The Classic College

1777

John Smith is promoted from tutor to faculty member. His title is "Professor of English, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee, Etc."

1850

Students put their classical education to practical use by renaming the privy "the Temple of Cloacina" (Latin for "cleanse").

1870

The new Dartmouth curriculum allows two electives: French and calculus.

1876

The College stays the course as peer institutions move away from classicsbased curricula. "Why can't we do something first?" complains The Dartmouth's editor. "Must conservative Dartmouth always follow?"

1879

The Trustees establish the Latin Scientific Course. Students are permitted to substitute math, science, and modern languages for ancient Greek. Students are awarded a bachelor of literature degree.

1881

Interliners—booklets that provide line-by-line translations of ancient texts-are big sellers at the bookstore.

1900

Latin Sounds (Linguistics 10) is no longer offered.

1902

The Greek requirement for the A.B. degree is dropped.

1920

Richard Husband leaves the classics department and becomes Dartmouth's (and the nation's) first director of college personnel. Husband pioneers the use of psychological testing, vocational guidance, and psychotherapy.

1927

Professor of Greek Charles Darwin Adams retires. "His very name," writes historian Ralph Nading Hill '39, "happily or unhappily, depending on one's point of view, demonstrates the fact that the classics were being pushed out of the front pew by the sciences."

1989

The ancientnovel, in translation, makes an academic comeback. Classicists from around the world convene at Dartmouth to discuss such topics as "Erotic Narrative: Virginity and Going the Whole Hog" and "The Erotic Bath in Byzantine and Vernacular Romance."

Although the classics-based curriculumhas been plowed under, the College stillpays homage to it on mispecial occasions such as ground-breaking for the Hop