University Reform. 309 



sympathies, and breadth of view are the qualities 

 most completely developed by philological and 

 literary pursuits. Indeed, were it not for the 

 amount of attention so generally bestowed upon 

 the literatures and dialects of Greece and Rome, 

 our intellectual sympathies would become con- 

 tracted to a deplorable degree. As Dr. William 

 Smith has observed, " their civilization may be 

 said to be our civilization, their literature is our 

 literature, their institutions and laws have 

 moulded and modified our institutions and laws ; 

 and the life of the western nations of Europe is 

 but a continuation of the life of Greece and 

 Rome." The reasons habitually adduced for 

 studying the history of our own country and that 

 of England, from which our political institutions 

 most directly emanate, apply with scarcely inferior 

 cogency to the study of that antique civilization, 

 whence the best and most enduring elements of 

 our social structure, our science, laws, and litera- 

 ture, even most of our religious ideas, are ulti- 

 mately derived. And how much or how little 

 of ancient life can be comprehended without a 

 knowledge of ancient languages we are willing 

 to let every classically educated man declare for 

 himself. There is thus a profound reason for the 

 fact that universities have ever made the classic 



