Climbing Parnassus: A New Apologia for Greek and Latin

Discussions of educational reform often involve windy talk of a "return to the classics," yet rarely do would-be reformers go so far as to advocate a return to education in the classical languages themselves. That is a program that strikes even the most stalwart critics of contemporary educational mediocrity as quixotic, and perhaps even undesirable.
Tracy Lee Simmons readily concedes that there is little reason to hope for a widespread renascence in the teaching of Greek and Latin to our nation's schoolchildren. But he argues that, whatever its immediate prospects, an education in the classical languages is of inestimable personal and cultural value.
In Climbing Parnassus Simmons presents the reader not so much with a program for educational renewal as with a defense and vindication of the formative power of Greek and Latin. His persuasive witness to the unique, now all-but-forgotten advantages of study in and of the classical languages constitutes a bracing reminder of the genuine aims of a truly liberal education.