John Stuart Mill on the Utility of Classical Greece
What was the state of classical Greek studies in early Victorian Britain? The anonymous author of a series of Platonic translations-with-commentaries has this to say in the February 1834 issue of the Monthly Repository: Considering the almost boundless reputation of the writings of Plato, not only among scholars, but (upon their authority) among nearly all who have any tincture of letters, it is a remarkable fact that, of the great writers of antiquity, there is scarcely one who, in this country at least, is not merely so little understood, but so little read. Our two great ‘seats of learning’ of which no real lover of learning can ever speak but in terms of indignant disgust, bestow attention upon the various branches of classical acquirement in exactly the reverse order to that which would be observed by persons who valued the ancient authors for what is valuable in them: … with the exception of the two dialogues edited by Dr. Routh, we are aware of nothing to facilitate the study of the most gifted of Greek writers which has ever emanated from either of the two impostor-universities of England; and of die young men who have obtained university honours during the past ten years, we are much misinformed if there be six who had even looked into his writings. There are, probably, in this kingdom, not so many as a hundred persons who ever have read Plato, and not so many as twenty who ever do.’
The Romantic Tide Reaches Trinity: Notes on the Transmission and Diffusion of New Approaches to Traditional Studies at Cambridge, 1820‐1840
Therefore your Halls, your ancient Colleges, Your portals statued with old kings and queens, Your gardens, myriad-volumed libraries, Wax-lighted chapels, and rich carven screens, Your doctors, and your proctors, and your deans, Shall not avail you, when the Day-beam sports New-risen o‘er awakened Albion. No! Nor yet your solemn organ-pipes that blow Melodious thunders through your vacant courts At noon and eve, because your manner sorts Not with this age wherefrom ye stand apart, Because the lips of little children preach Against you, you that do profess to teach And teach us nothing, feeding not the heart. TENNYSON, Lines on Cambridge of 1830
History of Amateurism in Men's Intercollegiate Athletics: The Continuance of a 19th-Century Anachronism in America
Claiming that American intercollegiate athletics are amateur at the end of the 20th century is an anachronism, for colleges in the 19th century took on professional characteristics. The upper-class British concept of amateurism did not work effectively in a more egalitarian and achievement-oriented American society. Hypocrisy resulted when colleges claimed amateurism while accepting such professional practices as hiring professional coaches, allowing athletes to play summer baseball for money, and paying athletes through grants-in-aid. Attempts to preserve amateurism, such as the Graham Plan in the 1930s and the Sanity Code in the 1940s and 1950s, yielded to the professional spirit. Thus, while Americans had generally rejected the upper-class British social hierarchy that fostered amateurism, they retained the name amateur, continuing the hypocrisy that had begun in the previous century.