Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 61.djvu/180

174 love. The group system of the Johns Hopkins University seems to be the best plan hitherto devised for securing the advantages and avoiding the dangers of the elective system.

Even an undiscriminating use of the elective system appears to me better than the obsolescent required course in Latin, Greek and elementary mathematics. Latin was once as much of a professional study as electrical engineering is to-day. By a natural evolution it became part of the insignia of a leisured aristocracy, educated with priests and by them. The use of quotations in which the quantities were given in accord with the peculiar accent of the English universities was a mark of birth and breeding, as are to-day the scars on the face of a German student. Literature and art based themselves on the classical tradition; the intrinsic beauty of the Greek civilization and the part played by Rome in history added to its strength. Even the most iconoclastic must regret the bankruptcy of classical culture, but at the same time the most conservative must acknowledge that the idol is broken. We certainly still feel entitled to sneer at the millionaire who orders a painting of Jupiter and Io and complains that only one of the ten is supplied, and she without her clothes; whereas it is not regarded as a lack of culture when an eminent historian regards the Fissure of Rolando as a chasm in the Pyrenees. But Latin versification is becoming as obsolete and as little used to mark the fine gentleman as the carrying of a rapier. A classical education is essential for certain lines of research, and will always attract its full share of the keenest intellects; but it is no longer wise or possible for a boy to devote eight years of his life to the dead languages in order that he may be admitted to an artificial aristocracy. Latin will survive for a long time in the secondary school on the ground that its illogical constructions supply an intellectual gymnastic, or because its roots are useful in learning French, understanding law terms and naming new species; but its part in education is no longer leading or dignified. In the twilight of the classical tradition it is the once radiant elder sister that I regret:

 Müszig kehrten zu dem Dichterlande Heim die Götter, unnütz einer Welt, Die, entwachsen ihrem Gängelbande Sich durch eignes Schweben hält.

There should surely be in our system liberal education, as well as opportunity to learn a trade. I can not, however, believe that superficial knowledge of many subjects is culture, while a thorough knowledge of a few is not; that studies are liberal in direct proportion to their uselessness; or that certain studies are humanistic and others inhuman. Greek literature may be a 'Brodstudien' and dentistry may be followed as a liberal art. That education is liberal which enlarges the