Attic Miniature Lekythos of Poseidon, c. 450 BC. Courtesy Loyola Marymount University / Mac James
by Ed Cuevas
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Attic Miniature Lekythos of Poseidon, c. 450 BC. Courtesy Loyola Marymount University / Mac James |
Whew! I breathed a great sigh of relief when I noticed that Latin classes at Xavier University seem to have enough students enrolled for the fall semester. That meant that I, chair of the Classics department, would not have to cancel any classes, a worry I have every semester. Nonetheless, seeing the low enrollment numbers for Latin causes me heart palpitations, and thinking about the number of students taking ancient Greek just causes more anxiety. The numbers force me, a classicist at a Jesuit institution, to wonder if Classics is at the point of disappearing from Jesuit schools.
These questions, concerns, and the constantly uncertain enrollments in Latin at Xavier prompted me and my colleagues to plan a conference at Xavier this November on the state of Classics in Jesuit education. We plan to tackle topics such as "Classics and the Jesuit Mission," "Classics and Core Curricula," "Jesuit History and Tradition," and "Secondary Education and the Classics."
I hope that the conference will conclude that the study of the classical languages and cultures is as necessary as it ever was, but even if it doesn't, the meeting will provide a great opportunity to discuss what can be done to revive the relevancy of Classics in Jesuit education. We will find out what the different situations are at Jesuit schools. Perhaps Classics in those schools that emphasize liberal arts fares better than at others? Maybe we will discover that we need to do a better job of explaining to administrators, even colleagues in other departments and disciplines, that the study of Classics is at the core of a liberal arts education, the very thing that Jesuit schools market as part of their identity and "brand."
At the heart
The heart of a classical education is the mastering of Latin and Greek, and that calls for mental discipline and dedication. Learning the languages can instill in students a deep and profound understanding not only of the two languages but of language in general and how human beings express their thoughts with precision and clarity. It also produces an "affective" style of communication by encouraging students to combine thought and feeling in their speaking and writing, mixing the analytic and the aesthetic.
Classics immerses students in the great ideas and writings of Western culture and promotes breadth and depth of knowledge. It's part of a traditional liberal arts program that typified Jesuit education in the Ratio Studiorum (see pages 22-23).
Most important, Classics offers students the opportunity to open their minds and get at the heart of the ancient dictum "know thyself"-a thought especially important to understanding the milieu in which they live.
Growth
Indeed, my discipline seeks the intellectual, moral, and spiritual growth of the student. It looks to wholeness rather than particularity. It supplies students with broad humanistic tools with which they can better comprehend what makes individuals part of the whole, part of the greater good. And it can teach students to be disinterested-not uninterested-in their studies, dedicated to their studies for the sake of lifelong learning and not career objectives. Classical literature's influence on writers and thinkers in other languages and cultures cannot be overestimated. Among the texts are masterpieces of insight into human behavior and human experience that explore the relationship between reason and emotion and also search for truth.
Ed Cueva earned a PhD in Classics from Loyola University Chicago. He is associate professor of Classics and department chair at Xavier University, co-director of the Ethics/Religion and Society Program, and co-editor of the Classical Bulletin. He is married to fellow Xavier classicist Shannon Byrne. |
But these texts also make clear that the search for truth is not in itself sufficient for a whole life. Our communal life requires the individual's search for truth to lead to good acts, which in turn produce insights: the importance of the well-being of all and that intellectual wisdom alone will not render a life productive unless it is one guided by virtue.
These are the concepts that permeate classical literature from Plato's Republic to Cicero's orations. They make it beneficial for the modern student to examine the Graeco-Roman cultures, which, along with the Judaic-Christian religious and value systems, form the core of our modern society. The study of Classics cultures the soul and significantly contributes to the most complete, humanistic, liberal arts training that any school can offer. 
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