Tracy Lee Simmons

Climbing Parnassus: a New Apologia for Greek and Latin Tracy Lee Simmons

Discussions of educational reform often involve windy talk of a return to the classics, but as Tracy Lee Simmons notes, rarely do would-be reformers go so far as to advocate a return to education in the classical languages themselves. In this concise and elegant brief, Simmons traces the historical trajectory of Greek and Latin education, giving especial attention to the crucial importance such an education has had for the advocates of humanism -- in its Renaissance and descendent form -- and the Anglo-American world. His persuasive witness to the unique, now all-but-forgotten formative power of an education in Greek and Latin constitutes a bracing reminder of the genuine aims of a truly humanistic education. Tracy Simmons, a journalist and humanist, makes a compelling case for the relevance of the study of classics in interesting and untraditional arguments often unknown even by classicists. - Victor Davis Hanson, author, The Other Greeks, and co-author, Who Killed Homer? Tracy Simmons has written an earnest, poignant, but ultimately hopeful book, regretting what we have lost by abandoning classical education, but also describing what we might gain, for ourselves and for our children, by taking up that arduous, bracing path. - Richard Brookhiser, author, The Adamses: America's First Dynasty, 1735-1918.