general, of small practical utility except to those few specialists to whom language is the material of investigation. Professor Lester F. Ward (who is himself somewhat prolific in the coinage of terms of Greek origin) asserts its value for the understanding and use of terminology. He says that "a knowledge of the structure of Latin and Greek words is essential to the correct use of the current vocabulary of nearly every science, and especially of the biological sciences." But this is a statement, at least so far as it refers to Greek, which can be tested to its detriment by any one who cares to reflect upon the grasp of Greek possessed by scientists of his own acquaintance, or to scan the biographies of a few notables. You can get this term-making done for you, and need not spend years learning to do it any more than in learning to wield the higher mathematics in order to figure out an occasional relation. It is questionable whether the average man could trust his own results in either case.

Greek as a tool of investigation is scarcely more valuable, as will presently appear. In general its claims to utility for the historian or scientist are reducible to the following: specifically, it best fits the scholar for the acquirement of other tongues; and inclusively, it forms the developing agency par excellence of the mental processes. The former contention is stronger than some are inclined to admit. No one doubts the indispensability of several modern languages to the modern investigator, and this need can but increase, in default of a "universal" language, as time goes on; few also would deny that the practice gained, under proper training, in Greek syntax and etymology is of great value in the acquisition of other languages of the same stock. There are here, however, two major considerations to be met; first, that the training given is seldom one conducing to other ends than its own immediate ones; and, second, that no sufficient reasons have been presented for denying that an equal or briefer period of time spent

upon Latin or some other language, under adequate direction, would yield the same result. It is under the best professors only that training is planned, not upon local but upon far-sighted and catholic lines; preparatory teachers and college instructors do not often have the time, education, or breadth of outlook to do this. There is a great deal to be said, in the interest of both Greek and the student, in favor of beginning Greek in college.

The question of the value of Greek in the acquisition of other related languages is really a special one under that of the value of Greek as a mental discipline in general. The assertion of its supremacy here is again the out-of-date call to fetichworship. It is valuable, but so are other branches, for the purpose in hand; it has defects of a serious nature as a mental discipline, though these are mainly survivalistic in the pedagogical system, and so remediable, at least in some degree. Its strongest claim is perhaps its difficulty; its complexity and consequent capacity for precision of expression render it an excellent disciplinary agency for him who gets any control of the medium. But these can yet be spared without catastrophe, as any thing and any man can be spared, and the world still go on under satisfactory-or, to judge from prevailing analogy, more satisfactory — substitutes. Of course it is unfair, as must be admitted, to balance Greek, here as elsewhere, against any other single available language, if there be taken into account the time and effort now necessary to penetrate even its outer precincts. It does not alter this contention even if one admits that Greek affords certain combinations of mental exercises not to be met with elsewhere.

But there is a reverse side to a training based upon the classics, as any one knows whose line of specialization has diverged from early absorption in them. As to whether certain undesirable qualities are inherent in such training, opinions may well differ; the question awaits an an

swer, and that through demonstration. But it is certain that the attitudes and mental processes acquired in orthodox classical study are not of much use elsewhere; and the reason is that such study is not alive, or is not made so. In the classics all is cut and dried, and reverence for authority is the conventional attitude. "If," said one active and noted professor of the classics, "a man has health, energy, and industry through a long life, he may hope to cover part of the ground already traversed before him." It all goes back to the fathers. One somewhat admires this system, settled and articulated, as he marvels at that of the Roman church, and for much the same reasons. The structure is grand, austere, aweight with the prestige of generations. But it does not breathe the spirit of the present age, and its acolytes can blame only themselves if they are not content to be left in cloistered peace. There is no fault to be found with an ideal of calm and tranquil erudition, quiet refinement, and serene unworldliness; it appeals to one in the stress of life, at times with an almost irresistible charm. It is a noble existence, but it is rare, and should be so. The youth of this age do not take to it, and should not, for it is anachronistic. And, being so, it is positively detrimental to the majority to be taught its ways as a training for the life of the present age.

Under the classical system of past generations the collegian has learned to take things for granted and upon authority, and to approach them uncritically. He is engaged in the main in a study of words, and the ideal held before his youthful strivings is the discipulus, able, with the aid of lexicon, grammar and notes, to extract the information, often obscure, insipid, or long antedated, from certain lines and pages, and recite thereon. The net influence of such training has been too often the inculcation of intellectual dependence, timidity in the exercise of individual judgment, distrust of one's own conclusions, and a general haziness and uncertainty of mental opera

Having come to graduate work in history or science, after a typically classical course, there is trouble in store for him who hopes to use his preliminary training to further his later ends. Historical and

scientific investigation call for qualities of mind and results of mental discipline which the classical régime has not fostered. Between the end of college training and the beginning of real usefulness in the new field, between preparation for life-work and that life-work itself, there must and does occur for many a promising young man a great mental and moral shock, accompanied by the necessity of taking a new start. Not only that; there is a period of broken standards and superseded criteria, with all the misery which that implies. Naturally this is a matter of degree; but teachers who have been much thrown with advanced students of a non-classical specialty, particularly with those who have, during a highly creditable undergraduate course assimilated most faithfully the classical training and "method," have too often been witnesses of ineffectual and bewildered attempts to regain lost bearings. The young man knows his work is crude and ineffective, but he does not know why; surprised and disgusted, his disappointment often takes the form of selfrecrimination and distrust. The situation is rendered the more blind and torturing if, as is so often the case, he sees less studious companions falling in successfully with the new order of things. The college senior year, which generally awakens the less prudent to a sense of vanishing opportunity, often shows an astonishing advance in the quality of work in extra-classical subjects performed by erstwhile indifferent men. They see for the first time, in history or science, a species of learning that is understandable

and full of life-interest; they catch the swing better, having little to unlearn, and not seldom cause heart-burning in their one-time easily prevailing rivals.

After an indefinite period devoted to this weary waste of vital energy, matters begin to mend for the discomfited; probably after one gets definitely out of the old grooves, a formerly acquired habit of steady and careful industry tends to advance its possessor with greater strides and with fewer interruptions than would otherwise be the case. But, having reached with pain a new orientation, he does not feel inclined to assign any special educational value to the classics, until through the lapse of time a truer perspective is gained and there is leisure to con the actual treasures which, albeit with great expenditure of effort, he has retained from his college days.

These remarks are naturally better applicable to the system of required classics than to that of the present day, and one who grew up under the old régime can scarcely place himself in the position of the free chooser. He feels that the latter has got a better education and is apter for the struggle of life, without visible cultural disabilities. But, assuming a retroactive power of choice, it is but fair to estimate the sacrifices incurred in securing what training in Greek one has. This is the question of comparative cost looked at from a slightly different angle. When one had completed the largely required course of ten or fifteen years ago, he emerged from college self-distrustful in modern languages, short on history, law, and economics, and devoid of even the rudiments of certainly half or three-quarters of the sciences. Music and the fine arts he knew not. He had covered certain courses in English literature, that oasis for saint and sinner alike, but had had no systematic practice in expressing himself in his native tongue. He found his Greek and Latin, it might be added, empty of the values asserted for the teaching of such expression; rather did

they inculcate the involved and Johnsonian style, together with a shamefaced leaning toward trite classical allusion. How much of this gaping hiatus in education, four to seven years at three to five hours a week, plus preparation for the same, would have bridged, may be left to individual judgment.

---

The question presents itself something like this to the student of the social sciences: Would I trade my Greek, considered both culturally and practically, for biology, for zoölogy, or for geology, let alone a combination (which would be a fairer equivalent) of these or similar other sciences? A positive affirmative leaps to the lips. Upon reflection it is sustained. You go over in this reflection some such line of thought as the above, and in addition you scrutinize the value of Greek as an aid in research — for it is that to a student of human societies in a degree far surpassing its importance in most other sciences. But it is of small advantage, after all, to read Aristotle, Plato, or even Homer, in the original, you feel. You may miss certain fine points and sacrifice some accuracy through dependence upon a translation; but if you do essay the original, the constant plying of the lexicon eats up time, strength, and patience, for relatively insignificant increments of superiority in your results. In fact you doubt, when you finally set down your reference to the original, whether it is not done more out of latent pedantry and a desire to get credit for unusual labors than because of the special weight of your opinions referable to direct approach to sources. If one renounces wholesale reading in the original and confines himself to the intensive study of an occasional author or signifi cant passage, and takes the necessary time and pains, he is doubtless repaid, that is, he gets something more out of them than one who does not do this; but he cannot repeat the process often, or he is ruined. And so he betakes himself to Jowett or Lang or Voss, and chances it on the loss of atmosphere and possibly

completer accuracy. He regrets this proceeding intensely, and reflects bitterly on what he could do for the satisfaction of scholarly instincts were it German or Spanish, recalling meanwhile, and with a resentful sense of loss, that he has put upon the latter languages but a fraction of the time and pains which his indifferent control of Greek has cost.

It is this kind of thing that makes enemies for the Greek among perfectly fair-minded, but human, scholars. It is not that they deny its absolute value; it is its relative worth that is, and should be, determinative. In fairness such men should not be loftily dubbed utilitarian and of taste unrefined. The line which limits the power of neglecting the utilitarian is not drawn for all men in the same place; and it must not be forgotten that dictation of tastes is presumption. Some choice has to be made, for men have limitations in powers and hours; perhaps in the millennium all working-days will have twenty-four hours, and all eyes and minds will be tireless, and then one will have the chance of assimilating to himself the sum of all species of culture.

Naturally that which is most in the eye of adverse opinion to Greek is, as so often, the unnecessary and unessential. There is absolutely no reason for hostility to the language and its literature; there is no excuse for hating aorists and abhorring Herodotus. But irritation at the assumptions and methods of the advocates of Greek is too often carried over by association to create a thoroughly unjust estimate of everything connected with the language. The old assumptions (of superiority, etc.), dating, like the dogma of papal infallibility, from a time of unquestioned prestige, appear now so gratuitous to those unendowed with a sense of humor, or too indignant to use it, that they arouse wrath rather than the tolerance due to passing survivals. All sponsors of Greek ought now to drop even the shadow of such pretensions and come out into the open with their good wares, to offer them on their merit with

those of the rest. There will always be a select concourse who can afford, or will afford, the price; they may realize that it is high, but they will feel, and that correctly, that the value is great. But there should be no effort to force them upon the reluctant, nor any heart-burning because other good things are now offered in the educational market. Such an attitude, with the reasoning back of it, is mediæval.

But why cannot the wares be less costly? Cannot processes be applied which shall, without cheapening the product in any essential way, bring it within reach of a rather extended patronage? Cannot the old patterns be modified, or set aside in favor of those which appeal to the changed taste of an age of greater opportunity? There is no alternative if the restriction of Greek to a smaller clientèle is intolerable. Prophecies of Greek "coming into its own again," of the inevitable return-swing of the pendulum, are hazardous; they do not take into account the altered setting in which Greek finds itself. Reaction may not duplicate action if friction is too great, or in the presence of diverting forces in the field. Nor is it apposite, however picturesque, to stand out in disdain as from the worship of some golden calf. The essence of viability is power of adaptation to change when this is not mere fitful oscillation; and the sentiment regarding Greek studies has gathered too much headway to be dismissed as a capricious vagary. Granted even that it is locally referable to the character of the American people, yet who would hope for a return to simple and docile ways when such alteration, deplorable though it may seem, is due to the action of no less than elemental forces ?

It would be a risky task and a thankless to suggest methods of popularizing Greek culture as it should be popularized if this is possible. Tentatives are being put forth in this direction. In last analysis, these must through actual experimentation be subjected to elimination.

methods have proved themselves inefficient, they should be the object of the most searching scrutiny and the most ruthless weeding-out. In general, it is only common sense that such proposed variations of procedure should be fostered as look to the appropriation of that in the methods of other branches of study to which these latter owe their progress. Moreover, greater attention should be given, it would seem, to the correlation of Greek with other subjects; aloofness and pride of place should be renounced. The instructor should seek to make himself a man of such breadth as to be capable of indicating to scholars of all persuasions what Greek has to offer them. It would be a long story and vexed with detail

if

any outsider were to develop his idea of how Greek should be taught; and he would doubtless come to shipwreck speedily against some unforeseen reef. This is a subject more suitable for informal discussion, if it be candid and not heated, than for an essay. But that time-saving methods 1 cannot be developed who will affirm?

The case of Greek seems to many of us vitally a pedagogical one, granted that, apart from obsolete attitudes and as

1 The attempt to discard the language, in whole or in part, and to familiarize the student with the classics in translation, has much in its favor. The idea is, however, disagreeable to the lover of Greek, who would call first for a desperate effort to modify the teaching of the

viewed with the idea of learning the truth, not expounding it as preconceived. Whether it can be solved or not will determine whether Greek will widely and directly, or exclusively and only indirectly, advantage the race. The treasures of the Greeks are attractive enough to any man of mind and heart; there is no trouble there. Would that Latin could approach Greek in this respect! If it were as easy to learn Greek as German or French, or German and French, many a man would hasten to acquire it, even in later years, for the sake of knowing a mighty age in its own words, replete with their subtle suggestion of place, time, and environment. But such potential lovers are not likely to be content with the "residuum" which, as some defenders of the classics, rather graveled for matter, say, is sure "after all" to remain in the mind of the student. The truth is that scarcely any one does learn Greek in college or before; and what could be more damning than this? In view of this fact all discussion about cultural and practical utility is really suspended in the air. The comparative cost of Greek is exorbitant and well-nigh prohibitive. The vital question is: Can it be lowered?

language. Let one say what he will, even Goethe and Voss, Tennyson and Browning, cannot preserve to us the indefinable atmosphere of the original. But this whole proposition regarding translations really falls outside our 66 case of Greek."