AMERICAN
FOUNDATION
FOR
GREEK
LANGUAGE AND CULTURE
* AFGLC
ATHENS EDUCATIONAL FORUM SEPTEMBER 14-15, 2002
THEME: “ The role of the Hellenic Paedia
and the Hellenic Culture in the Era of
Globalization ”
OPENING STATEMENT BY,
Chris P. Tsokos, Ph.D., President, AFGLC
John U. Balis, M.D. Executive Vice president AFGLC
OPENING STATEMENT
Quite
recently, the distinguished journalist and Washington Bureau Chief of
the St. Petersburg Times, Sarah Fritz, wrote, "Today's
politician looks nothing like the Founding Fathers, who were well-versed
in classical education and had an instinct to do the right thing for the
country." Likewise, the renowned historian and twice Pulitzer
Prize winner, David McCullough, when recently asked why the nation's
early leaders seem more capable than current leaders, answered, "Education
is a key difference. Our Founding Fathers received Classical educations;
they could read and write Greek." President Thomas Jefferson,
for example, spoke and wrote the Greek language fluently, and maintained a
library consisting of over 400 volumes in ancient Greek. The distinguished
Historian McCullough went on to say, "They had as their models the
Greek ideals…honor, virtue, and the good of society."
Does it not seem obvious, my friends that the surest way to restore the ethical and intellectual quality of world leadership is to improve the quality of education? To restore to primacy of place in the American curriculum those disciplines that gave our great leaders of the past their perspective, their understanding of the human adventure, their "instinct to do the right thing for the country"? To restore, in a word, the Classical core of American education, the roots of the whole of Western civilization that lie in Greece.
And yet for years the entire movement in education has been away from Classical traditions. But my friends there are no escaping the fact that our modern West has its deepest roots in ancient Greece and nowhere else: in Greece alone lie the foundations of democracy, intellectual freedom and the rights of man.
When we of AFGLC read again and again in our newspapers that one university after another has closed down its department of Classics, depriving their students, our leaders of tomorrow of the opportunity to study the culture and wisdom that are the very wellspring of our civilization, we say, "This is unacceptable! Something has to be done."
THE AMERICAN FOUNDATION FOR GREEK LANGUAGE AND CULTURE was created to reverse this disastrous trend. In our ten years of existence we have been able to accomplish some great achievements, which we will discuss later during this Forum. But for the moment, I am asking you, my friends, to join forces with us for a very noble task, the preservation and expansion of Greek Studies in the American university curriculum and elsewhere. We need as much help as we can get. Our responsibility is great; for if we fail in the preservation of the Hellenic heritage and culture, history will not forgive us, all of us.
