EDITOR'S TABLE. 



12; 



bound to live in the ark after the dehige had 

 subsided." At present there Is an abundance 

 of good reading in the modern languages. 

 If the choice were given us whether to give to 

 the flames the entire English literature of the 

 last three centuries, or all the writings of the 

 Greeks and Romans, the classics would have 

 to perish. If we superadd to the English au- 

 thors the Gei-man, French, and Italian writers 

 of the modern period, there can be no question 

 as to the literary value of the aggregate of 

 these treasures when compared with the liter- 

 ature of antiquity, collectively taken. A man 

 who has studied Lessing, Goethe, and Kant, 

 Pascal, Molidre, and Saintc-Beuve, Shake- 

 speare, Milton, Locke, and Wordsworth, with 

 Luther's Bible or the authorized English 

 version, can not be regarded as an uncultured 

 person, even if he has never opened the covers 

 of a Latin and Greek classic. Still less can he 

 be thus stigmatized if he has acquainted him- 

 self with Homer and Thucydides, Tacitus and 

 Horace, Plato and Cicero, through the me- 

 dium of fairly good translations into the ver- 

 nacular. 



The sweeping assertion sometimes hazard- 

 ed, that classical training Ls in all cases neces- 

 sary for distinctively literary excellence— for 

 perfection of style— is contradicted by too 

 many facts. Every one who has read the 

 pages of John Bunyan, or the speeches of 

 John Bright, knows better. Johnson was 

 much more of a classical scholar than Gold- 

 smith, but Goldsmith's English is far better 

 than Johnson's. Native genius and tact have 

 too large an influence in this matter to admit 

 of any such universal rule or test as the clas- 

 sical bigots would lay down. 



It is a very narrow view which holds that 

 there is only one method of education— one 

 beaten track on which all must walk. 



It is not all persons who aspire after an in- 

 tellectual life who are to be recommended to 

 spend their time upon Greek, or even upon 

 Latin. There is no good reason why many 

 young persons, who devote a series of years to 

 mental training in schools and colleges, should 

 not, in case their aptitudes and intended vo- 

 cation so prompt them, dispense with Greek 

 and pursue, in the room of it, the natural and 

 physical sciences, or the modern languages, 

 or both. 



These cautious concessions, though 

 no doubt entirely candid, have evidently 

 been extracted from the professor by the 

 strain which has been recently put upon 

 the classical question, for he recognizes 

 that the movement which broke out at 

 Harvard College under the impulse of 



Mr. Adams's address, and which is un- 

 derstood to bo favored by the president 

 of that institution, will probably result 

 in a modification of the collegiate course, 

 and that " in this case the example of 

 Harvard is likely to be followed by a 

 greater or less number of other col- 

 leges." But, while yielding these sev- 

 eral points, Dr. Fisher is careful not to 

 surrender the main classical position, 

 which is, to maintain the prestige of 

 Greek and Latin as the essential ele- 

 ments of a broad, liberal education. Ho 

 here stands upon the old ground and 

 plies the old arguments, tiie most im- 

 portant of which seems to us strikingly 

 unsatisfactory. Dr. Fisher says : 



The objects of study, the object-matter, 

 are the world and man. The "world" is 

 here the synonym of nature. It embraces the 

 physical universe, including the earth, its 

 productions, and its inhabitants other than 

 men. This is the realm of the natural and 

 physical sciences. The grand progress of 

 these studies is the most striking feature of the 

 times, as regards the advance of knowledge. 

 No one can be called an educated man at this 

 day who is ignorant of the departments of in- 

 quiry which deal with nature. They provide, 

 when earnestly pursued, a discipline of their 

 own. But they can never supersede as a 

 means of culture the study of M.\ji. This is 

 the " proper study of mankind," the supreme 

 object of curiosity, and source of mental and 

 moral development. In this statement, re- 

 ligion is not forgotten ; but it is through the 

 contemplation of man primarily, and of na- 

 ture, that we learn of God. Man— what he is, 

 what he has thought and done, the civilization 

 which he has created— this is that object of 

 study, to which belongs a transcendent worth. 

 In this study, embracing history, philosophy, 

 politics, literature, religion, are the fountains 

 from which cultivation is to be derived. To 

 an individual cultivated thus, the sciences of 

 nature gain a new quality, an ideal element, a 

 suggestiveness, of which, independently of 

 this advantage, they are destitute. 



Man as an object of study is here 

 separated from nature, and the separa- 

 tion is held to be so complete as to give 

 rise to two great divisions of study. 

 These are independent of each other, 

 may be separately pursued, and result 

 in two distinct systems of education. 



