PRESENT STATUS OF THE GREEK QUESTION. 15 



languages, and social science, were finally admitted to a place in the 

 curriculum of the colleges. It was insisted, however, that space should 

 be found for them, not by cutting the time given to Greek and Latin, 

 but simply by demanding more in these subjects for admission, and 

 thus giving to them as much time as was given before and lengthening 

 the college course correspondingly, so that a college boy is now much 

 older than he was a half-century ago. When further demands were 

 made with irresistible force, they were finally met by a reluctant per- 

 mission to establish so-called modern or Latin-scientific or scientific 

 courses, parallel with the old, but carrying with them a separate degree 

 which did not recognize the candidate as a liberally educated man, 

 whatever else he might be. It was thus that the field lay, when Dr. 

 Eliot began fifteen years ago his career as President of Harvard Col- 

 lege. An earnest agitation was shortly begun to make Greek elective 

 in the course for the degree of A. B. It was maintained that the 

 facilities for study and methods of teaching, etc., in the modern studies 

 had been so far perfected that they could put something else in the 

 place of Greek and still fairly claim for the man who had completed the 

 course the proud title of bachelor of liberal arts. 



Here the adherents of the old system made a desperate stand and 

 were determined to fight the proposal to the bitter end. How far 

 President Eliot may be personally responsible for the view within 

 Harvard College which admitted the reasonableness of this claim of 

 the "modernists" I am not aware. But certain it is that, whether 

 rightly or wrongly, he is identified with it in the public mind. With 

 every passing year, with every extension in the courses of study at 

 Harvard, with every improvement in their facilities for giving instruc- 

 tion in these new branches, with every debate on the question in the 

 faculty meetings, with every careful and unprejudiced consideration 

 of the question in a broad or liberal way, with every increase in peda- 

 gogical knowledge ; and with every comparison of our own system 

 with that of progressive nations abroad and the tendencies of thought 

 on educational matters elsewhere, the number of those favorable to the 

 scheme increased, until during the last year the plan was finally adopted 

 which marked the culmination of the long development. So fully 

 was it recognized that Harvard's decision on the matter, if favorable 

 to the claims of the modern party, would lend an inmense impetus to 

 the cause everywhere and ultimately lead to the utter rout of the 

 " ancients," that a very unusual step was taken by several of the New 

 England college presidents. Eight of them joined in a circular me- 

 morial to the Board of Overseers of Harvard College in the spring of 

 1885, praying that no relaxation be made in the requisition of Greek 

 for the A. B. I think I am right in saying that such action was un- 

 precedented in the history of American education the head of eight 

 institutions of learning uniting in a request to the governing board of 

 a ninth institution that it should not comply with the request of its 



