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20 ourselves know. I know that I have been highly commended for verses I could not construe myself. This of course gives a most unfair predominance to boys who have been early taught how to use a gradus. The knack is so absurd and repulsive that no one ever acquired it late in life. It must be taught early if at all. I have known men of high classical attainments who have not got honours because they have not had the knack of stringing words together, called doing Latin verses. There is a movement going on against the system, and I hope we shall get rid of it. Another absurd thing is this—I think that a man knows a language when he can read with fluency and ease a good plain straightforward author who writes grammatically and sensibly. This may very soon be done in Latin and Greek; but that is not half enough. There is no torture in that—that is very simple. But what you must do is to take a place that is hopelessly corrupt, where the amanuensis has gone to sleep, or has been tipsy, or has dropped a line, or something or other; you must read two or three pages of notes by everybody who has read at these places, written in bad Latin, stating their idea of how they ought to be reformed and translated. If Æschylus came to life again he would be easily plucked in one of his own choruses; and as for Homer, I am quite certain he did not know the difference between the nominative and accusative case; and yet the best hours of our lives are spent in this profitless analysis of works produced by men utterly unconscious of the rules we are endeavouring to draw from them.

Well, gentlemen, I have nothing more to say on that point; but I proceed to another thing which has always struck me very forcibly, and that is the preference that is given to ancient history. Do not misunderstand me. Ancient history is a very important matter, and a very beautiful study; but it is not so important as modern history, and it does not bear nearly so much upon our transactions. Consider what it is. Ancient history has but two phases—the one is a monarchy, the other is a municipality. The notion of a large community existing by virtue of the principle of representation—of a popular