FURTHER REMARKS ON THE GREEK QUESTION. 773 



of material forms and physical phenomena as a mode of liberal cult- 

 ure, but it has been assumed throughout that — to use the now familiar 

 form of words — " no sense for conduct " and " no sense for beauty " 

 can be acquired except through that special type of linguistic training 

 that has so long limited elementary education. Those who demand a 

 place for science-culture certainly have not shown the same contemptu- 

 ous spirit ; and I venture to suggest that, if classical students were as 

 familiar with the methods of natural science as are the students of I^a- 

 ture with philological and archaeological study, they would be more 

 charitable to those who differ with them on this subject. 



There are, of course, two distinct elements in a liberal education : 

 the one the acquisition of useful knowledge, the other a training or 

 culture of the intellectual faculties. The first should be made as broad 

 as possible, the second in the present state of knowledge must unfor- 

 tunately be greatly restricted. While in the passage referred to I have 

 claimed that, in a system of education based upon science, languages 

 should be studied simply as tools, Mr. Matthew Arnold, in a lecture 

 which he has recently repeatedly delivered in this country, and whose 

 text was the phrases I have already quoted, has claimed that, although 

 scholars must use the results of science as so much literary material, 

 they need have nothing to do with its methods. In my view, both 

 positions are essentially sound. It has been said that the Greek de- 

 partments in our colleges could do without the scientific students much 

 better than scientific scholars could do without Greek, and this remark 

 admits of an evident rejoinder. Certainly in this age no professional 

 man can afford to be ignorant of the results of science, and he will 

 constantly be led into error if he does not know something of its 

 methods. It is perfectly well known that very few of the investiga- 

 tors, who have coined the scientific terms derived from the Greek, so 

 often referred to, could read a page of Herodotus or Homer in the 

 original ; and it is equally true that Mr. Matthew Arnold, and his com- 

 peer. Lord Tennyson, who have shown such large knowledge of the 

 results of science, could not interpret the complex relations in which 

 the simplest phenomena of Nature are presented to the observer. The 

 greater number of the students of Nature can only know the beauties 

 of Greek literature as they are feebly presented in translations, and so 

 the greater number of literary students can only know of the wonders 

 of Nature as they are inadequately described in popular works on sci- 

 ence. If it requires years of study to enable a student to master the 

 meaning of a Greek sentence, can we expect that in less time a student 

 shall be able to unravel the intricacies of natural phenomena ? It has 

 been said that no Greek scholarship is possible for a student who be- 

 gins the study of that language in college. Is it supposed that scien- 

 tific scholarship is any more possible under such conditions ? 



In order to teach successfully the results of science to college stu- 

 dents, I have no desire that they should have any preliminary prepara- 



