Latin, that is. So says  Evan Colby, the only student  in the world who earned a perfect score on the AP Latin exam last year. And if you ask him how Latin is different from (Not than - please, Evan) everything else that he has studied, he will probably tell you what he recently told the News and Observer,  “I  like the rules that came with it.”
He’s right again, I suspect.  We don’t hear a lot about the importance of rules in education these days, but some very talented students, I believe, are attracted to Latin and Greek because the ancient languages have such distinctive structures to express meaning.  Sure, they are hard to master for an English speaker. They take discipline, and for some students that is part of their appeal.  They reward disciplined study by making it possible to live a more disciplined life.  What’s more they  have a jackpot: master the rules, learn the vocabulary and you win a free trip back a couple of thousand years, and when you get there, you can understand  what people are saying and thinking.  What a deal!
Evan’s comments remind me that we shouldn’t try to hide from students that Latin and Greek require disciplined learning.  They are a Marine Corps boot camp for serious students.  We shouldn’t try to make them look like English, or Spanish, or Film Studies or other fine and edifying subjects.   That’s not what they are.  These languages are different. They demand discipline and they reward it.  
 
 

 
 Today’s News and Observer reports that leaders of the NC legislature are considering a plan drastically o lower tuition at some public universities in the state.  Sounds good, doesn’t it? But read on. The legislators  ”have focused on financial models for a less expensive degree at historically black Elizabeth City State, Fayetteville State and Winston-Salem State, and UNC Pembroke, once known as Pembroke State College for Indians.”  These legislators have not won a reputation for being sympathetic to African-Americans and other minorities in the state. This plan sounds to me like second class education for second-class citizens.
 
And why right now? The new president of the University, Margaret Spellings, takes office on March 1.  She is, we are told, “up to speed on the discussions. “ Will she be presented with a fait accompli?  Or is she happy that someone else will take the heat for this very dubious plan?  The legislature should wait until she is in a position to speak her own mind on educational issues. Meantime, she should be insisting on time for an in depth study of the proposal. .  Where is Mrs. Spellings when we need her?


 “

 
Swarthy Zeno liked to sunbathe, thereby making his dark skin even darker. The Pythia must have notice that when, perhaps fed up with poolside basking, he went to Delhi and asked what he should do to lead the best possible life. She coined a new word for her answer: “Synchromatize with the corpses.”  Zeno didn’t miss a beat. He knew right off the solution to her riddle, and went off to read old books.  Scholar’s pallor was what he needed. So he started reading the classics.
The story is in Diogenes Laertius’ Lives of the Eminent Philosophers 7.2.  But it doesn’t stop there.  Back in Athens he sat down in a bookseller’s shop, and of all the old books there, chose the second book of Xenophon’s Memories of Socrates.  It changed his life.  You can try the experiment yourself, and see if the results replicate. 

 
 Here are the  figures now being reported  for endowment per student in 2013/14 at six leading colleges and universities:
Princeton       2,529,051
Yale                1,744,556
Harvard         1,740,445
Stanford        1,475,225
Pomona        1,332,568
Swarthmore  !,207,637  
 
You got it right! These figures are for endowment per student. Tuition income, annual funds etc. are not included. At a 5% spending rate  …  well, you get the picture.
 
Not long ago I would have rejoiced that such fine institutions were doing so well. Now things seem to have reached absurd levels; The discrepancy between rich institutions and all the others keeps growing.  Some fine colleges are struggling to do a good job with endowments under $50,000 per student, and projects such as the Paideia Institute  which we know have powerfully beneficial effects on disadvantaged students struggle to do get the support they need.
 
  It’s time to blow the whistle. And time to shift gears.
 
These endowments are growing fast, in part from successful capital campaigns but also because college endowments are tax exempt, and because spending rates are often quite low.    Is it any wonder then that bad ideas are  keep surfacing, calls for free tuition at Harvard, for example, (a giveaway to rich parents), and various schemes to “recover the taxpayer’s money that is “being lost,” thanks to the tax exempt status of these endowments. Of course, it is not ”taxpayer’s money.” These funds are the result of gifts from private individuals who over the years have contributed to these institutions so they could advance and transmit knowledge.
 
But, no matter what, the more the endowments grow the louder will be the demands to tax them.  They are sitting duck for populist politicians on the right as well as on the left. The only way to avoid that, I believe, is by a pre-emptive strike: a consortium of colleges contribute to a fund to address structural problems that currently keep talented young people from getting a first rate education – the quality of high school instruction, the skewed admission process, curricular weaknesses in many colleges, etc. 
A 1% annual contribution from the endowments of just these six colleges would yield over a billion dollars a year for structural improvements that could strengthen all of higher education.  It’s time to be proactive.