THE CLASSICS THAT EDUCATE US. 153 



to diversions, checks, stops, reversals, renewals all, indeed, proceeding 

 according to the self -same tendency as the general movement, but out 

 of which, together with that movement, comes in the long run true 

 advancement the cloth of gold of civilization ; for it would be a 

 grave mistake, as I have implied, to suppose that this propensity is not 

 of capital importance to the development of man. Without imitative- 

 ness, the first and most fruitful years of life would be a blank, to say 

 nothing of the loss to every later year ; and without sequaciousness 

 society would run to anarchy, and leap into ruin. The bell-wether, 

 principle, it must be admitted, is a large factor in human progress ; 

 but, like every other factor, it may be taken too often, making the 

 product not what it should be. 



And this undoubtedly is what has happened in the case of educa- 

 tion. In the infancy of our tongue, when the learning of the past was 

 locked up in Greek and Latin, and the key to these languages, as well 

 as the care of education, was in the hands of ecclesiastics, the study 

 of the ancient classics became in some sort a necessity, the teachers 

 being unable or unwilling to move in any other direction, and the 

 learners having no choice but to follow. The jump of the ecclesiasti- 

 cal bell-wether drew on the herd, which, having once got under way, 

 has kept on jumping in the same path, and is jumping in it now, when 

 our tongue has grown up into a rich and glorious maturity, when the 

 learning of the past not only has been transfused into it but is a drop 

 in the ocean of its own acquisitions, and when the care of education, 

 in common with other vital interests, is in the hands of the people. 

 For this egregious persistence, however, the propensity I have men- 

 tioned is not alone responsible. Many things have cooperated with it. 

 The dead languages, for one thing, have been put on guard at the gate 

 of the professions, obstructing the admission of all to whom they were 

 unknown ; and, in case that obstruction fell short of exclusion, spread- 

 ing the tables inside with their scraps, which haply might cause the bold 

 intruder to repent that he had staid away from the feast of languages, 

 or had not staid away from the feast of reason also. The flower of 

 the youth of successive generations has thus been put under the classic 

 screw. Then, again, many of the masterpieces of our language have 

 been produced by men of classical training, and, pursuant to a familiar 

 fallacy, the production is inferred to have come from the training be- 

 cause it came after it ; whereas, it would be nearer the truth to infer 

 that the production was not on account of the training, but in despite 

 of it the fruit of English training in the face of classical. Never- 

 theless, the classical has appropriated the credit. Something, likewise, 

 must be imputed to the splendid renown of the Greeks and Latins, as 

 also to the vague but strong attraction of the unknown, which, if we 

 may believe a saying of the Latins themselves, is always thought to 

 be magnificent. Finally, the victims of the dead languages, prompted 

 by a natural pride, have for the most part kept their sacrifice to them- 



