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 In the United States we have never been kindly disposed towards extravagance of this order. During the years of our comparative poverty, when few citizens aspired to more than a competence, there was still money enough for Latin, and now and then for Greek. There was still a race of men with slender incomes and wide acquirements, to whom scholarship was a dearly bought but indestructible delight. Now that we have all the money there is, it is universally understood that Americans cannot afford to spend any of it on the study of "the best that has been known and thought in the world."

Against this practical decision no argument avails. Burke's plea for the severity of the foundation upon which rest the principles of taste carries little weight, because our standard of taste is genial rather than severe. The influence of Latinity upon English literature concerns us even less, because