What I see here is this: In 1869, as for centuries before, we valued learning that expresses and enables a grasp of over 2000 years of Western culture. In 2015, we barely value the culture of two hundred years ago. I'm innately conservative, I think, and that serious a change in our values worries me.
Harvard Admission Exam (1869) [pdf]
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Re: Harvard Admission Exam (1869) [pdf]
#32What I see here is this: In 1869, as for centuries before, we valued learning that expresses and enables a grasp of over 2000 years of Western culture. In 2015, we barely value the culture of two hundred years ago. I'm innately conservative, I think, and that serious a change in our values worries me.
Could a piece of this simply be that in the 1860's the US hadn't really surpassed the grandeur Greek and Roman empires at their peak, but now we have?
Re: Harvard Admission Exam (1869) [pdf]
#33What I see here is this: In 1869, as for centuries before, we valued learning that expresses and enables a grasp of over 2000 years of Western culture. In 2015, we barely value the culture of two hundred years ago. I'm innately conservative, I think, and that serious a change in our values worries me.
Could a piece of this simply be that in the 1860's the US hadn't really surpassed the grandeur Greek and Roman empires at their peak, but now we have?
I'm not sure "grandeur" is a word I'd use to describe the United States. Glitter, perhaps, and certainly bustle, but I don't see much grandeur in our lives. I think it's both interesting and relevant that the word "pompous" could once describe a positive trait; frequently, Handel's music was praised for its pompous solemnity.
Re: Harvard Admission Exam (1869) [pdf]
#34I learned Latin in high school, and I learned from an old moving picture and from some old CEO who was one of the few who went to college in his time where he picked to major in Latin and math, that Latin had a far more mainstream role in academia, such that it could propel one to a CEO position of a really big company and that it could be used as one of the basis of a college entrance exam. Latin gave me the ability…
That's just the classic false attachment of Latin constructs to English usage. French, Italian etc. obviously derive from Latin while the Germanic languages do not, much to the disgrace of the self professed enlightened classes for the last several hundred years.
I don't mean to defend the Latin crowd here, but your argument is flawed.
It's true that English historically comes from the Germanic side of the tree -- starting with Old Frisian with later Old Norse influences. However, the last millennium has been a long process of romancification:
* post-Hastings, all of the English ruling class spoke Norman French for centuries
* the Latin church, which was for a long time the main source of literate people
* a heavy dose of classics in school meant that the educated classes would consciously turn to Latin (and to a lesser extent Greek) when coining new words and phrases
You're right that English is Germanic by heritage. However modern English vocabulary is probably as close to French than anything else. Knowing some rudimentary Latin does let you decipher a lot of etymologies.
Re: Harvard Admission Exam (1869) [pdf]
#35Faster/working download of what I think is the same document.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/harvarde...
Re: Harvard Admission Exam (1869) [pdf]
#36Remember what the purpose of the exam was... They weren't testing your knowledge, they were testing your social class. At the time Harvard was a school for the white upper crust private school elite of the Northeast. This test ensured that they could fill their classes with just those people.
It isn't a perfect meritocracy today, but they've come a long way in being more inclusive.
Re: Harvard Admission Exam (1869) [pdf]
#37The test goes into classics and is succinct, whereas today the hazing rituals are pedantic.
People forget the importance of the unwritten history of academia's cultural separation until modern times: how exclusive and unreachable universities once were, and that one's primary qualifications were less academic (hence photographs and interviews) and would be viewed today as enormously discriminatory (and today, illegal). It's important to recount this unpleasant fact to not fall into those traps or adopt new or subtle shades of them if unostensible diversity is a primary virtue.
Re: Harvard Admission Exam (1869) [pdf]
#38The link isn't loading for me, so here's HN's discussion on a Harvard entrance exam from 1869: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3312240
It's probably the same one; the one linked here is stamped "1899" because that's the year it was entered into the Harvard library, but the date "July, 1869" is clearly visible on the bottom of every single page. The original poster wasn't paying attention.
Thanks. We added that to the title.
Re: Harvard Admission Exam (1869) [pdf]
#39What I see here is this: In 1869, as for centuries before, we valued learning that expresses and enables a grasp of over 2000 years of Western culture. In 2015, we barely value the culture of two hundred years ago. I'm innately conservative, I think, and that serious a change in our values worries me.
Why does such a change in our values worry you? I don't follow what 'conservative' means here. Unless there's something tangibly better about learning this stuff than what we're learning today, I don't see why it should be in our curriculum.
It's not like we don't teach people about ancient history, right? If anything it seems more healthy that we do not wastefully teach relatively useless languages to all our students. It feels to me like Latin was emphasized in the 1800s by historical accident, and that it is progress that it has faded out of the curriculum.
More generally you use phrases like "as for centuries before" as if that's a positive quality, which doesn't seem like a substantial argument to me.
Re: Harvard Admission Exam (1869) [pdf]
#40Remember what the purpose of the exam was... They weren't testing your knowledge, they were testing your social class. At the time Harvard was a school for the white upper crust private school elite of the Northeast. This test ensured that they could fill their classes with just those people. It isn't a perfect meritocracy today, but they've come a long way in being more inclusive.
It's childish to downvote something unwritten that needs saying as important as historical discrimination. Even though the context of society at large was also extremely discriminatory, yet the loss of and failure of not capitalizing on bright minds and talent for any attribute was and is a disgrace. It's unpleasant to say or think about, but it's necessary to be broadly and deeply educated in reality. Also, one could argue SAT, ACT and similar standard tests often reinforces subtle biases along the lines of IQ tests.
Otherwise, the test itself is curious and reasonable for an entrance examination.
(Personal note: My parents refused to take me to interview to private primary schools that required pictures (We couldn't be more WASP) because they were firmly against supporting the inculcated exclusivity of attributes ahead of merit.)