Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/420

404. These newer languages are not only of practical value, being spoken and written by millions of our fellow-beings to-day, but they have also many direct bearings upon all modern life. The sciences cannot be well studied without them; they open up the widest fields of recent thought; they bring us into closer harmony with the spirit of our own times. We can get along better without a knowledge of antiquity than without a knowledge of the days in which we live. The history of the siege of Troy has less interest for us than the history of the great social and economic problems which are being worked out in such deadly earnest in our own country and in Europe to-day. The ancient languages have their uses, unquestionably; so also have the Russian and the Chinese; but are those uses of sufficient importance to warrant universal study? Remembering the aims of education, we must also remember that every student has but a limited number of years to spend at college. In those few years he must acquire that learning which will best fit him to go forth and grapple with active duties. If he has both the taste and the leisure, then he can learn the dead languages after graduation. It is nothing to urge that Latin and Greek facilitate the acquisition of French and German, since the latter can be studied directly as well as the former. Few people can afford the time to study four languages in order to use but two.

If we consider the languages in their bearings upon other studies, French and German again take the lead. For advanced study in philosophy or in science these tongues are absolutely necessary, while the dead languages are not. True, many scientific terms are derived from the Latin or the Greek; but the derivation is commonly lost in new technical meanings. Moreover, the derivation, if desired, can readily be learned and sufficiently understood without much knowledge of Latin grammar or much familiarity with Greek verbs. The philological facts may be valuable, but they are no more so than a host of other facts which must, for want of time, be omitted from every general course of study. As far as concerns the Latin, needed for the comprehension of nomenclature in the natural sciences, it is safe to say that any intelligent student can learn enough of the language in three months, if, indeed, he cares to study it regularly at all.

In the direction of literary pursuits, the modern languages, again, have the advantage. Undoubtedly', the literatures of the past are rich in grand poetry, in great thoughts, and in the history of noble deeds. But poetry as grand, thoughts as great, the history of deeds as noble, can be found in the literatures of to-day. Every thing of permanent value which the old contained has been translated into the new. Plato and Virgil may be read in English, French, or German; but Goethe, Racine, and Shakespeare, are not to be found in Greek. These modern literatures are certainly of as great value in any system of real culture as those of older times. No student can master all literatures, and therefore much must be rejected. First, a scholar should study