THE CLASSICAL CONTROVERSY. 639 



on human nature itself ! " There are various conceivable ways of coun- 

 ter-arguing these assertions, but the shortest is to call for the facts 

 the results upon the many thousands that have passed through their 

 ten years of classical drill. Professor Campbell, of St. Andrews, once 

 remarked, with reference to the value of Greek in particular, that the 

 question would have to be ultimately decided by the inner conscious- 

 ness of those that have undergone the study. To this we are entitled 

 to add, their powers as manifested to the world, of which powers spec- 

 tators can be the judges. When, with a few brilliant exceptions, we 

 discover nothing at all remarkable in the men that have been subjected 

 to the classical training, we may consider it as almost a waste of time 

 to analyze the grandiloquent assertions of Mr. Bonamy Price. But, if 

 we were to analyze them, we should find that boys never read Caesar 

 and Tacitus through in succession ; still less Thucydides, Demosthenes, 

 and Aristotle ; that very few men read and understand these writers ; 

 that the shortest way to come into contact with Aristotle is to avoid 

 his Greek altogether, and take his expositors and translators in the 

 modern languages. 



The Professor is not insensible to the reproach that the vaunted 

 classical education has been a failure, as compared with these splendid 

 promises. He says, however, that, though many have failed to be- 

 come classical scholars in the full sense of the word, "it does not fol- 

 low that they have gained nothing from their study of Greek and 

 Latin; just the contrary is the truth." The "contrary" must mean 

 that they have gained something, which something is stated to be 

 " the extent to which the faculties of the boy have been developed, 

 the quantity of impalpable but not less real attainments he has achieved, 

 and his general readiness for life, and for action as a man." But it is 

 becoming more and more difficult to induce people to spend a long 

 course of youthful years upon a confessedly impalpable result. We 

 might give up a few months to a speculative and doubtful good, but we 

 need palpable consequences to show for our years spent on classics. 

 Next comes the admission that the teaching is often bad. But why 

 should the teaching be so bad, and what is the hope of making it bet- 

 ter ? Then we are told that science by itself leaves the largest and 

 most important portion of the youth's nature absolutely undeveloped. 

 But, in the first place, it is not proposed to reduce the school and col- 

 lege curriculum to science alone ; and, in the next place, who can say 

 what are the " impalpable " results of science ? 



The second branch of the argument relates to the greatness of the 

 classical writers. Undoubtedly there are some very great writers in 

 the Greek and Roman world, and some that are not great. But the 

 greatness of Herodotus, Thucydides, Demosthenes, Plato, and Aris- 

 totle can be exhibited in a modern rendering ; while no small portion 

 of the poetical form can be made apparent without toiling at the 

 original tongues. The value of the languages, then, resolves itself, as 



