Page:Christian Greece and Living Greek.djvu/276

 2 54 CHRISTIAN GREECE AND LIVING GREEK. between the English of Chaucer and the English of to-day than there is between old and new Greek. The living, the Greek as it is spoken and written in Greece to-day, is the one which should be taught in our schools. The Greek as it is taught in general in our schools is simply a skeleton without life. Our college professors should not look upon Greek as a dead language, and above all they should give up pronouncing it in their barbarous, arbitrary manner. It appears to me that Greek, taught like other living languages, by one or the other modern methods — Meisterschaft's, or any similar system — is not more difficult to learn than French or Spanish, certainly much easier than German. If we commence with a regular ABC book, a First Reader, Fairy Tales, then read works of the best modern writers like Bikelas, we shall soon get the aim to acquire understanding, and highest pleasure in reading the old Greek classi- cal authors, much better, and without having to undergo the well-known tortures of the present school instruction. If the acquiring of the Greek language is thus made easier, and the classical Greek literature brought more and more within our reach, Kant's saying will become more obvious. " Even during the dark ages great men