Yesterday’s Grauniad had an obituary for John Aris, a computer analyst who participated in the first team that applied computing to business objectives: the LEO (Lyons Electronic Office) system, for J. Lyons, then a major food business in the United Kingdom.
Aris began his academic study in mathematics in secondary school, but decided that classics (the study of Latin and Greek) was more interesting and pursued that subject through Magdalen College, Oxford, where he graduated with a degree.
In 1958, when he was recruited to the LEO project, the prevailing wisdom was that only mathematicians were fit to program and operate computers. This opinion was the prevailing one through the mid-1970’s—when I attended Columbia University, the Computer Studies Department only accepted people from the mathematics and philosophy departments (philosophy because logic was taught as part of that discipline).
What attracts me to Aris is this quotation:
At the time, the prevailing view was that work with computers required a trained mathematician. The Leo management thought otherwise and recruited using an aptitude test. John, an Oxford classics graduate, passed with flying colours, noting that “the great advantage of studying classics is that it does not fit you for anything specific”.
I have found in my life as a Latin and Greek graduate of Columbia, that truer words have rarely been spoken. Aris went on to other major posts in computer companies and retired from active work in 2000. But he should be remembered not only for his participation in LEO, but for explaining why an education in the classics is uniquely fitting for life in the modern world. May he rest in peace and rise in glory.