THE PROBLEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION, 89 



knows at least something very well, gives him an advantage over 

 other students who know something of many things without being 

 perfectly at home in any. At the same time he will be found to have 

 suffered in health. Very likely his eye-sight has been injured. As a 

 rule, he is deficient in vitality. Fortunately for him, the university 

 system is extremely lax. At the university he can do pretty much as 

 he likes. He makes up for the time lost, sometimes in such a manner 

 as to procure him from the authorities the consilium abeundi, the in- 

 vitation to pursue his studies at some other institution. Then comes 

 his year of military service, during which he passes the greater part 

 of the day in admirable out-door exercise. It has been frequently 

 remarked by educated Germans, and especially Prussians, that this 

 year of military duty is the salvation of the manhood of the nation, 

 at least for that portion of the young men that spent the best years 

 of their youth in the close confinement of the learned schools. 



Let those who insist so strongly on the necessity of imitating the 

 German usage carefully reflect on this side of the question. But 

 there is still another side. We have all along spoken of the Latin 

 and Greek preparation as though it were absolutely true that the stu- 

 dents who arrived at the university from the gymnasium have actu- 

 ally mastered these languages to which they have sacrificed so much 

 of their time. They are expected to read Greek books understand- 

 ingly. The medical faculty of Berlin expressly stated it as one reason 

 why those who wish to enter the university should know Greek, that 

 they must be able to read Galen in the original. If such a proficiency 

 in Greek is expected of them in the department of medicine, it is, of 

 course, also considered necessary in the department " of arts," and so 

 in the other two departments of the university. 



The facts tell a different story. Numerous proofs could be fur- 

 nished to show how little even the gymnasium succeeds in making its 

 students get such a hold of two ancient languages as will make it all 

 but impossible for them to lose the knowledge so gained before they 

 are through their university course. We wall confine ourselves to the 

 testimony of one of the most competent scholars of Germany, the late 

 Eduard Lasker, who recently died in this country while on a visit, 

 and who is considered by Julius Rodenburg, the distinguished author, 

 and editor of the " Deutsche Rundschau," as no less pre-eminent a 

 philologist in the domain of Latin and Greek studies in Germany 

 than Gladstone is reputed to be in Great Britain. 



According to Mr. Lasker's most positive experience, it is impos- 

 sible for the gymnasium to keep up the teaching of the two ancient 

 languages, because, in attempting to teach both, they succeed in giv- 

 ing the student a good knowledge of neither. He recommended that 

 the attention now divided between the two be concentrated on the 

 Latin alone, as there was, of course, no use trying to curtail the other 

 branches. This view of so distinguished a scholar and thinker is of 



