7 o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



question to the utmost, and that the public should be grateful for the 

 smallest contributions to the discussion, the writer of the present essay 

 ventures to add his mite. 



It will be found that in most cases the services claimed for the an- 

 cient languages are valuable services, and that, if a knowledge of these 

 tongues could render one-tenth of the services alleged, it would be a 

 serious crime to utter a word against their continuance as the staple of 

 education. But what if, under the present mode of teaching classics, 

 many of the alleged services are not rendered ? And what if it be the 

 case that, where certain services are rendered, or might be rendered, by 

 a knowledge of classics, they are rendered, or might be rendered, in so 

 far as they are desirable, more economically by other means ? I pro- 

 pose to consider some of the arguments offered in defence of the clas- 

 sics, and to show that it would be better to replace Latin and Greek 

 studies by the systematic study of English as the basis of a liberal 

 education. 



Among the arguments for the study of the classical languages, it is 

 frequently urged that without it we cannot understand our own lan- 

 guage. The English Schools Inquiry Commissioners for 186S reported 

 that " Latin has entered so largely into English that the meaning of a 

 very large proportion of our words is first discovered to us on learning 

 Latin, and to a no less degree has it entered into English literature, so 

 that many of our classical writers are only half intelligible, unless some 

 Latin precede the reading." 



This argument is unsubstantial. Perhaps one man in a thousand 

 of our countrymen has some smattering of Latin, fresh or faded; say 

 one man in a hundred : do the Commissioners mean to aver that ninety- 

 nine men in every hundred of us have not discovered the meaning of " a 

 very large proportion " of what we say ? 



It is useless to reason with men capable of putting on record, or of 

 accepting, such a proposition. It is useless to point out, what seems 

 obvious enough, that the meaning of a word is determined not by its 

 derivation, but by usage. 



If anybody, after ten minutes' reflection, continues in such a belief, 

 he had better have recourse to practical experiment. Let him call a 

 servant a " slave," a sturdy rustic a " pagan," a Presbyterian father of 

 a family a " pope." He w r ill thus be delivered from his error very ef- 

 fectually, if not so agreeably as he might desire. 



The same argument is put on a somewhat grander scale. Mr. Clark 

 contends that, " whatever the subject-matter may be, no man can ex- 

 pound it with scientific precision unless he is acquainted with the ety- 

 mologies and mutual relations of the terms he employs." 



English Philology is doubtless an interesting study. Like other 

 artists, the verbal artist takes a pleasure in the makers and the mate- 

 rials of his instruments. And some time might not unprofitably be de- 

 voted to the sources of the lano-ua^e, and the leading rules of verbal 



