Quips from Cicero are uncommon in the engineers’ lab; Ahab and Jael rarely provide a parable for biologists; and few civil servants seek a guide for policy in the examples of Jefferson or Pitt. Yet a hundred, or even fifty, years ago a tradition of culture, based on the classics, on Scripture, on history and literature, bound the educated classes together and projected the image of a gentleman.

J.H. Plumb in “The Sorry State of History,” Horizon Volume V, Number 7, Summer 1963 (p97).