Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 14.djvu/94

84 or symbols to decipher, not the utterances of genius. . . . There are certainly not five in a hundred of those who learn Latin in our schools who can read with ease an unconned piece of Latin, or write off-hand a Latin letter on a familiar subject. I need not say a word about Greek. With all such people, learning Latin has been an arrant failure. They have done worse than waste their time. They have learned to make marks, to take places, to receive prizes, for mere botch-work."

These are the words of a man who devoted sixteen years of his early life to the dead languages, with a slight mixture of abstract mathematics. He tells us that, when he left Cambridge at the age of twenty-four, he was totally ignorant of the things he most needed to know, while his knowledge of Latin and Greek was "very small, poor, and inaccurate."

My classical friends must not attempt to refute me by the fallacy of an epithet; that is, by calling me illiberal, narrow-minded. It is just possible that there is some illiberality on the other side; it may be that if they knew more English they would think less of Latin and Greek. It is not enough for them to enlarge upon the educating power of classical studies. I am willing to admit what they usually claim for their favorite studies in that direction, but at the same time I hold that the highest and best discipline of mind is derived from a scientific study of English, German, and French; while the knowledge acquired in the process of learning these modern languages is incalculably more valuable in the affairs of real life than the knowledge obtained by pursuing the fullest course in the classics. The friends of the old education must meet this position squarely. Fine phrases about liberal culture will no longer be accepted in place of facts. We, too, believe in liberal culture. But if a knowledge of the highest thought of the ancient world, as embodied in words by its foremost thinkers, tends to liberalize and broaden the mind of a student, it must be trebly effective in its liberalizing influences to bring the student's mind up to the level of the highest thought of our own age. We are the ancients—"the heirs of all the ages." Our young men know vastly more than the wisest in the old time knew. They will, therefore, get most profit in knowledge, and equal profit in discipline, from the study of modern languages. After learning these, if they have leisure and inclination, they will amuse themselves by learning Greek and Latin.

Latin and Greek, being: almost valueless in the work of fitting one for the duties of modern life, and by no means indispensable in the work of mental development, are, therefore, relegated to the position of pleasant accomplishments, or that of professional helps for ministers, teachers, and specialists. The student who is rightly trained in the study of modern languages will in a very short time—one or two years—learn the grammatical forms and acquire facility in the translation of Greek and Latin. So far am I from accepting the once popular notion—still heard of in out-of-the-way corners of the country—that