676 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



is discreditec), as the subtilties of the 

 schoolmen were discredited at the time 

 of the Eenaissance." 



Mr. Browning has not much faith 

 in this kind of knowledge for purposes 

 of education, but, if it is bound to come 

 and something must be given up, he 

 will stick by his Greek, let who will 

 suffer. He says : " If one of the two 

 languages must go, let it be Latin. 

 Greek is in every respect more valuable. 

 As a language it is more beautiful, 

 more rich, more flexible. Its literature 

 is incomparably superior. The loss of 

 Latin can be compensated by the lan- 

 guages derived from it. Nothing can 

 supply the place of Greek. It is idle to 

 suppose that if Greek were omitted 

 from our regular school curriculum it 

 would continue to be studied by the 

 older boys." 



Nothing certainly could be more 

 idle, for the study is not adapted to 

 modern general wants, and therefore 

 has to be maintained by compulsion 

 and its position maintained by an artifi- 

 cial coercive policy. Science, on the 

 other hand, has grown up outside the 

 schools, without endowments, and has 

 been mainly developed by private en- 

 terprise because it is adapted to the 

 present stage of progress of the human 

 mind. 



One of the " Times " correspondents 

 thus replies to Browning's suggestion 

 that Latin be sacrificed : 



"The answer to Mr. Oscar Brown- 

 ing's question. Why should not Latin 

 be thrown over, if one of the two clas- 

 sical languages must cease to be com- 

 pulsory at the universities? is not far 

 to seek. It is true that Greek is easier 

 to learn, can be mastered thoroughly in 

 less time, has an incomparably finer 

 literature, and brings back times of 

 greater interest than Latin ; but these 

 advantages are surely trifling when 

 compared with the fact that Latin is 

 the foundation of the languages which 

 half Europe speaks and all Europe un- 

 derstands, and that it was a Latin-speak- 

 ing people which formed the institu- 



tions, legal, social, ecclesiastical, and 

 political, which we now maintain. I 

 suspect that the genius of the English 

 character is too Roman, or at least too 

 anti-Hellenic, to gain as much from a 

 moderate acquaintance with Greek cul- 

 ture as it has gained from a moderate 

 acquaintance with the prominent Latin 

 authors." 



RESTRICTIVE TENDENCIES IN GER- 

 MANY. 



Toe great German experiment in 

 empire-making conducted in these mod- 

 ern days by the "man of blood and 

 iron" brings with it a train of de- 

 velopments which would be startling 

 if they were not so legitimate and nat- 

 ural. Bismarck has the reputation of 

 being a man of action and a great 

 practical administrator, but behind and 

 deeper than all this he is a thinker and 

 a theorist^ and the final estimate of him 

 will depend, not on the greatness of 

 the transactions which he has directed, 

 but upon the character of his opinions. 

 He holds certain hypothetical views of 

 human nature, society, and government, 

 and upon these he acts : the question 

 is. Will time vindicate their truth ? He 

 is now at the height of power, and is 

 lauded as a bold, sagacious, far-seeing 

 statesman : will the future disclose him 

 as a purblind political quack, as igno- 

 rant of his age and of all conditions of 

 national permanence in modern times 

 as the brilliant French adventurer who 

 ravaged Europe in the beginning of the 

 present century? This we shall not 

 undertake to decide, but it looks, at 

 any rate, as if Bismarck were cutting 

 out work for his successors which they 

 will probably not be able to perform. 



When recently Professor Virchow 

 solemnly admonished the scientific men 

 of Germany to beware how they exer- 

 cised the liberty of scientific discussion, 

 lest they provoke governmental inter- 

 ference and suppression, it was thought, 

 outside of Germany, that he was hard- 

 ly in earnest, and was merely girding at 



