THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



JANUARY, 1884. 



THE CLASSICAL QUESTION IN GERMANY. 



Br EDMUND J. JAMES, Ph. D., 



PROFESSOR OF FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION IN THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



THE struggle between the adherents of the old classical curriculum 

 and the representatives of modern culture has nowhere been car- 

 ried on with more bitterness than in Germany. In no other land have 

 the respective antagonists shown more narrowness and bigotry, or been 

 less inclined to allow their opponents the possession of common sense 

 or pure motives. 



The representatives of the classics, intrenched behind a strong wall 

 of tradition and usage, were from the first in the enjoyment of all the 

 honors and privileges. They were supported by the mighty power 

 of a public sentiment which had been begotten at a time when the 

 classics and mathematics formed the only subjects worthy of serious 

 study, and had been nourished by a long line of illustrious men whose 

 only school-education had been a training in Latin, Greek, and geom- 

 etry. They were upheld by the powerful force of a government 

 which made the acquisition of such an education the condition of all its 

 favors. They looked down, therefore, naturally enough, with a certain 

 contempt and' loathing upon those rude materialists who insisted that 

 there was something in the modern world worthy of serious study. 

 The other party, on the contrary, driven to extremes by the bigotry 

 and obstinacy of their opponents, were compelled to make war to the 

 death, by denying all virtue of any sort to a classical training. They 

 insisted on purely modern subjects as opposed to classics, on a multi- 

 plicity of branches in preference to a few, on technical education for 

 particular callings instead of a liberal training for good living. 



But in the course of events we find both parties in that country 

 receding from their extreme positions and gradually approaching each 



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