GERMAN TESTIMONY ON CLASSICS QUESTION. 21 



University in Berlin reported that the graduates of the practical-schools 

 were poorer material than those sent up from the older schools, and 

 assigned theoretical reasons for the deficiency. This report has been 

 widely quoted in this country as deciding a question on which it 

 had little, if any, bearing — namely, whether Latin and Greek are the 

 best studies for early mental training. Great capital was likewise 

 made of the fact that Professor Hofmann, who is a chemist, on assum- 

 ing the rectorship of the University of Berlin, reiterated the conclu- 

 sions of the faculty, and apparently acknowledged the pre-eminence 

 claimed for the classics ; but it is quite significant that the classical 

 men failed to get any such public utterance from him during his visit 

 to the United States last fall as they got from Lord Coleridge and 

 Matthew Arnold. The numerous causes and considerations which led 

 to the adverse report of the Berlin faculty have been ably set forth by 

 Professor E. J. James, in an article on " The Classical Question in 

 Germany," published in " The Popular Science Monthly " for January, 

 1884. 



But the impression still persists that this decision of the principal 

 state university in favor of the classical-schools and against the prac- 

 tical-schools, has something of the import of a German Government 

 manifesto, and of a final answer to the question, upon which the cult- 

 ure and scholarship of that country are agreed. This, however, is a 

 very great mistake. So far from quieting it, the celebrated Berlin 

 report did not have sufficient influence in its own country to materi- 

 ally check the agitation of the classics question. The controversy 

 over the traditional classical study, of which the practical-schools are 

 a product, had raged long and hotly, taking a profound hold of the 

 public mind, and the discussion goes on without abatement of interest 

 or vigor, as may be inferred from the following introduction to a 

 pamphlet * written nine months after the presentation of the report : 



" The present condition of our secondary-school system must incite 

 every thinking person to serious reflection. We see a school for the 

 cultivated, aiming almost exclusively at acquaintance with classical 

 antiquity, while an indescribable ignorance of the ancient civilization 

 prevails among almost all classes ; an eternal dispute in the daily 

 press, and in most circles, as to whether Latin or Greek or both are 

 indispensable in education ; and a vast gulf between the two prevail- 

 ing cultures, due to the difference between the ideals of the classical- 

 school and of the practical-school. There is also a restless fluctuation 

 in the prescriptions for the examination of one-year volunteers ; a 

 violent contest in regard to whether admission to the study of medi- 

 cine shall be confined to classical-school graduates ; and, finally, a 

 decrease, perceptible to the superficial observer even, of intellectual 

 workers, which means a general abatement of intellectual life so far 



* " Betrachtungen iiber unser classisches Schulwesen," Leipsic, Verlag von Ambr. 

 Abel, 1881. 



