The Study of Classical Civilization Without Classical Languages?

Extract

I Know that it is a commonplace to begin with apologies, but the Head Master of Eton did so last night, and hence let me say that you are doomed to disappointment this morning if, at the end of your splendid and varied programme, you are expecting a sonorous peroration on ‘The Spirit of Antiquity’ or ‘The Greeks and what they mean to us’. You know the kind of thing I mean: ‘Greek simplicity recalls to us the central interests of the human heart. Greek truthfulness is a challenge to see the world as it is and to shun the falsities of rhetoric or sentiment. Greek beauty is a memorial of an aspect of the Universe to which ages of thought are often blind.’ Noble words, and as you hear them, some of you are no doubt murmuring ‘Dr. Livingstone, I presume’, and like Stanley you would be right. Originally I was billed to talk about Verse Composition but this was changed to something about the Greek Anthology, and finally I find myself responsible for the concluding lecture. I fear it will be for me not to heighten the tone but to lower it. I have myself attended conferences of this kind and drawn much profit from them.