Laudator Temporis Acti

William Lyon Phelps (1865-1943), Autobiography with Letters (New York: Oxford University Press, 1939), pp. 136-137 (on his college days at Yale):

Most of our classrooms were dull and the teaching purely mechanical; a curse hung over the Faculty, a blight on the art of teaching. Many professors were merely hearers of prepared recitations; they never showed any living interest, either in the studies or in the students. I remember we had Homer three hours a week during the entire year. The instructor never changed the monotonous routine, never made a remark, but simply called on individuals to recite or to scan, said 'That will do,' put down a mark; so that in the last recitation in June, after a whole college year of this intolerable classroom drudgery, I was surprised to hear him say, and again without any emphasis, 'The poems of Homer are the greatest that have ever proceeded from the the mind of man, class is dismissed,' and we went out into the sunshine. Two Freshmen instructors shone by contrast; a young teacher of Latin named Ambrose Tighe, who left Yale in a few years, and had a fine career as a lawyer and member of the legislature in Minnesota. He tried to teach us Roman history as well as Latin grammar; he talked about Horace as though Horace were a man about town, and he himself looked and acted like a man of the world. I remember his saying that he would like to teach us Lucretius, but that he did not know enough; 'for,' said he, 'in comparison with Lucretius, the entire works of Horace and Virgil sink into insignificance.' The older members of the Faculty looked upon Mr. Tighe with suspicion. He made Latin interesting; and they got rid of him.

One of our instructors in Greek, the opposite in all respects of the Greek teacher I have mentioned, was Horatio Reynolds; he had a defective leg, and was by us affectionately called 'step-and-a-half,' shortened to 'Steppy'—while later college generations always spoke of him as 'Limpy.' He was universally beloved. He told us we ought to read some Greek history outside of the classroom. Therefore for several months, I stayed up one hour later, and every night from ten to eleven, I read Grote's History of Greece—one of the best things I ever did.