Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 16.djvu/65

 such a system adds serious difficulties to those already in the way of experiments.

Suppose, as an illustration, that certain persons opposed on various grounds to learning, and especially hostile to Greek, had attacked the study of Plato. They would point out the danger of modern ladies becoming as well read in his writings as was Lady Jane Grey. They would show that the laxity of modern manners was coincident with the popularity of the "Symposium," and that the notorious increase of infanticide was the result of the teaching of the "Republic." Associations for the total suppression of Plato would be formed, with hired advocates, and anonymous letters, and "leaflets," spreading a knowledge of his most objectionable passages. Scholars would be threatened with eternal punishment, and schoolmasters with the withdrawal of their pupils. Then a royal commission would be appointed—a great Latin scholar, a Whig, and a Tory statesman (who, having taken a B. Sc. degree at Oxford would be impartially ignorant of Greek), the most intelligent despiser of Plato who could be found, the master of a grammar-school on the modern side, and (perhaps the most efficient of all) a lawyer, who knew nothing about Greek, but hated cant. This commission would take evidence that the Platonic writings were not all immoral, that they had been quoted with approval by Fathers of the Church, that they were of great importance to literature and philosophy, and even to the elucidation of the Sacred Writings. It would also be proved that the Platonic dialogues were far less immoral than multitudes of other widely circulated books, or than a French novel which one of the royal commissioners happened to be reading; and, lastly, that the morals of Greek scholars, and of clergymen who had read Plato at college, were not obviously degraded below those of other people. On the other hand, witnesses would depose that a knowledge of Plato was of no consequence to a student of philosophy; that, if it were, the text was in so corrupt a condition that no two scholars agreed as to a single chapter, and that, after all, philosophy was of no practical use, least of all to clergymen. Others would affirm that, though they had never read a line of him, they knew that his style was as vicious as his sentiments; and perhaps some cross-grained scholar might be found who, having once edited a play of Euripides, would declare that all studies in Greek literature ought to be restricted to the tragedians, and that for his part he had never opened any other authors and had never felt the want of them.

At last the commission would report that there was no question of the value of the works of Plato, that it would be mischievous and impracticable to prohibit their study, and that there was no evidence that schoolmasters habitually chose the least edifying passages as lessons for boys. Then what is called a compromise would be made. It would be enacted that Plato might be read, but only in colleges annually licensed for that purpose; that every one wishing to read must