CLASSICAL STUDIES IN ENGLAND 75 



ing of new vistas, Greek history and Greek 

 scholarship became a much more exciting 

 business than it had been in the old days when 

 Thucydides was presented to schoolboys and 

 undergraduates as a series of exercises in syn- 

 tax, and Greek tragedy formed the mind by a 

 study of metrical rules and exceptions. 



Far be it from me, or from any English 

 critic, to decry or disparage the "grand old 

 fortifying classical curriculum." It has played 

 its part, and a very important one, in English 

 education, and, one may really say, in the 

 making of English history. For a long time 

 classical culture, as it was understood, repre- 

 sented practically the whole of the secondary 

 education enjoyed or suffered by our govern- 

 ing classes. And least of all ought an Oxonian 

 to speak lightly of it; for its earliest habitat 

 was in the university, and I think I may say 

 especially in the University of Oxford. It was 

 there, I mean, that some knowledge of Greek 

 and Latin began to be associated with the 

 status of a gentleman; and both the status 

 of a gentleman and the study of Latin and 

 Greek have been variously affected by it. The 



