Harvard University, the oldest educational establishment in the most technologically advanced civilization in the history of the world, does not lightly choose topics for the attention of its scholars. Only after a third of a millenium of deliberation does a subject
Harvard University, the oldest educational establishment in the most technologically advanced civilization in the history of the world, does not lightly choose topics for the attention of its scholars. Only after a third of a millenium of deliberation does a subject matter such as "Humanities 2. Epic and Drama" receive and official bow and become worthy of Harvard University.
What unfathomable honor, then, is due those 38 human beings who have been themselves declared the subject of a semester's course of study by this great University!
It goes without saying that these individuals are the most notable in recorded history. Harvard University has approved them. They alone are studied, rather than studying.
And by carefully analyzing this Olympian grouping, we can deduce many things about humanity. Everyone worth studying is male. Just under a fourth of them wrote in Latin or Greek. Another fourth wrote in English.
Very few (i.e. three) Americans are worth a semester's attention; and of those who are, two went to Harvard.
Included in the company of Harvard's Great Men are only three whose contribution was not literary, the artists Bosch and Michelangelo, and the architect (who built Server Hall) Richardson.
Only one Great Man is presently alive.
Shakespeare is acknowledged studyable by two separate courses; and Plato by two courses in different departments. No other men are twise-honored.
None of the great religious leaders are worthy of being the exclusive subject and title of a course, no statesmen, no scientists