OXFORD AND GREEK 635 



experience of Greek speech ; that his notion, in fact, of " teach- 

 ing Greek" was to cram the boys' memories with a particular 

 kind of algebraic notation in which <f>, for example, was a 

 function of it and the terminations of nouns and verbs were 

 co-ordinates. I do not think I am stretching language unduly 

 if I interpret this first group of objections to " Greek " as 

 really amounting to this : that a great deal of what is taught 

 as Greek is not the live language at all but partly a poor 

 imitation of Latin and partly gibberish. 



A second popular objection, heard rather from parents than 

 from pupils, concerns not the form but the matter of the " Greek" 

 that is taught. Conceive a German school in which the boys' 

 knowledge of" English," as a character-forming "guide to life," 

 was based exclusively on King Lear, Measure for Measure, 

 Berkeley's Alciphron or the Minute Philosopher and Burke's 

 speech On the Nabob of Arcofs Debts ; in which Spenser, the 

 Authorised Version and particularly Burns were under a taboo 

 (like Herodotus and Theocritus) on the ground of " dialect " 

 and " style " ; and in which all English history and social life 

 outside the " subject matter " of the " set books " were excluded 

 as far as possible, especially from the higher forms, to make 

 time for the writing of blank verse and common-metre hymns. 

 Then, for King Lear and Measure for Measure write Greek 

 problem-plays like the Medea and Alcestis ; for Burke, write 

 the Olynthiacs of Demosthenes ; and for Alciphron write 

 Euthyphro and Crito, little essays, graceful enough, on the 

 limits of piety and loyalty but repulsive as a tract by Hannah 

 More to the normal British boy. " Why," asks the bewildered 

 parent, especially if he can spell out some of the " set books " 

 for himself, " why do universities prescribe works like these 

 to test what they must surely know by this time to be the 

 merest beginners in Greek ? " No wonder, either, that the 

 average boy comes to the conclusion that, in the words of 

 Mr. A. C. Benson, 1 " classics of all kinds were written by 

 people who meant nothing in particular, for people who wish 

 to read about nothing in particular and to feel superior while 

 they do so " ; or that " if like many boys he is quite ignorant 

 of English literature, he comes to the conclusion" after com- 

 paring his Greek play with his pidgin-English crib " that 

 literature in general is devoid alike of sense and interest." 



1 Twigs, November 29, 19 10. 



41 



