Jaeger Commends Classics For Great 'Spiritual' Value

Praising the classics for their "spiritual importance," Werner W. Jaeger, University professor, yesterday called for greater emphasis on the studies of Greek and Latin, and pointed hopefully to the increasing number of students in those courses.

According to Professor Jaeger, who teaches Greek Ab, Bb, and 10, "we need some standards in our education." With such "timeless values" as we find in Greek culture, "we can go back to fundamental principles when going through a period of vaciliation and doubt" such as the present.

Drop in Classical Enrollment

A survey of course enrollments shows 35 Greek and 13 Latin students in the present term, as compared with 27 and 19, respectively, for those subjects in the summer. If this rate is maintained, the college year 1944-45 will show an increase of almost 10 per cent over 1943-44 in the proportion of classical students to the total college enrollment.

The ten year period from 1930 to 1940 showed a drop in Greek and Latin students. In 1930, there were 415 taking classics courses out of 3240, while, ten years later, an enrollment of almost 4,000 showed 384 in the courses. Despite the shift in emphasis to the natural sciences during the war, Latin and Greek boasted 204 students of a 2,475 enrollment in 1942-43.

Professor Jaeger urges educators to "keep the torch burning," and "keep alive something that will never belong to the past." In answer to those who look upon ancient history and classical languages as dead, Jaeger defines history as "the knowledge of that which is permanently alive."

Technological Progress

Pointing out that modern man has had "amazing technological progress," Jaeger adds that this civilization "had developed more than any other the power of self-destruction. "The humanities," he says, "give needed direction 'to our scientific advancement'."

Jaeger came to Harvard in 1936 from the University of Berlin, where he served as professor of Classics. Former member of the board of directors of the Archaelogical Institute of the German Roich, he is now director of the Harvard Institute for Classical Research.