EDITOR'S TABLE. 



703 



is the greatest, the most productive 

 tool for developing the minds of the 

 young Icnown to man." 



But if, no^, we ask how these sov- 

 ereign advantages are to be secured, 

 or in what does this incomparable vir- 

 tue of Greek for educational purposes 

 consist, the reply is, that through the 

 mastery of this language the student's 

 mind is brought into close relation with 

 the minds of the greatest men, Plato 

 and Aristotle, Virgil and J^^schylus, 

 Thucydides and Demosthenes, Homer 

 and, " above all, Saint Paul " — espe- 

 cially in the Epistle to the Eomans. 



Professor Price's argument liere 

 consists merely of fresh and vivid eu- 

 logies of the old Greek masters, and 

 declarations that they are wonderfully 

 fitted to quicken and elevate the minds 

 of students. He maintains that they are 

 excellent instruments of discipline, and 

 this probably but few dispute. His 

 proposition is that Greek and Latin are 

 " pre-eminently the first " among the in- 

 strumentalities of mental development; 

 but he neither proves nor attempts to 

 prove it. The idea of " pre-eminence " is 

 relative ; it implies superiority to some- 

 thing else ; and the argument, to be 

 good for anything, must state the 

 claims and prove the inferiority of 

 that something which is assumed to be 

 inferior. The acquisition of Greek 

 gives a discipline in the study of lan- 

 guages, and that may be the best of all 

 languages for the purpose. The mas- 

 tery of Greek literature gives a literary 

 training, and it may be the best of all 

 literatures for the purpose. But that 

 is not at all the question. The question 

 is as to the " pre-eminence '' of language 

 and literary discipline over any other 

 kind of discipline. The real issue, the 

 issue that has arisen in modern times, 

 is between language and literature on 

 the one hand and science-studies on 

 the other, as instruments of mental de- 

 velopment. This essential issue Pro- 

 fessor Price does not take up. He 

 does not even recognize the existence 



of such a thing as a mental discipline 

 gained by the study of science. He 

 refers indeed to science, in the usual 

 classical spirit, as giving useful knowl- 

 edge to " the lower classes," who have 

 to work for a living. " In the lower 

 classes of life, useful knowledge, knowl- 

 edge that fits the learner to carry on 

 some special business from which a 

 livelihood is to be obtained, is the ob- 

 ject most desired. ... A little boy 

 may easily be made to understand how 

 a plant grows, how it picks up some 

 substances from the sun and air, or 

 under or from the ground, how it de- 

 composes these substances and extracts 

 from them the parts which they can 

 apply to their own growth," Are we 

 to infer from this slovenly sentence, 

 equally false to the facts of science and 

 the rules of grammar, that an accom- 

 plished Oxford classicist holds himself 

 under no obligation to write decent 

 English when coupling the study of 

 science with vulgar laboring people ? 



Notwithstanding Professor Price ig- 

 nores it, yet Greek and Latin are on 

 trial before the world under indict- 

 ment for the fatal deficiency of their 

 educational discipline! They are ar- 

 raigned as in this respect fundament- 

 ally defective because they leave in 

 total neglect some of the most essen- 

 tial powers of the mind. "What valid 

 claim has a system cf mental cultiva- 

 tion, in tliis age, which gives no more 

 heed to the important faculty of ob- 

 servation in the youthful mind than if 

 it had no existence; which neglects 

 the study of Nature, and makes no 

 provision for cultivated mental inter- 

 course w*ith the most immediate ob- 

 jects of human experience; which fails 

 to use the great living problems of 

 human interest with which intelligent 

 beings are vitally concerned, as means 

 for the systematic discipline of the 

 reason and the judgment in prepara- 

 tion for the responsible work of life? 

 Here are the opportunities and the 

 urgent needs, and here tlie possibil- 



