The contemporary university is an uncomfortable amalgamation of ambitions once held by a variety of educational institutions. It owes debts to the philosophical schools of Ancient Greece and Rome, to the monasteries of the Middle Ages, to the theological colleges of Paris, Padua, and Bologna and to the research laboratories of early modern…

The author started in the Ph.D. program in comparative literature at Princeton in 1992, a year after she graduated from college. She fell in love with mythology and the classical traditions and find herself teaching literature. In the remainder of her time at Princeton, she precepted for four or five more classes, got the chance to join the…

Sponsored by a consortium of 30 American universities, Rome's Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies offers a year of study to American undergraduate classics majors. Instructors are also American and normally stay only a year; teaching assistants are always ex-students of the center. Extensive field trips are an important part of the…

One of the major changes in educational practices occurred during the Italian Renaissance, when a system of pre-university education based on a thorough grounding in the Latin, and to a lesser extent, the Greek classics began. This change started in early 15th century northern Italy and lasted until well into the 20th century. Italian school…