674 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



SCIENCE VERSUS THE CLASSICS. 



By C. A. EGGERT, 



PROFESSOR IN THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA. 



AT the present stage of the discussion as to the value of the train- 

 ing in the Latin and Greek languages and their literature, the 

 testimony of Professor Preyer, of the University of Jena, is not with- 

 out importance. Professor Preyer is interested, and he not alone 

 among German professors, in the question of " health and vigor ve?'sus 

 disease and weakness " of the German youth. In an article " On the 

 Preservation of Health, " published in the " Deutsche Rundschau," he 

 made the following pertinent remarks : 



" The preservation of health, of the power of sight and muscle, of 

 the readiness of the mind to receive impressions from nature and man, 

 of freshness and youthful elasticity, is undoubtedly of much more 

 consequence for the age of our graduates than a knowledge, no mat- 

 ter how thorough, of history and the dead languages. A first-class 

 German college (gymnasium) requires at present the reading of Sopho- 

 cles, Homer, Thucydides, Demosthenes, Plutarch, Herodotus, Xeno- 

 phon, Tacitus, Horace, Caesar, Cicero, Livy, Virgil, Sallust, Ovid, and I 

 find among its text-books Greek, Latin, and Hebrew grammars, a Latin 

 phrase-book, an ecclesiastical history, and several other books, which, 

 to be understood, require an amount of brain- work out of proportion to 

 the results obtained. I find there the very same Latin and Greek au- 

 thors which I read myself at school some twenty-four to twenty-eight 

 years ago. The present stand-point of the humanistic gymnasia is, in 

 spite of some attempts at adaptation to the new time, essentially the 

 mediaeval one, which was justifiable several centuries ago, because there 

 was then nothing better than the ancient classics, and particularly no 

 exact natural science, to furnish means of discipline. At present, how- 

 ever, there are many books which, both as regards form and contents, 

 are better fitted for the instruction of young people than the authors 

 enumerated. Why are not extracts read from the writings of Galilei, 

 Descartes, Newton, Bacon, Faraday, Luther, Harvey, Frederick the 

 Great, Leibnitz, Kant, Haller ? At the age of our graduates it is, be- 

 sides, of the greatest importance that there be less reading and writ- 

 ing, less taxing of the memory, more exercise of the muscular system. 

 Not learning, but health and character, should be the main objects in 

 education and schooling, and therefore the education of the senses 

 should be emphasized. Only a philologist will deny that grammar, 

 with its many exceptions, is rather a heavy ballast for the memory 

 than a proper means for the training of the logical faculty. The stu- 

 dent involuntarily becomes accustomed to admit exceptions also in 

 the case of other rules, ethical laws, the laws of nature, and in matters 

 of his own experience. The elements of mechanics and chemistry 



