THE ACQUISITION OF LANGUAGE 535 



been consumed. Mental nutriment must now be sought for in the 

 primal forest, with aid of axe and saw. 



I should be very sorry to be misunderstood. It is impossible to 

 exaggerate the magnitude of the debt which Europe owes to the Italian 

 scholars of the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. One needs 

 to read the story of the rediscovery of the classics, as told by John 

 Addington Symonds in ' The Eenaissance in Italy,' to understand it 

 fully. Latin at the beginning of the fourteenth century was so de- 

 based as to be almost forgotten; Greek was a lost tongue. Petrarch, 

 Boccaccio and their successors restored Latin and rediscovered Greek. 

 Dictionaries were compiled; codices compared; no effort was too great, 

 no detail too petty if it helped to the comprehension of the meaning 

 of the text or enabled the scholar to amend it when corrupt. It is — 

 shall we say? — three centuries since this work was substantially com- 

 plete. It is dangerous to fix a date, seeing that able men at our 

 various universities are still engaged upon the task; but it can not 

 be gainsaid that by the beginning of the seventeenth century scholars 

 were in a position to read Homer and Aristotle, Virgil and Cicero, and 

 to understand what they read. The seam of gold was exhausted, the 

 mine had yielded up its hidden wealth; though it may be that for 

 years to come the ' tailings ' will repay the industrious work of those 

 who are content with specks. 



Yet the pedagogic method of preparing boys for the search remains 

 the same. And, looking at the matter fairly, we readily acknowledge 

 that, however empirical, the method is justified by its results. In the 

 presence of the indisputably satisfactory effects of the method, it 

 ought not to be difficult to trace the true relation between effects and 

 cause. How is the success of a classical education to be explained? 

 Let us decline to admit reasons which, if not absolutely false, are at 

 any rate half untrue. A boy does not learn Greek and Latin roots 

 because they will help him to understand his own language. He does 

 not acquire these languages in order that he may absorb the science 

 and thought of the ancients direct from the original text. He does 

 not study Cicero in the expectation of some day writing Latin letters. 

 For school-boys Greek and Latin are exercises in grammatical ex- 

 pression, and nothing more. 



Among the many disingenuous arguments which have recently 

 been advanced in favor of the maintenance of the compulsory study 

 of Greek is the contention that it would be of inestimable value if 

 properly taught. Its advocates are ready to disown the accumulated 

 evidence of success, to deny results upon which they might safely rely, 

 and to advocate a new venture. Greek, they say shutting their eyes 

 to the teaching of experience, has hitherto been badly taught. It will 

 answer all expectations if teaching methods are reformed. Too much 

 attention has been paid to accidence, to scansion, to niceties of gram- 



