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Harvard Admission Exam (1869) [pdf]

peterkrantz.com

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Re: Harvard Admission Exam (1869) [pdf]

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You could argue the same for the Greek and Roman empires at their height too.

Re: Harvard Admission Exam (1869) [pdf]

#42

I 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…

Latin is not magical. While your idea is old enough to be mostly quaint and charming, the fact of the matter is that it's completely unrealistic. Not only that; it's already been tried, although using Sanskrit, not Latin. You've basically rediscovered a bad idea from the 80ies

Quidquid latine dictum, altum videtur.

Re: Harvard Admission Exam (1869) [pdf]

#43
post #39

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.

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 studen…

Conservative, in this case, means what it means in every case where it has a meaning: preferring not to change without a good reason. A practice having survived for centuries is not necessarily a good thing, but it at least indicates that many generations of people found it valuable, and suggests to the conservative that it might be better preserved than abandoned. I think an understanding of this difference in our outlook would probably answer the rest of your questions.

Re: Harvard Admission Exam (1869) [pdf]

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You could argue the same for the Greek and Roman empires at their height too.

That depends on what you consider their height: the height of their power, or the height of their culture — which I would argue happened at different times.

Re: Harvard Admission Exam (1869) [pdf]

#45
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that a lot of the "Latin helps you with English" meme comes from the coming together of a couple of things: 1. Some schools wanting to teach Latin at least in part simply because it was part of a classical Western curriculum but 2. Wanting to justify that inclusion based on more modern practical concerns than it just being something properly educated people learn. Nothing against Latin or classical Western…

Personally Latin helped me with English mostly because my Latin classes were the only place I ever got any formal instruction in English grammar.

English might be German, French, etc. influenced, but it's nowhere as straightforward as German. Also, it is no surprise that it's about as difficult to learn as a foreign language as Xhosa.

Re: Harvard Admission Exam (1869) [pdf]

#46
While the point behind posting these entrance exams is often to make a commentary on a decline in education standards, I'd suggest that it really shows nothing of the sort. The exam is, in fact, rather easy and simplistic, and only seems difficult because of different priorities.

The grasp of Latin and Greek required for the language portions is minimal. This is particularly the case because, for the translation portions, all vocabulary is provided, including words that should be instinctively known by anyone with any grasp of the languages (esse in the first question!? καἰ?). Any foreign language test today would be significantly more difficult.

The mathematics section looks intimidating only because it involves dealing with difficult numbers by hand. There are specific techniques that would have been taught to work through such problems efficiently, but teaching them now isn't particularly useful. Conversely, the more conceptual and abstract questions are very simple: asking what a prime number is? Asking why exponents are added under multiplication?

The history and geography section, meanwhile, is mainly concerned with regurgitation of facts covering very narrow sections of the subject. Perhaps the question asking for the difference between Athens and Sparta could allow some deeper discussion, but most do not.

Overall, the test is focused on questions about specific topics requiring memorization rather than questions testing deeper insight and understanding. It's not something that should be looked back on as some product of a better age.

Re: Harvard Admission Exam (1869) [pdf]

#47
post #19

I 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…

Most of the application of Latinate concepts (those systems you mention) to English grammar are pretty faulty. It's what led us down the path to people complaining about split infinitives, and all that nonsense up with which I refuse to put. It leads to situations that are akin to someone trying really hard to write a Java program in Ruby. Which isn't to say that learning Latin doesn't improve grammar skills, or push…

Right. It's amazing how many people don't realize English is a Germanic language and that despite the fact we absorbed a lot of Romance words from Norman French and other places, we still have a Germanic grammar. (For one thing, our adjectives go before our nouns, not after: We have a "red dog", not a "perro rojo".)

Re: Harvard Admission Exam (1869) [pdf]

#48

I 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…

I respectfully disagree. I had Latin in school for 7 years and while I didn't learn as much as I should have, I know enough to discuss about. Latin, as all other languages, wasn't designed, it grew organically. As such, it has many annoying inconsistencies and I don't feel that they add much to the language. Why do you feel Latin might be part of the key to artificial intelligence?

> Latin, as all other languages, wasn't designed

To be fair, some languages were designed, such as Volapük, Esperanto, Ido, Lojban, Klingon, Sindarin, Verdurian, and other, less-known examples.

Re: Harvard Admission Exam (1869) [pdf]

#49

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.

In 1869, if you were white, upper-crust, and Our Kind, you had a shot at Harvard.

Otherwise, get back to your manual labor, peon. We don't take you your type around here.

Re: Harvard Admission Exam (1869) [pdf]

#50

I 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…

Auxilium! Non possum surgere et decidi. - Last words of Beowulf :)

Probably something more like 'Ekhjelpe! Ek hefi ratað eða get ek ei standa'.
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