Toga! Toga! Pa. university students recite Plato _ in public _ wearing garb of the ancients

Toga! Toga! Pa. college kids do Plato _ in public

SCRANTON, Pa. — Reciting Plato is hard enough. Try doing it dressed in a toga in the middle of a crowded student center at lunchtime.

No wonder University of Scranton honors students dread The Trivium, an intensive study of grammar, logic and rhetoric that’s unlike anything being taught at an American university today.

Call it a marriage of philosophy, communications and critical thinking.

Students at the Jesuit university read the classics, of course. But they also learn how to communicate their ideas clearly, confidently and effectively — even under such extreme circumstances as those professor Stephen Whittaker has conjured in his gleefully sadistic mind.

For the class finale, students don togas and gather in the busiest spot on campus for a public retelling of a Platonic dialogue.