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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



nothing novels, and women who want cheap 

 books have to read them, because the men 

 who print books dont want women to get 

 a higher education, they really dont, and 

 so they just flood the country with books 

 that women have to read, because they 

 cant get into the public liberaries, and aint 

 allowed to buy books by Spensur and oth- 



er learned people. Its just a conspiracy, 

 Cousin Ralph says, to keep women down. 

 I think its a great shame, dont you, Ma. 

 But Suse and me mean to see if we cant 

 get a first class education somehow. More 

 next time, from 



Your affectionate daghter, 



Mollt. 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



GREEK AND LATIN AGAINST X A TUBE 

 AND SCIENCE. 



-VTOTWITHSTANDING all the ef- 

 -i-N forts to reconcile and bring into 

 harmony these great elements of educa- 

 tion, it must be admitted that the antag- 

 onism stands out to-day more decisive 

 than ever before. All the tendencies 

 concur to sharpen and intensify it. In 

 the light of the Baconian conception that 

 " man is the interpreter of Nature, and 

 Science its right interpretation," natu- 

 ral knowledge is rapidly extending and 

 vindicating its increasing claims upon 

 the mental cultivation of the age. But 

 the capacities of acquisition on the part 

 of youth remain limited ; life is short, 

 the period of study shorter, and the 

 competition of subjects has forced more 

 urgently than ever the necessity of 

 choosing what shall be adopted as 

 means of education and what passed 

 by. Meantime the traditional culture 

 fights every inch of the ground, will 

 concede nothing, and redoubles its ef- 

 forts for extension at every opportunity. 

 The colleges raise their standards of 

 the amount of Latin and Greek required 

 for admission, and thus react upon the 

 preparatory schools to stimulate classi- 

 cal studies and give them a higher place 

 in popular consideration. There is, be- 

 sides, a vigorous and wide-spread move- 

 ment in behalf of what is called the 

 " higher education of woman," which 

 simply means the traditional ideal of 

 culture. The female colleges are proud 

 to duplicate the curriculums of the old 

 classical establishments, and boast that 

 they do not lower the standard of Latin 



and Greek. The boys have had a Latin 

 school in Boston for two hundred and 

 fifty years, to prepare for college ; and 

 the girls of that city, after failing to 

 get into the old one, have established 

 another within the past five years, which 

 is said to be most flourishing and suc- 

 cessful : rivalry and conflict are therefore 

 inevitable, and our age has before it the 

 broad issue between Latin and Greek 

 on the one hand, and Nature and Science 

 on the other hand, as means of cultivat- 

 ing the youthful mind. 



The classical education is old, estab- 

 lished, and invested with historic digni- 

 ty, and as a consequence it is imperious 

 and arrogant. That it has gone on for 

 many centuries, is offered as its best 

 reason why it should always go on. 

 That there has been a progress in knowl- 

 edge and in the human mind which 

 has brought about a new order of things 

 is ignored by it as of no significance. 

 Nature and Science are regarded by it 

 as mere upstarts of yesterday, full of 

 vain pretension, and deserving only to 

 be snubbed and thrust contemptuously 

 aside. The last expression which we 

 have seen of studied disparagement of 

 Nature and Science in connection with 

 education is an article by Mr. E. E. Sill, 

 that appeared in the "Atlantic Monthly " 

 for February, on " Herbert Spencer's 

 Theory of Education." Mr. Spencer's 

 little book upon that subject, as is well 

 known, is a plea for more of nature and 

 of science in our methods of mental cul- 

 tivation, and Mr. Sill's article is a pro- 

 test against this whole doctrine. He 

 comes forward as a partisan of the old 



