532 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



there/ as an American would phrase it. Only a dead language can be 

 looked at as a vehicle, with due regard to its carrying capacity and its 

 power of going, but with no thought of either its particular cargo or 

 its destination. 



For something like ten years a public-school boy is daily exercised in 

 the analysis of sentences in Latin and Greek and in the construction of 

 sentences in the same style. He is working at languages which are 

 elaborately inflected, and articulated according to almost innumerable 

 rules. It is a mental exercise which is not supplied in quite the same 

 form by means of the analysis and synthesis of English. German, 

 French, Italian are troublesome to learn; but it is not the rules, but 

 their infraction, the perversities of the language, which tax the 

 memory. Greek and Latin are far from being guiltless of ' exceptions ' ; 

 yet their architecture, although more elaborate, adheres more closely 

 to a type-form than does that of any modern European language. 

 Each year the schoolboy becomes more expert in expressing, in Eng- 

 lish, the meaning of his classic author. He recognizes the force, in 

 the expression of thought, of case and mood and voice. He notes the 

 effect upon sense of the position and juxtaposition of words, and of the 

 substitution of one word for another which at first glance appears to 

 mean the same thing. And, since, psychologically, it is impossible to 

 distinguish between thought and the expression of thought, his power of 

 thinking develops pari passu with his capacity of giving form to his 

 thoughts. He acquires a feeling for style — the compromise between 

 yielding to the gratification of the ear and the businesslike jerking out 

 of words — the response to the music of language without forgetfulness 

 of its meaning — style, a quality which all the adjectives in the dic- 

 tionary leave undefined. A man who has had a classical education has 

 a craftsman's feeling for literature: he regards it as an artist regards 

 a picture. The only questions which a layman asks are : ' Is it beau- 

 tiful ? ' and ' What does it mean ? ' The artist can never quite dis- 

 sociate his criticism of the result from his consideration of the means 

 by which it was attained. 



The mind-making property of the study of the classics has been 

 established beyond all doubt by innumerable experiments made upon 

 juvenile minds of all types. It does not appear to me that, in the 

 face of this mass of accumulated evidence, it can be regarded as a 

 question open to dispute. It is not equally clear that the study of 

 the classics stands alone in its potentiality of generating the power 

 of thinking. Owing to the monopoly of the classics in the best class 

 of schools, for the past three hundred years, other subjects have had 

 no chance of showing what they can do. 



The teaching of the classics has, pace the reformers who are calling 

 out for improved methods, been brought to perfection by generations 

 of school masters, working under the guidance of daily experience; 



