19th Century Admissions Test

I was just introduced to a 19th Century admissions "test" for Amherst College.  I'd assume that the test was similar to those for other institutions.  Wow!  Applicants were expected to know math, including algebra, and English grammar, yes, grammar!  But the real test was in Latin and Greek--both!  Yikes.

Of course it was a different time with different goals of a college education.  I think Amherst, at the time of this test, was still a college mostly dedicated to preparing young men for the ministry.  Still, it was fascinating to take the test.  BTW, I cheated and was admitted, as long as I could afford the $36 room, board, and tuition.  That translates to about $10,000 today, a far cry from the $60,000 plus now required.  (I think it was about $3,200 when I began as a freshman.  Four years later it was a little more than $5,400.)

I'm doing some reading now, history books.  I was taken by this, after reading an article about some NY legislator (maybe even a member of Congress) who wants to changed the names of several NYC streets that bear the names of Robert E. Lee, Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, etc.  My curiosity was piqued as I recall many historians agreeing with such changes.  So, then, do these same historians, in their writings still refer to rulers as "...the Great," as in Cyrus the Great, Alexander the Great, Peter the Great, Frederick the Great, and others?  After all, "Great" is appended to their names because of their conquests, right, or if not their conquests directly their rule based upon their conquests.  Didn't they subjugate their own and other peoples?  Weren't a lot of people killed in their wars of conquest?  Or is the problem with Lee and Jackson that they fought for the South, trying to retain a way of life that included slavery?  But these "Greats" also fought to keep ways of life that included slavery, granted of a different variety.  Even to their subjects who weren't slaves, didn't they demand and exact heavy taxes/tribute?  So, that these men made significant contributions to civilization and history, it's OK to overlook their bad behavior?  I don't know.  I am just asking.

According to most sources, the majority of college instructors identify as liberals, some even more so as progressives.  They believe in more government, bigger government.  That is the answer to everything, more and bigger government.  So, as I am reading some books this summer, written by college instructors, I am reminded of the many civilizations that declined and even died because of the stultifying effects of domineering governments.  The authors cite countries whose economies wilted or suffered, whose people paid the prices due to what they call "overbearing regulations," "heavy taxes," and "uncontrolled bureaucracies."  And these books also note that some of these countries have rebounded by "opening up" opportunities by "the reduction of suffocating regulations and bureaucracies."  One noted how one nation (It might have been India before the '90s.) declined until it rid itself of a regulation that required "around eighty agencies' approval before a company could do business."  So, how do they reconcile what they obviously know about history with their political beliefs/philosophy?

It is humbling to know we belong to a species that could perpetrate such atrocities as The Holocaust and slavery/the slave trade.