STUDY AND RESEARCH. 659 



natural history so-called, which deals with tangible objects that furnish 

 patent illustrations of genetic processes. Our public schools are mak- 

 ing daily progress in the application of object lessons, aud the only 

 desideratum now is that illustrations by pictures may gradually be 

 sui3erseded by explanations from the object itself. 



In the higher schools linguistic studies have always absorbed the 

 lion's share of time and attention. The gymnasium being the direct 

 descendant of the Latin school of the Middle Ages, a. i^redilection for 

 Latin has come down to it as an inalienable heritage. Greek, for whose 

 introduction we are indebted to the humanists, took rank Avith it only 

 later. We recognize with gratitude that this circumstance was accom- 

 panied by the beneficent result of supplying civilized Europe with a 

 common basis of culture for those nations participating in it — those 

 called the Western peoples in Kussia. This common basis has con- 

 tributed more than any other factor to the promotion of mutual under- 

 standing and the strengthening of the sense of relationship. For a 

 long time the universal use of Latin by scholars facilitated intercourse 

 among all classes of people in different countries. 



All that has changed — changed entirely — and even those who, fully 

 recognizing the salutary iniiuence of the classical Knguages upon 

 European culture, desire to see it perpetuated, must confess that it is 

 impossible to restore the old conditions. The national idioms have been 

 invested with their natural rights, and much as we may deplore the 

 polylingual character of scientific literature, which prevents our read- 

 ing a number of excellent disquisitions in the original, yet we must 

 acknowledge that no power on earth is able to effect a change in the 

 near future. Our educational institutions only in exceptional cases 

 graduate men who can speak Latin or write a Latin paper with ease, 

 and the universities, despite their reluctance, have been forced to 

 diminish the time given to instruction in the Latin language and grad- 

 ually to eliminate it from their business transactions. 



From the first, the prominence of Latin was a weak point in the 

 humanistic schools. To be sure, it was not a matter of choice with 

 them; in their time Latin was the universal language of the church 

 and of law, and they themselves were Latin schools. They merely 

 continued what had become a general custom through the practice of 

 a thousand years. But their obedience to the custom was an element 

 of weakness in their constitution, for the i)roductions of the classical 

 writers of Eome ranked far below those of Greece. The best of them, 

 indeed, owed their culture to Greek predecessors, and the school of 

 Athens through all times maintained its preeminent place in the esteem 

 of men. Its teaching formed the background of all scholarly work, 

 and our occidental culture has derived from Greek literature its most 

 stimulating ideas and its most familiar forms. Homer, Herodotus, 

 Aristotle, and Plato continue to the j^resent day to be the masters of 

 the nations. 



