38 LAY SERMONS, ESSAYS, AND REVIEWS. [in. 



them is really not an education at all, but a more or less useful 

 course of intellectual gymnastics ? 



For what does the middle-class school put in the place of all 

 these things which are left out ? It substitutes what is usually 

 comprised under the compendious title of the &quot; classics &quot; that is 

 to say, the languages, the literature, and the history of the 

 ancient Greek and Romans, and the geography of so much of 

 the world as was known to these two great nations of antiquity. 

 Now, do not expect me to depreciate the earnest and enligh 

 tened pursuit of classical learning. I have not the least desire 

 to speak ill of such occupations, nor any sympathy with those 

 who run them down. On the contrary, if my opportunities had 

 lain in that direction, there is no investigation into which 

 I could have thrown myself with greater delight than that of 

 antiquity. 



What science can present greater attractions than philology ? 

 How can a lover of literary excellence fail to rejoice in the 

 ancient masterpieces ? And with what consistency could I, 

 whose business lies so much in the attempt to decipher the past, 

 and to build up intelligible forms out of the scattered fragments 

 of long-extinct beings, fail to take a sympathetic, though an 

 unlearned, interest in the labours of a Niebuhr, a Gibbon, or a 

 Grote ? Classical history is a great section of the palaeontology 

 of man ; and I have the same double respect for it as for other 

 kinds of paleontology that is to say, a respect for the facts 

 which it establishes as for all facts, and a still greater respect for 

 it as a preparation for the discovery of a law of progress. 



But if the classics were taught as they might be taught if 

 boys and girls were instructed in Greek and Latin, not merely 

 as languages, but as illustrations of philological science ; if a 

 vivid picture of life on the shores of the Mediterranean, two 

 thousand years ago, were imprinted on the minds of scholars ; 

 if ancient history were taught, not as a weary series of feuds and 

 fights, but traced to its causes in such men placed under such 

 conditions ; if, lastly, the study of the classical books were 

 followed in such a manner as to impress boys with their 



