A Plea for the Classics by Eugene Field Presented by Michael Gilleland American poet and journalist Eugene Field (1850-1895) penned this half-comic, half-serious defence of teaching Latin and Greek in college. The scraps of Latin and Greek in the poem would have been familiar to most college students of his time: Amo, amas, amat = the Latin conjugation "I love, you love, he/she loves" kai, gar = common Greek words meaning "and" and "for" Zoa mou, sas agapo = a fragment of Greek meaning "My life, I love thee". Field's plea for the classics was rejected by the "Boston gentleman" and other educational reformers of his ilk. The Latin and Greek languages unfortunately have little or no place in the modern college curriculum. Home

A Plea for the Classics

A Boston gentleman declares,
  By all the gods above, below,
That our degenerate sons and heirs
  Must let their Greek and Latin go!
Forbid, O Fate, we loud implore,
  A dispensation harsh as that;
What! wipe away the sweets of yore;
  The dear "Amo, amas, amat"?

The sweetest hour the student knows
  Is not when poring over French,
Or twisted in Teutonic throes,
  Upon a hard collegiate bench;
'T is when on roots and kais and gars
  He feeds his soul and feels it glow,
Or when his mind transcends the stars
  With "Zoa mou, sas agapo"!

So give our bright, ambitious boys
  An inkling of these pleasures, too --
A little smattering of the joys
  Their dead and buried fathers knew;
And let them sing -- while glorying that
  Their sires so sang, long years ago --
The songs "Amo, amas, amat,"
  And "Zoa mou, sas agapo"!