Saturday, October 28, 2023
The Snob-Value of the Classics
Ronald A. Knox (1888-1957), Let Dons Delight: Being Variations on a Theme in an Oxford Common-Room (London: Sheed & Ward, 1939), pp. 264-265:
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I don't see how one's to eliminate class-consciousness without eliminating classics-consciousness. God knows why it should be so, but as a matter of observation it seems to me quite certain that the whole legend of the "English gentleman" has been built up on Latin and Greek. A. meets B. on the steps of his club, and says, "Well, old man, eheu fugaces, what?", and B. says "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori", and the crossing-sweeper falls on his knees in adoration of two men who can talk as learnedly as that. Nobody can really explain the ridiculous prominence the classics still have in English education except by admitting that what saves them is their snob-value.
