Page:Christian Greece and Living Greek.djvu/264

 242 CHRISTIAN GREECE AND LIVING GREEK. So long as Greek is taught in the schools ac- cording to the present methods, it will be consid- ered as a language too difficult to be learned, and could not be selected for a universal language. Greek is a living language and must be treated as such. It is difficult to find a proper expres- sion without using strong terms, to characterize the erroneous common opinion that Greek is a dead language ! We frequently meet with people who, having attained a certain degree of education, make this mistake, while as a matter of fact Greek news- papers are continually published and new books treating of various subjects also appear regu- larly in the Greek language. An uneducated man may be excused for such mistakes, as cer- tainly professional philologists have contributed not a little to the propagation of such views. Many professors of the classical languages simply pay no attention to the living Greek, without having even the least semblance of any grounds for such disregard; and yet they pro- nounce the language of the Muses according to the usage of their respective countries, in the English, Dutch, or German manner. The pro- nunciation, which ought to be alone the rule, is unknown to them, nor do they wish to know it.