DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



93 



poet's dream and philosopher's specula- 

 tion to a well-demonstrated scientific 

 theory. Evolution, heredity, environ- 

 ment, have become household words, 

 and their application to history has in- 

 fluenced every one who has had to trace 

 the development of a people, the growth 

 of an institution, or the establishment 

 of a cause." Yet it seems that this 

 has not enabled us to equal the excel- 

 lence of two or three writers who 

 flourished more than two-thirds of the 

 way back to the dawn of European civil- 

 ization. Let us at least be frank with 

 ourselves, if such be the fact, and not 

 refuse to recognize the disheartening 

 nature of the conclusion. 



There are some iconoclasts, however, 

 who will not accept it; and, if they 

 allowed the barbarian that is in them to 

 speak out, in spite of their high respect 

 and deference for Mr. Rhodes, it would 

 probably assert that there is little hope 

 for the elevation of history to the 

 highest rank of intellectual endeavor 

 by champions so imbued with the spirit 

 of the past. He that would show the 

 subject worth the attention of the most 

 gifted, the strongest and the most pene- 

 trating minds can be no worshipper be- 

 fore the marble god of the Classics. He 

 must — difficult as the task would seem 

 to Mr. Rhodes — write history better 

 than Thucydides or Tacitus wrote it. 

 But this is, after all, not so difficult 

 if the proper meaning is given to the 

 words. There are several men living 

 who do it. This I fully believe; and I 

 wish to say that the assertion is made 

 in no spirit of defiance to the standards 

 of my generation, but rather in the 

 spirit of respect for these standards as I 

 see them. 



There seems, in fact, to lie some 

 subtle poison in the classics whereby 

 their devotees become intoxicated. Their 

 admiration for the ancient languages 

 and literatures, for the civilizations in 

 which their chosen work lies, appears 

 to grow until they lose faith in the 

 present and depreciate it correspond- 

 ingly. Modern education, which is 

 aimed to fit, rather than to unfit men 



for the life they must live, to adjust 

 them to their environment rather than 

 to put them out of harmony therewith, 

 would not be wholly unjustified in en- 

 tering its caveat for all who undertake 

 the study of Greek and Latin. 



"If indeed there haunt 

 About the moulder'd lodges of the Past 

 So sweet a voice and vague, fatal to 



men, 

 Well needs it we should cram our ears 



with wool 

 And so pace by." 



These expressions are not prompted 

 by any sympathy with materialism. I 

 am well aware that humanity fed upon 

 such meat will never be great. But 

 must we look back over two thousand 

 years to find ideals — even in the matter 

 of history writing ? It will be a sad day, 

 if it ever come, when the teaching of 

 Greek and Latin shall fail in our uni- 

 versities and men shall cease to study 

 them; but it is certainly unnecessary 

 that the classical measuring rod shall be 

 laid to all the dimensions of modern 

 thought. Shall we not be free? Shall 

 there never be a literary mortmain to 

 lift the dead hand of the classics and 

 leave us at liberty to render service 

 where it is due? 



Wherein lies the hitherto unequaled 

 excellence of Thucydides and Tacitus? 

 Not in their superior 'accuracy, love of 

 truth and impartiality'; for 'Gibbon 

 and Gardiner among the moderns pos- 

 sess equally the same qualities.' Mr. 

 Rhodes would doubtless deprecate any 

 suggestion of placing his own name in 

 this honorable company, but I believe 

 it would occur at once to those who are 

 familiar with his works. Certainly it is 

 not difficult for the unprejudiced reader 

 to see in him a conscientious and brave 

 fidelity to the truth that can be found 

 in a higher degree in no historian, an- 

 cient or modern. 



Nor does the advantage of the classi- 

 cal historians lie "in the collection of 

 materials, in criticism and detailed an- 

 alysis, in the study of cause and effect, 



