Page:Norse mythology or, the religion of our forefathers, containing all the myths of the Eddas, systematized and interpreted with an introduction, vocabulary and index.djvu/82

 pieces in the senate-house. Certain it is that the Romans murdered him, and then declared him the guardian spirit of the city; thus worshiping as a god, by name Quirinus, him whom they could not bear as a king. Such falsehoods as the one the senate invented, when they said that Romulus, whom they had murdered, had been taken up into heaven, the Roman writers tell us were constantly taught to the Romans by Numa Pompilius, and by other Sabine and Etrurian priests; and such instruction laid the foundation of their myths. The history of Romulus is, in fact, in miniature, the history of Rome.

But in spite of this, and much else that can in justice be said against Rome and Latin, we cannot afford to throw the language and literature of the Romans entirely overboard. Their history was too remarkable for that; besides, many scribbled in Latin down through the middle ages, and the Latin language has played so conspicuous a part in English literature, and in the sciences, that no educated man can very well do without it. What we respectfully object to is making it the foundation of all education, this ''bringing the scholar up'', so to speak, on Latin language, history and literature; this nourishing and moulding the tender heart and mind on Roman thought,—thus making the man, intellectually and morally, a slave bound in Roman chains, while we free-born Goths, the descendants of Odin and Thor, ought to begin our education and receive our first impressions from our own ancestors. The tree should draw its nourishment from its own roots; and we Americans are the youngest and most vigorous branch of that glorious Gothic tree, the beautiful and noble Ygdrasil in the Norse cosmogony, whose three grand roots strike down among the Anglo-Saxons,