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Milton and Shakespeare? Or Homer and Virgil? Why should our students study Greeks and Romans when we have English-language poets, philosophers, and historians worthy to be placed on the same level as the ancients? Maybe because the “ancients” aren’t really so ancient after all… 

So argues Thomas Arnold in his defense of the classical curriculum he instituted at Rugby School. Jonathan and Ryan use Arnold’s “Use of the Classics” essay, his defense of classical education, to distinguish between two things that are nowadays often conflated: a “classical” curriculum and a “Great Books” curriculum.

Richard M. Gamble’s The Great Tradition: https://amzn.to/3Q4lRnO

Lytton Strachey’s Eminent Victorians: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780199555017

Helen Andrews’s Boomers: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780593086759

Thomas Hughes’s Tom Brown’s Schooldays: https://amzn.to/3vEZNYQ

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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