ENGLISH AGAINST THE CLASSICS. 707 



ENGLISH AGAINST THE CLASSICS. 



BY A SCOTCH GRADUATED 



""VTOT long ago, the Lord Rector of the University of Aberdeen sub- 

 J- ^ mitted to the University Court a scheme for reducing the value 

 of Latin composition. In a lecture recently given at Edinburgh upon 

 education, Prof. Jowett condemned the existing methods of classical 

 instruction, and asserted that Latin and Greek might be learned in 

 two-thirds of the time now bestowed upon them. And the other day, 

 Mr. Fronde, addressing the students of St. Andrew's on the occasion 

 of his installation as their Lord Rector, in place of Greek recommended 

 French, or German, or Chemistry, or Nbrnian-French, or Chinese, or 

 Russian, according to the wants of the individual. Such explosions of 

 discontent keep the question of classical education in a lively con- 

 dition. 



In fact, complaints against the classics have grown so common of 

 late that people begin to be weary of the question before any tiling has 

 been done to settle it. The cry that we have had enough of discussion 

 about classics, and the sneer that every scribbler must have his fling at 

 classics nowadays, are taken up with such heartiness by those inter- 

 ested in keeping things just as they are, that it is difficult sometimes to 

 get a hearing. 



To vindicate the right of speech on a question that deserves every 

 ventilation, it may be sufficient to say that, if there were more doing, 

 there might be less talking. It is contrary to all experience to sujjpose 

 that, if there were a cessation of the talking, the authorities might in 

 course of time begin to act. The importunate widow in the parable 

 knew better than that. Believing: that it is wise to discuss such a 



o 



1 The present article is abridged from a pungent pamphlet reissued by D. Appleton & 

 Co., and entitled " Classical Studies as Information or as Training." Should it be 

 thought that what it says of the neglect of English applies to the state of things abroad, 

 not here, we suggest a recent testimony upon this point. Dr. Manly, President of George- 

 town College, Ky., in a commencement address, delivered last June, on Collegiate Re- 

 form, speaking of the branches of study that should be added to the course, said : 



" Of these, one of the most important is the English language. The study of English 

 grammar, commonly made a botch of in our schools, is usually entirely ignored in our 

 colleges. Dogberry's philosophy appears to prevail, that " to read and write comes by 

 nature." The student is presumed to be a "good English scholar" when he arrives at 

 college ; a very violent presumption, by the way, whether we consider either the chance 

 he has had to learn, or the proofs he usually gives that he has learned. And even as to 

 graduates, male and female, I scarcely venture to tell, what I have had abundant oppor- 

 tunities of knowing, in other States besides this, of the blunders they make in spelling, in 

 pronunciation, in the plainest matters of propriety, and the simplest principles of gram- 

 mar. And yet I do not hesitate to affirm that intrinsically and for its own merits, and 

 then certainly more especially for us, who are to use it all our lives, there is no language 

 the world ever saw more abnndantly deserving, or more amply repaying, careful study 

 than this same English tongue." 



