Page:Christian Greece and Living Greek.djvu/257

 GREEK AS INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE. 23$ veloped sense of beauty than any other people of a later age. Greek art is still alive, for it affords the high- est examples for our architects and sculptors. Everybody knows this to be a fact. The Greek language still lives, the same old Greek which is taught in our schools — taught, however, by the eye only. It is spoken by seven million people, and it is more beautiful and noble than any other language, just as Greek art is more beautiful and more noble than any other. There are, however, but few who seem to be be aware of this fact. Greek has once before now been the world's language. Its use was extended over a larger territory than the Latin. ** Grceca leguntur in omnibtis fere gentibus, Latina suis finibus,'" says Cicero. " La langue grecque deviendrait la langue tmiverselle, " Voltaire wrote. The humanists at the end of the Middle Ages caused its Renaissance. Let us hope that a second Renaissance and a brilliant period of the study of the Greek lan- guage will ensue, the final purpose of which can only be the greatest possible extension of gen- uine science and culture. The colleges have sprung from the Latin