634 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



many people, who have failed to learn it, abuse " Greek " and the 

 Grecians, instead of regretting their failure and trying again. 



It is a common observation among compulsory Grecians 

 that few if any who can pass Responsions in Latin are really 

 incapable of passing in Greek ; and we have only to compare 

 the papers currently set in each subject to see that this is 

 inevitable. With the sole exception that in Responsions com- 

 position in Greek is hardly required, the two languages are 

 expected to be handled in precisely the same way. Yet in 

 spirit, in handling, in their whole method of expressing thought, 

 in all, indeed, but the barest accidence and vocabulary, the two 

 languages are as different as French is from German or either 

 of these from English. When, therefore, I find that many 

 objectors to Greek are content to leave a very large place 

 open for Latin in their reformed curriculum, I begin to suspect 

 that what they dislike is not really Greek but a misguided 

 attempt to teach Greek as if it were a subsequent, supple- 

 mentary and superfluous thing ; a mere duplicate of Latin and 

 a poor one. I am somewhat confirmed in this view by a 

 criticism which sometimes reaches me to the same effect on 

 the teaching of French and German ; and I am reminded of 

 a young Greek with whom I once travelled, who was trying 

 to learn French and English simultaneously by the same 

 " comparative method." Whenever he addressed me in either 

 language, I was unluckily certain to mistake his intention and 

 to reply in the other. If Cicero were ever condemned, for 

 Elysian misdemeanour, to examine in Responsions or in some 

 Sixth Forms, I fear he would have much the same difficulty, 

 at all events in syntax and idiom. 



Now this muddle of method is no fault of the pupil. No 

 one who started to learn Greek unaided and went as far as 

 to spell out simple Greek narratives would dream of writing 

 Greek sentences with the words in Latin order, which I find 

 to be a common habit. On the other hand, this is exactly what 

 we should expect to find, if two other things were true : (i) that 

 the teacher did not much mind how he taught Greek ; (2) that 

 he did not really know much about the Greek language beyond 

 the accidence and vocabulary. Above all, we should suspect 

 that he had an untrained ear and that the reason why his 

 ear was untrained was because he did not himself speak either 

 Greek or Latin fluently and consequently had very little 



