64 Selections from Huxley 



forms out of the scattered fragments of long-extinct beings, 

 fail to take a sympathetic, though an unlearned, interest 

 in the labors of a Niebuhr, a Gibbon, or a Grote? 

 Classical history is a great section of the paleontology of 

 5 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 dis- 

 covery of a law of progress. 



10 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, 



15 were imprinted on the minds of scholars ; if ancient his- 

 tory were taught, not as a weary series of feuds and 

 rights, 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 



20 their beauties, and with the grand simplicity of their 

 statement of the everlasting problems of human life, in- 

 stead of with their verbal and grammatical peculiarities; 

 I still think it as little proper that they should form the 

 basis of a liberal education for our contemporaries, as 



25 I should think it fitting to make that sort of paleontology 

 with which I am familiar, the backbone of modern 

 education. 



It is wonderful how close a parallel to classical train- 

 ing could be made out of that paleontology to which I 



30 refer. In the first place I could get up an osteological 

 primer so arid, so pedantic in its terminology, so alto- 

 gether distasteful to the youthful mind, as to beat the 

 recent famous production of the head-masters out of the 

 field in all these excellences. Next, I could exercise my 



