THE CLASSICAL ASSOCIATION OF SOUTH AFRICA: APRIL 1956–JANUARY 1961

Abstract

With the declining numbers of classical scholars at universities and Latin teachers at schools in South Africa, a direct consequence of the ever-shrinking pool of students of Greek and Latin at school and university, it seems to be increasingly necessary and indeed urgent to record the history of the main organisation that has promoted, nurtured and administered the cause of Classics in this country, the Classical Association of South Africa (CASA). In addition, the Association is approaching its 50th year (1956–2006), which deserves to be celebrated. Such a history ought to document the activities, issues, decisions and events that shaped the association, but also pay tribute to the people who in all sorts of ways and to many varying degrees contributed to the origins and development of the association. That is the aim of this series of articles. The material for this history has been gathered from the association’s archive held in the Department of Greek and Latin Studies at the University of Johannesburg (formerly the Rand Afrikaans University).1 The archive material consists of (1) the documents generated by the Executive Committee in its administration of the Association; (2) the financial documents; (3) the general correspondence; and (4) membership lists. This account has been based almost entirely on (1), since this is where the functioning of the Association has its centre.2 Administrative correspondence between members of the Executive Committee is referred to by sender (C = Chairperson; ST = Secretary-Treasurer; S = Secretary; T = Treasurer; EC = Executive Committee) with the date. Other correspondence is identified by the name of the sender. Personal matters and opinions exchanged in confidence in the correspondence have been excluded.3