THE TRANSIT OF VENUS. 719 



or interest ; and generation after generation of school-masters and book- 

 compilers have been tortured to supply the means of torture. If the 

 same amount of ingenuity had been expended upon English, our young 

 writers might have been saved many a throe of composition, and our 

 language many an ugly blemish. No one can tell how much the lan- 

 guage might have been improved, and its superior modes and charac- 

 teristics rendered habitual to the mass of our countrymen. 



What I proposed to examine was whether classical studies should 

 cease to be the staple of a liberal education, should in public institu- 

 tions for general instruction form the basis of all scholarly acquirements. 

 We seem to have reached the conclusion that Latin and Greek in that 

 capacity should be replaced by English. There is no reason why such 

 a change should involve the entire cessation of Latin and Greek 

 studies. It would simply make Latin and Greek as other foreign lan- 

 guages are. It would make them optional, as Hebrew, Sanscrit, Ger- 

 man, French. It would prevent the distorted view that we take of 

 their importance, from their anomalous place in our education. It 

 would enable us to survey them in their true light, as two perhaps an 

 important two, but still only two of the great family of languages. 

 Our conclusion is not that the study of Latin and Greek should be dis- 

 continued, but that, whatever acquisitions be intended for the school- 

 boy, the foundation of them all should be, not a knowledge of Latin 

 and Greek, but a competent knowledge of his own language. 



-*->- 



THE TBANSIT OF YEN US. 



By HEZEKIAH BUTTEKWOKTH , Esq. 



SOME of the world's greatest benefactors have worked with young 

 minds, and one of the most remarkable discoveries of astronomical 

 science was made by a company of English students in the best days 

 of youth. We refer to the transit of Venus across the disk of the sun. 

 Our readers have doubtless noticed that Congress 1 has already made 

 provision for the scientific observation of the transit in 1874. The 

 subject will soon engage the attention of astronomers, for the phe- 

 nomenon furnishes us with the most important elements of astronomi- 

 cal knowledge. By the visible movement of the planet across the 

 sun's centre, we are enabled to determine the sun's horizontal paral- 

 lax, or the difference between the real and apparent position of the 

 sun, 2 and thereby to correctly calculate the distance of the earth and 



Congress has appropriated $150,000 to aid the observations, and has placed the 

 United States Navy at the disposal of Messrs. Pierce, Henry, and Sands, to be employed 

 for the purpose. 



2 The parallax of the sun, moon, or any planet, is the distance between its true and 



