Laudator Temporis Acti

Eleanor Dickey, "Mabel Louise Lang (1917-2010)," Classical World 104.4 (Summer, 2011) 504-505 (at 504):

Despite the importance of her research, Lang's main contribution to the profession was probably her teaching, particularly her legendary elementary Greek class, through which she introduced more than a thousand students to the Greek language. Many of her former elementary Greek students went on to enter the profession, as classicists, archaeologists, historians, and historical linguists, and all share a deep appreciation of the thoroughness with which they learned Greek, coupled with a tremendous relief at never needing to go through an experience like that again. Lang's classes, from elementary to graduate level, were famous for their impossible workload, but at the same time she had a cult status that led to her classes being over-subscribed: when the 9 A.M. elementary Greek class filled up she could offer an extra section at 8 A.M. and fill that too.

Eleanor Dickey and Richard Hamilton, "Mabel Louise Lang:12 November 1917-21 July 2010)," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 156.2 (June, 2012) 245-250 (at 248-249):

Despite her impressive research record, Miss Lang (as she was known to her students) was always first and foremost a teacher. Happily shouldering a load of ten or more teaching hours each semester, she taught on a regular basis everything from elementary Greek and mythology to graduate seminars, and was legendary for giving every student in every class an extraordinary level of care and attention. She inspired a rare mixture of terror and adoration that caused students to discover capacities for learning that they had no idea they possessed.

Miss Lang's signature undergraduate course, which she offered nearly every year from the time she joined the faculty until her retirement, was elementary ("Baby") Greek, a course renowned among the undergraduate population as the ultimate Bryn Mawr experience. In the first semester the students learned all the grammar of ancient Greek, and in the second they read Plato's Apology and Crito, the Gospel according to Matthew (for sight translation practice), and sometimes Euripides' Alcestis as well. The course offered not only a solid foundation for future study of Greek, but also friends for life in the form of the other students who had survived the experience.

Despite meeting at nine a.m. four days a week, Baby Greek was so well attended that often a second section had to be added at eight a.m.; in a college with an annual intake of fewer than three hundred students, Miss Lang's Baby Greek classes had an average enrollment of twenty-two and in some years more than twice that number. During her teaching career she introduced nearly a thousand students to the Greek language via this course. Each year's students were ruthlessly compared with those from preceding years and told how far they fell behind (more than one group heard, "I've taught this class every year for forty years, and this is the worst group of students I've ever had!" or "Ten years ago we were three chapters ahead by this date!"). Yet these tactics only served to increase her status among the students.