
of inquiry, history of medicine, and today even fields like gender studies
and comparative literature -- it's all there!
But don't just listen to me. . . Read some more.
Unless otherwise noted, all material below is quoted from Value of the Classics, Princeton University Press, 1917.
Classics' importance: