PRESENT STATUS OF THE GREEK QUESTION. 17 



extensive center of learning on this continent, as a required subject 

 of study. 



Harvard, however, was not the first of our institutions of high rank 

 to discard Greek from the list of its requirements for the degree of 

 A. B. Johns Hopkins University led the way in this revolution, as in 

 so many other good things. But its lead in the matter, owing to sev- 

 eral circumstances, did not have anything like the same influence which 

 Harvard's will have. In the first place, the institution had no history 

 prior to 1876, and it was a matter which attracted but little atention 

 when it opened, that in this regard it began at a point to which no 

 other American institution had at that time come. It was, moreover, 

 organized on quite a different plan from the ordinary college, and the 

 work at first seemed to outsiders to be chiefly of post-graduate char- 

 acter, in which this question played but an unimportant part. Har- 

 vard, on the contrary, still retains its college form, though the spirit of 

 the college, in the traditional sense, at least, has long since departed. 

 Any action taken by it seems, therefore, much nearer to the average 

 college than that of such an institution as the university at Baltimore. 



Johns Hopkins allows the substitution of modern languages for 

 Greek in the course for the degree of A. B. i. e., it has from the first 

 recognized the equivalency of different lines of work for the degree 

 which crowns the course of liberal arts. The two institutions in Amer- 

 ica which, taken all in all, each in its own way, stand at the head of 

 our educational system, join, then, in this revolutionary step. How 

 long can the other institutions hold out along the old lines ? The for- 

 tress which the defenders of the old system have recognized as the key 

 to the situation has fallen, it is a mere question of time how soon the 

 others must capitulate; and we may be sure that, when they do, it will 

 be without conditions. 



If we take a glance at conditions in foreign countries, we can better 

 understand how thoroughly in sympathy with the general progress of 

 education in our modern world this new step is, and consequently how 

 exceedingly sure it is of never being retraced. It is safe to say, after 

 making all due allowances for many acknowledged defects, that the 

 higher institutions of Germany stand as a whole at the head of similar 

 institutions in the world. Certain it is that German educational litera- 

 ture leads the world. It is also certain that the educational ideals of 

 young men in this country have been powerfully influenced by contact 

 with German institutions. It will also be agreed that the Germans 

 can not be accused of headlong radicalism in educational or other 

 matters. It is worth our while, then, to notice what they are doing in 

 this direction. 



When we examine the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, 

 which is the German degree which corresponds most closely with our 

 A. B., we find that not a single one of the German universities require 

 any knowledge of Greek whatever for this degree It is now sixteen 



VOL. XXXI. 2 



