EDITOR'S TABLE. 



127 



to tlie interpretation of the ancients. 

 That there is a science of man, though 

 yet imperfect, and a science of mind 

 rapidly growing, and a science of socie- 

 ty roughly established, it is impossible 

 to deny, and they determine for us the 

 method of future investigation. And it 

 is not by the study of ancient languages 

 that these sciences have been created, 

 nor is it by their ardent devotees that 

 tbey are being now pursued and devel- 

 oped. As it is mainly by the men wbo 

 have given the classics the go-by that all 

 science has been cultivated, so it is to- 

 day by men wbo are ignorant or not at 

 all proficient in those old studies that 

 tiie higher sciences pertaining to hu- 

 manity are most vigorously and suc- 

 cessfully pursued. And as it is not to 

 the classicists but to the scientists that 

 the world must look for further light 

 on the nature, activities, and relations 

 of man, so it is not to the dead lan- 

 guages but to the modern sciences that 

 young men are to be commended to 

 gain the best understanding of humani- 

 ty, both in the present and the past. 



Professor Sumner's article, " Our 

 Colleges before the Country," is writ- 

 ten from the thoroughly modern point 

 of view. It is a breezy discussion of 

 college tactics, and quite unprofessorial 

 in the freedom of its criticisms of col- 

 lege functionaries' habits, ideas, and 

 studies. Appreciating the merits of 

 classical study, and acknowledging his 

 own indebtedness to it. Professor Sum- 

 ner is alive to its short-comings, the 

 exaggerated claims that are made for 

 it, and the bad results that flow from 

 its prescriptive position in modern col- 

 legiate education. We quote some pas- 

 sages from this admirable article, some 

 of which it will be seen are not without 

 bearing upon the preceding discussion : 



Now, however, the advocates of the old 

 classical culture, icrnoring or ignorant of all 

 the change which has come over human 

 knowledge and philosophy within fifty years, 

 come forward to affirm that that culture still 

 is the best possible training for our young 



men and the proper basis for the work of our 

 colleges. How do they know it ? How can 

 anybody say that one thing or another is just 

 what is needed tor education i Can we not 

 break down this false and stupid notion that 

 it is the duty of a iiniversity, not to teach 

 whatever any one wants to know, but to pre- 

 scribe to everybody what he ought to want 

 to know ? Some years ago, at a school-meet- 

 ing in one of our cities, a gentleman made 

 an argiunent against the classics. A distin- 

 guished clergyman asked him across the 

 room whether he had ever studied the clas- 

 sics. He rephed that he had not. " I thought 

 not," replied the clergyman, as lie sat down. 

 He was thought to have won a great ^^ictory, 

 but he had not. His opponent should have 

 asked him whether he had ever studied any- 

 thing else. Where is the man who has stud- 

 ied beyond the range of the classical culture 

 who retains his reverence for that culture as 

 superior to all other for the basis of educa- 

 tion ? No doubt a man of classical training 

 often looks back with pleasure and gratitude 

 to his own education and feels that it has 

 been of value to him ; but when he draws an 

 inference, either that no other course of dis- 

 cipline would have been worth more to him- 

 self, or that no other discipline can be gener- 

 ally more useful as a basis of education, he 

 fonns a judgment on a comparison one branch 

 of which is to him imknown. 



When, however, all this is admitted in 

 regard to the uses of a classical trainuig, what 

 does it prove in regard to the claims of the 

 classics to be made the basis of all higher 

 education, or the toll which every one must 

 pay before he can be admitted to the guild of 

 the learned ? Nothing at all. I have known 

 splendid Greek scholars who could not con- 

 struct a clear and intelligible argumeut of six 

 sentences. They always became entangled 

 in subtilties of phrase and super-refinement 

 of words. I have known other great Greek 

 scholars who wrote an English which was so 

 dull that scarcely any one could read it. On 

 the other hand, there are men whose names 

 are household words wherever the English 

 language is spoken, because they can say 

 what they mean in clear, direct, and limpid 

 Enjrlish, although they have never had any 

 classical culture at all. I have known whole 

 classes to graduate at our colleges who had 

 never read a line of Aristotle, and who had 

 not a single correct notion about the life 

 and polity of the Greeks. Men graduate now 

 all the time who know nothing of Greek his- 

 tory and polity but the fragments which they 

 pick out of the notes on the authors which 

 they read. It is grotesque to talk about the 



