6 GO STUDY AND RESEARCH. 



The couliict is still undecided. When Greek authors began to be 

 read in the original, interest vanished in the works of Latin writers 

 as literature. Nevertheless the Latin language maintained the chief 

 place in the curriculum of the schools. But its study became less and 

 less exhaustive; as the use of the language decreased from day to 

 day, rhetoric was dispensed with, and attention confined to grammar. 

 Indeed, the instruction in grammar usurped so much time that even 

 Latin composition became a pium desiderium. 



It is plain, then, that we have arrived at a turning i^oint with regard 

 to the classical languages. Discipline in grammar is not the instrument 

 of progress needed by our youth. It does not induce that delight in 

 study which is a condition of independent development; on the con- 

 trary, it is obvious that for many pupils, ijerhaps still more for many 

 parents, it has become a hateful pursuit. Greek has been more than 

 half abandoned ; no teacher in the preparatory schools dreams of giving 

 the general run of pupils such instruction as to fit them on graduation 

 to read and construe Greek authors in the original. Apparently the 

 medical faculty has most reason to lament the displacement of Greek, 

 seeing that its science is the only one which, for more than two thou- 

 sand years, has built itself up without a break on the basis of Greek 

 works. But it can not be denied that Hippocrates and Galen have so 

 few points in common with modern medicine that, although the latter 

 reverently clings to Greek terminology, the study of those authors is 

 of inappreciable importance in the judgment of diseased states. The 

 essential value of Greek literature accordingly lies not in its technical, 

 but in its philosophic and poetic ])ortious, whose educational influence 

 we are inclined to underrate at present. 



In the domain of philology, however, a significant innovation has 

 grown up, which we may proudly claim as the achievement of German 

 scholarship, namely, comi^arative philology. Througli it the proper 

 place has first been assigned to the genetic element in ]»hilology. Even 

 now it has furnished results of inestimable value in the history of 

 civilization. Constant additions to this fund of discoveries lead us 

 to expect that comparative linguistics will remain an integral part of 

 higher education. Its details, naturally, will be rendered accessible 

 only by means of university instruction. In deciding the course of 

 the higher preparatory schools we are concerned only with the two 

 classical and the modern languages. All that the university teacher 

 must insist upon is that, no matter what languages may be prescribed, 

 they be taught in a manner to train the pupil for original research and 

 to preserve his delight in study. It remains to be seen whether new 

 methods of teaching will effect these results. 



At present we are prepared to cite subjects of instruction in which 

 the methods of teaching are so well planned that they amply furnish 

 the needed discipline. They are mathematics, philosophy, and the 

 natural sciences. On the one hand, they are so abundant and diversified 



