Old but Good News for Budding Classicists

From The University: An Owner's Manual (1990):

Departments of the classics can usually handle more students very easily. To indicate an intention to major in a subject that is searching for increased undergraduate enrollments may in a particular year boost one's chances for admission, although it is difficult to find out which departments are facing a shortage.

A university college has never consisted of five hundred Mr. Chipses surrounded by a few thousand adoring and adorable undergraduates.

All of us who have reached advanced years can recall teachers whom we vigorously detested in high school or college, only to discover in more mature years the excellence of their instruction. As evidence, I can cite my own and nearly everyone else's high school Latin teacher.

From the same on a more sobering note:

Dim employment prospects and low salaries are bound to affect quality of students now and quality of faculty later. Some will choose the academic life no matter what–individuals who are fatally attracted by the virtues and show little concern for the vices. But in the more ordinary cases, young people make rational and cautious career choices. All of us want to lead decent, well-remunerated lives, and when obvious and interesting alternatives exist, they will be selected without hesitation. 

I include a few other quotes about the profession:

There are three professions which are entitled to wear the gown: the judge, the priest, and the scholar. This garment stands for its bearer's maturity of mind, his independence of judgement, and his direct responsibility to his conscience and his god. [quoted from E.K. Kantorowicz]

Personally, I would be thrilled to see a return to the scholar's gown on more occasions than a swelteringly hot day in May. Here is the rather obvious:

An assistant professor does not assist anyone; an associate professor is not anybody's associate. These are merely designations for independent scholars who receive low pay and little secretarial help, while performing the same tasks as full professors.

Elsewhere:

The chances of having courses taught well–with verve and imagination–are greatly diminished when content and structure are imposed by "outsiders" without debate and discussion. Anyone who has attended schools run by our armed forces will have little difficulty in appreciating this point.