``None may expect to be admitted into College but such as being examined by the President and Tutors shall be found able to render Virgil and Tully's Orations into English; and to turn English into true and grammatical Latin; and to be so well acquainted with the Greek as to render any part of the four Evangelists in that language into Latin or English; and to give the grammatical connexion of the words.''
The emphasis on classics in eighteenth-century education at Princeton -- and its diurnal rigor -- is well set forth in a letter dated February 13, 1750, from freshman Joseph Shippen of Philadelphia to his father: ``But I must give you an account of my studies at the present time. At seven in the morning we recite to the President lessons in the works of Xenophon in Greek, and in Watt's `Ontology.' The rest of the morning, until dinner time, we study Cicero de Oratore and the Hebrew Grammar.''
Throughout the nineteenth century, classical studies, like the College, flourished Dei sub Numine. Of the twenty or more professors, adjunct professors, and senior tutors who taught the subject, nine were Doctors of Divinity, and (a further sign of grace) thirteen were College of New Jersey Bachelors of Arts. In the first half of the century there was only one Ph.D. (from G”ttingen); in the last half there were relatively many. Princeton was moving toward university status. As early as 1869 a fellowship had been established for advanced study in classics.
Prominent classicists in the 1880s were Samuel R. Winans, Andrew Fleming West, and John H. Westcott. The history of the modern department begins with these three. Winans, a future dean of the faculty, became Professor of Greek in 1883; West, Professor of Latin in 1883 and Professor of Pedagogics in 1885. Westcott became Professor of Latin in 1889. Later, as head of the department under Woodrow Wilson, Westcott guided it to prominence with excellent appointments of numerous young men of great promise, many of whom became distinguished scholars: William Kelly Prentice (1900) in Greek history, epigraphy, and archaeology; David Magie (1905) in Roman history; Duane R. Stuart (1905) in Latin literature and ancient biography. West, raconteur par excellence, persuader supreme of powerful alumni, was already head of the Graduate School when Wilson became president of the University. Their clash over the location of the Graduate College reverberated for many years. In 1907 Frank Frost Abbott and Edward Capps were called from the University of Chicago. Abbott gave strength in Roman historical studies and Capps brought renown in Greek drama, epigraphy, and archaeology. Capps was also a man of affairs: American Red Cross commissioner in Greece 1918-19; United States Minister to Greece 1920-22; organizer of the American excavation of the Athenian Agora begun in 1930 under Professor T. Leslie Shear.
In 1912, the year John Grier Hibben became president, Allen Chester Johnson joined the faculty. He was a Roman historian and an outstanding papyrologist, cataloguer of the Greek papyri in the Princeton collection, and editor of the Princeton studies in papyrology. In 1919, the department gained Paul Coleman-Norton in Roman studies and Shirley Weber in Greek studies; Weber left in 1940 to become librarian of the Gennadeion of the American School in Athens.
The first quarter of the twentieth century was a time of national prestige for the department and of its greatest power within the University. Even as late as 1929, all Liberal Arts freshmen (400 of them) had to offer four years of Latin for admission and take a fifth year in colleg~e -- vestiges of a fading educational elitism, it has been said. In 1930 the requirement was abolished; Classics ceased being a vested interest and thus gained freedom to prosper on its own merits.
In 1927, Arthur L. Wheeler, specialist in Roman drama, was called from Bryn Mawr to take over the chairmanship of the department from Capps. He was succeeded in 1932 by Duane R. Stuart. The late twenties and the thirties brought judicious appointments such as those of Whitney J. Oates, Greek philosophy, founder of the Special Program in the Humanities and of the Council of the Humanities, originator of the idea of the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Program; Francis R. B. Godolphin, literary criticism, Roman elegy, English literature, and the Classics; John V. A. Fine, Greek history, mentor of graduate students; George E. Duckworth, Roman drama and ancient epic. Under their guidance the department emphasized the development of ``service'' courses that made available, in translation, the values and ideas embodied in the classics. While the concentrators became fewer, those who made significant, meaningful contact with classical culture became far more numerous.
After World War II Godolphin became dean of the college and Oates became chairman of the department. In the following years there were added to the staff Anthony Raubitschek, Greek studies; Frank C. Bourne, Roman history and law; Robert D. Murray, Greek tragedy and lyric poetry; Robert F. Goheen (later president of Princeton), Greek drama; and James I. Armstrong (who not much later became president of Middlebury College), Homeric studies. In the fifties, and most of the sixties, departmental graduate studies flourished. Under the leadership of Erik Sj”qvist and Richard Stillwell of Art and Archaeology the Program in Classical Archaeology, enthusiastically supported by the department, grew strong. The department made new affiliations on the graduate level with linguistics, philosophy, and comparative literature. Close ties were maintained with Classics at the Institute for Advanced Study; many of its members, such as Harold Cherniss in Greek philosophy, Benjamin Meritt in Greek epigraphy, and Homer Thompson in archaeology, contributed seminars in various years. Princeton became, and still remains, a world center for classical studies.
In 1961 Samuel D. Atkins, whose field is Indo-European and classical linguistics, succeeded to the chairmanship. A new generation moved to tenure in this decade. David Furley was called from the University of London to help run the Program in Classical Philosophy. Arthur Hanson, Latin literature, and W. Robert Connor, Greek history, came from the University of Michigan. T. James Luce was added in Roman studies, John Keaney in Greek studies, and Bernard Fenik in Homenc studies. The department survived the generation gap, student alienation, and proliferating permissiveness.
A brave new world started in the seventies. With the advent of coeducation, the University enrollment was larger~ and so too was the department's. Ann L. Bergren, Lois V. Hinckley, Janet M. Martin, and Carroll Moulton were added at the Junior level. Janet Martin's subsequent promotion to Associate Professor made her the first woman to attain tenure rank in the department. Edward J. Champlin and James E. Zetzel later joined the junior staff, and Froma I. Zeitlin came as Associate Professor. Interest flourished in medieval studies and in comparative literature, and the graduate program remained healthy despite severe pressures on academic hiring. Under the able leadership of W. Robert Connor, chairman from 1972 to 1977, the department maintained its national profile. T. James Luce became chairman in 1977. Always keeping in mind the Greek admonitions meden agan (nothing in excess!) and euphemeite (speak with silence!), one may, with caution, say that the future appears promising.
Samuel D. Atkins