Fritz Klug: Why keeping the classics is important in creating a full education

A marble sculpture of ancient Greek wrestlers from 510 BC. (PETROS GIANNAKOURIS)
Fritz Klug | By Fritz Klug |
Email the author | Follow on Twitter
on May 11, 2014 at 8:20 AM, updated May 11, 2014 at 11:20 AM

Michigan State University graduated its last classical studies major last week, becoming one of the few top universities that does not offer specialization in the discipline.

It's going to be a sad day in East Lansing when there are no students left on campus who can translate the texts of the Greek historian Herodotus, and reinterpret and tell their generation about the true greatness of the Spartans.

The university announced in 2009 it was ending the study of Greek and Latin as part of a larger push to reassess the school's priorities. But it's shortsighted to end the study of the language and culture that has been fundamental in the development of European and American thinking over the past 3,000 years.

Related: MSU better serves modern students by killing classical studies

MSU was founded as an agricultural college and help provide students the tools and knowledge needed to put food on the table of Americans. President Lou Anna Simon said last week that the university "boldly recast its land grant mission to meet new challenges and opportunities and to innovate our future.”

Cutting the classical studies should not be part of that.

I studied Latin and Greek in high school and college. Learning the ancient languages taught me how to focus on accuracy and critical thinking. It gave me a deeper understanding of language, culture and ways to approach complex subjects - valuable skills in a shifting economy.

Kalamazoo College students who studied foreign languages saw some of the highest growth in critical thinking ability during their four years at college. Students of the classics also scored higher, on average, on the LSAT test to get into law school than any other major. High school students who studied Latin had overall higher SAT and college grade point averages than any other students.

For me, a typical night's homework would be to read and translate 40 lines of Virgil's "Aeneid." For class, we would craft a working English translation. In class, the professor would call on a student to read lines of the Latin or Greek aloud and repeat it in English, without looking at their translation.

Then the professor would ask: Why did you use this word over that word? Is there a reason why that verb was translated as active over passive?

We would be asked the same questions if we were right or wrong. It was about being confident and defending our work. It was a mental bootcamp. Like physical training, you can't fake working out. In our case, you couldn't fake preparing for class.

I never took a proper journalism class at the Western Michigan University, but started working at the student newspaper. My work was good enough for an internship at the Kalamazoo Gazette, which led to other internships, a part-time and ultimately full-time job. I attribute that success and adaptability to the skills I learned from the classics.

Some people say we should cut the classics because they don't provide practical outcomes.

For people who are making major investments in their degrees, job-centered training programs may be a good fit. I went to college on a full ride thanks to the Kalamazoo Promise scholarship and felt free to explore courses. But I don't think treating the university like a vocational school should be the response to higher education costs.

With our rapidly changing world, people need to be flexible. A degree in liberal arts and the classics provides students with a broad range of knowledge and skills that help them adapt.

A clause in the Morrill Act, which established Land Grant universities like MSU, states that the agricultural and mechanical training should not exclude "other scientific and classical studies." The university should stay true to that vision.

Fritz Klug is a news buzz reporter for MLive. He attended Western Michigan University and double majored in Latin and history. He also studied Greek. Contact him at or 269-370-0584. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or