62 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



they ? They have personally no faith whatever in the real value 

 of any training except that gained by the study of the classics. 

 They appreciate that the scientific course is but a graft on the old 

 trunk, made in great measure for the pecuniary advantage of 

 their establishment, and in response to a popular demand, which 

 they hope and pray may soon find a speedy death. They have no 

 hesitation in proselytizing in the ranks of the brighter " scien- 

 tific" pupils sent them, for the benefit and glory of the "full 

 rounded course " — in embryo. Here again they are justified, for 

 the preparatory scientific courses are in fact but indifferent patch- 

 work compromises between the claims of the past and the de- 

 mands of the present. These courses really do give no thorough 

 secondary school work in any one subject, except possibly mathe- 

 matics. With an apparently semi-superstitious feeling as to the 

 mysterious results produced on the human mind by communion 

 with a Latin grammar, for even a limited period, little dabs of 

 Latin have been introduced into these courses. This study ex- 

 tends in the scientific course of some preparatory schools through 

 one year, sometimes two, rarely three years. With no desire what- 

 ever to depreciate the undoubted value, to certain pupils, of an 

 honest, bona fide study of the classical languages, continued for 

 years, it is submitted that these cursory courses of Latin can give 

 no results in any way commensurate with the time expended on 

 them. In Germany the classicists have ever stoutly maintained 

 that any reduction of hours devoted to Latin in the gymnasium 

 course would deprive it of all value ; yet they there give to it 

 nine hours per week for five years, and eight hours for four years 

 more. In the Realschulen they devote to it eight hours a week 

 for two years, six hours for three, and five hours for four years. 

 The value that the German school authorities would place upon 

 a course of Latin of three or four hours per week for one, two, 

 or even three years, affords a pretty little arithmetical problem 

 whose solution is respectfully relegated to the designers of these 

 American courses. Beyond this Latin and the regulation four or 

 five hours a week in mathematics, what else does one find in our 

 preparatory " scientific " courses ? As but few of the more modern 

 scientific schools or schools of technology have requirements in 

 Latin— and as one and all of them are desirous of obtaining from 

 their matriculates all, and more than they often get, in the way 

 of modern languages— one could properly expect that the fitting 

 schools would afford opportunities for solid preparation in French 

 and German. As will be seen, this demand is by no means well 

 responded to. In the scientific courses of one prominent fitting 

 school consulted by the writer, no instruction whatever in mod- 

 ern languages is given. In the programme of another of these 

 schools—which is also the most modern, therefore lending some 



