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02 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



but contented himself with drawing an 

 interesting parallel between some of the 

 intellectual activities of the Greeks and 

 those of our own age. 



But if Professor Jebb declined to 

 take up the defense of Greek, now so 

 vigorously assailed as well in his own 

 country as in ours, there are other able 

 men who will not bhnk the glare of the 

 controversy. Among these is Professor 

 Bonaray Price, of Oxford, who, although 

 a teacher of political economy, takes up 

 the cudgels with great vigor for the 

 classical languages. He contributes the 

 leading article to the " Princeton Ee- 

 view" for July, under the title of "What 

 is Education?" The first part of his 

 paper returns an excellent and an un- 

 exceptionable answer to his question- 

 title, lie denounces the prevailing pro- 

 pensity to " cram " in unsparing terms ; 

 he eulogizes mva toce in teaching, and 

 thus sums up: "The aim and task of 

 education — independently of the value 

 of tlie knowledge obtained for moral or 

 or any other purposes — is to cultivate 

 the powers of the understanding, to 

 strengthen and enlarge them, to show 

 how they are to be used in mastering 

 any subject. It seeks to train the young 

 pupil how to use his brain, how to de- 

 termine and examine for himself the 

 questions put before him, how to han- 

 dle his mind as a tool, and thus to real- 

 ize the very purposes for which that 

 mind was given him — in a word, to 

 teach him how to think." 



As to the general means of securing 

 this object the suggestions of Professor 

 Price are sound. He says : " Now, what 

 is the educational process to be adopted 

 for accomplishing this great object of 

 teaching a boy how to think? Not, 

 certainly, to set him to read well-writ- 

 ten and learned books, to store up their 

 contents in his memory, and then to 

 pour them out at examination. Nor 

 will this great end be reached by learned 

 addresses from tutors, carefully gathered 

 up in notes by the pupils and then fol- 

 lowed up by examinations which simply 



test the attention and the accuracy of 

 the students. This is cram — nothing 

 better. . . . The answer is not difficult; 

 indeed, it may be called obvious; yet 

 how little is it perceived or valued at 

 the present hour even in our most dis- 

 tinguished institutions of education ! 

 Its secret lies in skillful questioning by 

 the teacher, in power to make the pupil 

 discover for himself the facts and truths 

 to be gathered up at each place. . . . 

 The work of the teacher is to direct the 

 attention of the student to the facts ly- 

 ing before him, to stimulate his inquiry 

 into the relations which they bear to- 

 ward each other, what difficulties they 

 present, how they are to be cleared 

 away by thought, what new truths they 

 reveal. To make the pupil find out for 

 himself the answer to be given to each 

 question, as it arises, is the very essence 

 of real education. . . . The pupil's mind 

 is ever kept thinking, putting together, 

 and discovering. The knowledge won 

 is in no small degree his own acquisi- 

 tion, the product of his own iotelli- 

 gence, his own brain. He is incessantly 

 learning how to use the faculties with 

 which his mind is endowed, and with 

 their help, guided hut not told l>y the 

 teacher, to gather up the understanding 

 of the subject to be explored." 



But now comes the question, What 

 are the studies best adapted to attain 

 this ideal of education? To this Pro- 

 fessor Price devotes the second part of 

 his paper ; and he here conspicuously 

 illustrates what has been shown a thou- 

 sand times before, how an elaborate clas- 

 sical culture can so pervert the mind 

 and bias the judgment that the most 

 weighty considerations are absolutely 

 unrecognized. To the broad question 

 what subjects of study are best suited 

 to cultivate, strengthen, and enlarge the 

 powers of the understanding. Professor 

 Price answers: " For value and power 

 it may safely be asserted the study of 

 the Greek and Latin languages stands 

 pre-eminently the first. Greek, above 

 all, has no equal in educating force; it 



