Page:Jesuit Education.djvu/310

290 the old grammatical and stylistic exercises. Still more complaints were heard in the following years. In 1899 even Professor Virchow, one of the most determined opponents of the gymnasium in its old form, admitted that the graduates after the reform manifested a notable decline in grammatical and logical training. It was found necessary to convoke a new conference, which met in Berlin, June 1900. Here some of the ablest schoolmen were outspoken in demanding a partial return to the system existing before 1892. Dr. Matthias, the referee of the Ministry, stated that all official reports and the most experienced men of the Kingdom complained about the serious decline of Latin scholarship which had manifested itself after 1892. The cause of this decline he suspected to be the excessive use of inductive methods, so much encouraged by the reform. Efforts were to be made to check this decline; above all it was necessary to secure again greater grammatical knowledge, and it seemed better to introduce again some of the old methods, especially frequent translations from the German into Latin and speaking Latin. He thus recommended what the most zealous of the reformers had ridiculed as antiquated. Professor Kübler and Professor Harnack were not less outspoken on this point. The latter said that writing Latin was to be insisted on, and that the discarding of this exercise in 1892 was a mistake. The result of these discussions was a strengthening of the Latin course, by adding