When Glasgow-born Gilbert Highet started teaching Latin and Greek at Columbia University in 1937, he was struck with one persistent thought: "My students were always coming up to me after class and saying, 'Goodness, this is fascinating stuff. But why the devil wasn't it taught us before?' And I'd say, 'It probably was.' And then they'd admit, 'Well, I guess it was . . .' "
Some of the fault was the students', Highet decided, but a lot of it sounded like plain bad teaching. Last week, after chewing the subject over in his...
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