Every Hillsdale student should take a classics course because the Greco-Roman world provides us with the guidelines for a life of nobility and glory.

As Hillsdale students, however, we are constantly presented with patterns of examples from disciplines as diverse as chemistry, music, and English.  Each of us must complete at least two English and two history courses covering the Western Tradition. Why would anyone spend extra time and credits on the Greeks and Romans?

Certainly not because they are practical. Many of us have been told to take a course in Latin or Greek because it will help us learn medical, legal, or practical vocabulary, which is abecedarian nonsense. Would you learn French solely for the purpose of ordering at French restaurants?

The classics department, however, does not simply comprise Latin, Greek, and Hebrew language courses: studying the classics will involve you in art, epic, philosophy, politics, and theology. 

Many of us believe the classics are valuable because they are the foundation of the Western Tradition. This may be true, but there still are more compelling reasons to take a classics class. While theology students will need Greek to read the New Testament and rhetoric students can greatly benefit from the study of Cicero, these reasons for studying the classics are ultimately not what leads a student to love and learn from a classics course. This is because the value of the classics,and the liberal arts more broadly,cannot be defined in pragmatic, utilitarian terms.

No, the reason everyone ought to take a classics course is because the classics direct us toward the “kalon” — the beautiful or the noble — through the examples of the great ancients. The primary goal of studying the classics is not to acquire skills. It is to deeply ponder fundamental human questions through the lens of authors and heroes who are dedicated to honor, homecoming, valor, and beauty.

As Titus Livius argues in the preface to his history “Ab Urbe Condita,” the value of considering the past is that it provides examples to be emulated or avoided. According to Livius, you should contemplate the precedents of history “that you may take from them for yourself and your nation what to imitate, and what you ought to shun as base in beginning and end.” Studying the classics directs one toward a heroic life through careful consideration of heroes.

When we read books like Homer’s “Iliad,” Xenophon’s “Anabasis” or Plutarch’s “Lives,” we are forced to consider individual men who may or may not deserve our approbation: inspiring leaders and courageous heroes are sketched side-by-side with cowardly curmudgeons and simpering traitors.

The classical authors are educators and the characters in their writings must be considered carefully if we are to derive benefit from them. Since the figures encountered in the classics are flawed models, we must work to separate their good qualities from their base inclinations. Reading the classics requires actively seeking and pondering what might be worthy of imitation.

It is worthwhile, however. Erasmus tells his readers in his “Enchiridion” that carefully reading the classics is an education which prepares the student to live well with others: 

“If you, taking the example of the bee, flying round about by the gardens of old authors, shall sip only the wholesome and sweet nectar (the poison refused and left behind), your mind shall be a great deal better appareled and armed for the communal life or conversation in which we live with one another in honest manner.” 

Through reading in the “gardens of old authors,” we are given the opportunity to see the world through the eyes of Hector, Aeschylus, or Aristotle, who relentlessly ask us to consider the nature of glory, justice, and goodness. Seeking answers to these questions imbues the mind with a habitual vision of greatness — a daily attempt to pursue the beautiful and the noble which informs our daily life and relationships with others. 

So I urge you: be a bee and take a classics course. Fly about the gardens of the classics department, sipping the nectar of those examples worthy of imitation and refusing the poison of those things that are base in beginning and end. Learn Latin or Greek, read Homer and Aeschylus, ponder Aeneas’ “pietas,” carefully contrast Cicero and Catilina, for in so doing you will find dishonor to shun and mightiness to admire.