The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s foundational decision not to teach Latin and Greek opened a vast curricular space for the specialized study of scientific and technological subjects and also for what are now called humanities and social sciences. A printed document headed “English, 1868–69” sets forth MIT ’s plan for a required four-year curriculum in which the professor of English would lecture on a wide range of subjects in the vernacular, from political economy and law, to history and philosophy, to language and literature. This essay traces the effects of a residual hostility against the “dead languages” that informed the teaching of classic English literature, which evinces a steady diminishment of the place of the humanities over time. Climactically, the essay explores a countervailing English examination given by a junior instructor that shows how the scientific and humanities curricula might have been made to work in concert.

中文翻译：

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莎士比亚、弥尔顿和麻省理工学院基础时期的人文学科

麻省理工学院不教授拉丁语和希腊语的基本决定为科学和技术学科的专业研究以及现在所谓的人文和社会科学开辟了广阔的课程空间。一份标题为“英语，1868-69”的印刷文件阐述了麻省理工学院的四年制必修课程计划，在该课程中，英语教授将讲授广泛的方言科目，从政治经济学和法律到历史和哲学，语言和文学。这篇文章追溯了对“死语言”的残余敌意的影响，这些“死语言”为经典英国文学的教学提供了信息，这表明人文学科的地位随着时间的推移而稳步下降。气候上，