Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/718

702 but contented himself with drawing an interesting parallel between some of the intellectual activities of the Greeks and those of our own age.

But if Professor Jebb declined to take up the defense of Greek, now so vigorously assailed as well in his own country as in ours, there are other able men who will not blink the glare of the controversy. Among these is Professor Bonamy Price, of Oxford, who, although a teacher of political economy, takes up the cudgels with great vigor for the classical languages. He contributes the leading article to the "Princeton Review" for July, under the title of "What is Education?" The first part of his paper returns an excellent and an unexceptionable answer to his question-title. He denounces the prevailing propensity to "cram" in unsparing terms; he eulogizes viva voce in teaching, and thus sums up: "The aim and task of education—independently of the value of the knowledge obtained for moral or or any other purposes—is to cultivate the powers of the understanding, to strengthen and enlarge them, to show how they are to be used in mastering any subject. It seeks to train the young pupil how to use his brain, how to determine and examine for himself the questions put before him, how to handle his mind as a tool, and thus to realize the very purposes for which that mind was given him—in a word, to teach him how to think."

As to the general means of securing this object the suggestions of Professor Price are sound. He says: "Now, what is the educational process to be adopted for accomplishing this great object of teaching a boy how to think? Not, certainly, to set him to read well-written and learned books, to store up their contents in his memory, and then to pour them out at examination. Nor will this great end be reached by learned addresses from tutors, carefully gathered up in notes by the pupils and then followed up by examinations which simply test the attention and the accuracy of the students. This is cram—nothing better....The answer is not difficult; indeed, it may be called obvious; yet how little is it perceived or valued at the present hour even in our most distinguished institutions of education! Its secret lies in skillful questioning by the teacher, in power to make the pupil discover for himself the facts and truths to be gathered up at each place....The work of the teacher is to direct the attention of the student to the facts lying before him, to stimulate his inquiry into the relations which they bear toward each other, what difficulties they present, how they are to be cleared away by thought, what new truths they reveal. To make the pupil find out for himself the answer to be given to each question, as it arises, is the very essence of real education....The pupil's mind is ever kept thinking, putting together, and discovering. The knowledge won is in no small degree his own acquisition, the product of his own intelligence, his own brain. He is incessantly learning how to use the faculties with which his mind is endowed, and with their help, guided but not told by the teacher, to gather up the understanding of the subject to be explored."

But now comes the question. What are the studies best adapted to attain this ideal of education? To this Professor Price devotes the second part of his paper; and he here conspicuously illustrates what has been shown a thousand times before, how an elaborate classical culture can so pervert the mind and bias the judgment that the most weighty considerations are absolutely unrecognized. To the broad question what subjects of study are best suited to cultivate, strengthen, and enlarge the powers of the understanding, Professor Price answers: "For value and power it may safely be asserted the study of the Greek and Latin languages stands pre-eminently the first. Greek, above all, has no equal in educating force; it