5 ms·

First page, translate Latin. What was the goal of this, were they studying Latin texts much? Would a maths student have known this? I wonder how much of this t

First page, translate Latin. What was the goal of this, were they studying Latin texts much? Would a maths student have known this? I wonder how much of this ties into the concept of "classical education" we don't use anymore.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
52-6F-62 3y ago
Most of the world runs on that classical education. It underpins all human interaction and politics. Kind of ironic, nous
- I_Am_Nous 3y ago
  I can agree that the world we currently live in was shaped by that classical education, but from my perspective the world is now ran by business majors, not people who've read Plato or Aquinas untranslated. Scholars aren't just scholars anymore, they must specialize in something before the world recognizes them. This is what I mean when I say we don't "use" the classical education anymore - it has become the exception, not the rule it once was.
  - 52-6F-62 3y ago
    On the surface, sure. It hasn't gone anywhere. The ideas derived from classical educations (read: not as career scholars, but initiated into that frame of understanding) are what define the shape of power. Hell, Putin has a chaos magician (Dugin—shades of Rasputin) leading the shape of his global politics...
tnecniv 3y ago
Yes that would have been common for students to knowledge for students from upper class families who would be applying to Harvard. I don’t know how much of that was taught in public schools at the time, but an education in the classics was considered foundational knowledge due to their (continuing) influence on Western culture. You would likely be reading a lot of Latin in your curriculum — even if you were not a classics scholar due to it being an international lingua Franca for so long. In England, “grammar schools” were originally schools that emphasized Latin grammar as part of the curriculum.
- gregw2 3y ago
  These old schools in America were originally founded to train ministers for whom knowing Latin and Greek (and Hebrew) to interpret early versions of the Christian scriptures was important so they could have a clearer understanding of the original meanings of the texts. Later, Greek/latin became about secular classical writings. The secularists took over and split the schools so the ministerial teaching occurred in separate “divinity schools”/seminaries. For some specific background on Harvard origins: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Harvard_University https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Harvard_Universit...
tekla 3y ago
Math is a part of a liberal education
elashri 3y ago
This reminds me of the general GRE exam required by most of US STEM graduate schools which has an English part that does not mean to measure if you can talk in English or anything (TOEFL and ILETS are there for that) but it is really pointless. It will ask you are synonyms for words that no one is using and focuses on some stuff that even a native speaker wouldn't see in his lifetime.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

52-6F-62 3y ago

Most of the world runs on that classical education. It underpins all human interaction and politics. Kind of ironic, nous

I_Am_Nous 3y ago
I can agree that the world we currently live in was shaped by that classical education, but from my perspective the world is now ran by business majors, not people who've read Plato or Aquinas untranslated. Scholars aren't just scholars anymore, they must specialize in something before the world recognizes them. This is what I mean when I say we don't "use" the classical education anymore - it has become the exception, not the rule it once was.
- 52-6F-62 3y ago
  On the surface, sure. It hasn't gone anywhere. The ideas derived from classical educations (read: not as career scholars, but initiated into that frame of understanding) are what define the shape of power. Hell, Putin has a chaos magician (Dugin—shades of Rasputin) leading the shape of his global politics...

tnecniv 3y ago

Yes that would have been common for students to knowledge for students from upper class families who would be applying to Harvard. I don’t know how much of that was taught in public schools at the time, but an education in the classics was considered foundational knowledge due to their (continuing) influence on Western culture. You would likely be reading a lot of Latin in your curriculum — even if you were not a classics scholar due to it being an international lingua Franca for so long. In England, “grammar schools” were originally schools that emphasized Latin grammar as part of the curriculum.

gregw2 3y ago
These old schools in America were originally founded to train ministers for whom knowing Latin and Greek (and Hebrew) to interpret early versions of the Christian scriptures was important so they could have a clearer understanding of the original meanings of the texts. Later, Greek/latin became about secular classical writings. The secularists took over and split the schools so the ministerial teaching occurred in separate “divinity schools”/seminaries. For some specific background on Harvard origins: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Harvard_University https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Harvard_Universit...

tekla 3y ago

Math is a part of a liberal education

elashri 3y ago

This reminds me of the general GRE exam required by most of US STEM graduate schools which has an English part that does not mean to measure if you can talk in English or anything (TOEFL and ILETS are there for that) but it is really pointless. It will ask you are synonyms for words that no one is using and focuses on some stuff that even a native speaker wouldn't see in his lifetime.