Editing Classics (section)

===19th century===
The 19th century saw the influence of the [[classical world]], and the value of a [[classical education]], decline,<ref>{{harvnb|Becker|2001|p=309}}</ref> especially in the United States, where the subject was often criticised for its [[elitism]].<ref>{{harvnb|Becker|2001|p=313}}. Educator Benjamin Rush, for instance, deemed the classics to be "remnants of an aristocratic education unsuited to a republican nation and an industrial economy." Margaret Nash, ''Women's Education in the United States, 1780–1840'', p. 218, note 110 (2005).</ref> By the 19th century, little new literature was still being written in Latin – a practice which had continued as late as the 18th century – and a command of Latin declined in importance.<ref name="Kristeller 1978 590"/> Correspondingly, classical education from the 19th century onwards began to increasingly de-emphasise the importance of the ability to write and speak Latin.<ref name="Kristeller 1978 591"/> In the United Kingdom this process took longer than elsewhere. [[Composition (language)|Composition]] continued to be the dominant classical skill in England until the 1870s, when new areas within the discipline began to increase in popularity.<ref name="Stray 1996 81">{{harvnb|Stray|1996|p=81}}</ref>
In the same decade came the first challenges to the requirement of Greek at the universities of [[University of Oxford|Oxford]] and [[University of Cambridge|Cambridge]], though it would not be finally abolished for another 50 years.<ref name="Stray 1996 83">{{harvnb|Stray|1996|p=83}}</ref>

Though the influence of classics as the dominant mode of education in Europe and [[North America]] was in decline in the 19th century, the discipline was rapidly evolving in the same period. Classical scholarship was becoming more systematic and [[Science|scientific]], especially with the "new [[philology]]" created at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century.<ref name="Rommel 2001 169">{{harvnb|Rommel|2001|p=169}}</ref> Its scope was also broadening: it was during the 19th century that [[ancient history]] and [[classical archaeology]] began to be seen as part of classics, rather than separate disciplines.<ref name="Stray 1996 81"/>