44 Him Sermcms, 6ssnns, nntr |Uhitfos. [m. 



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 beauties, and with the grand simplicity of 

 their statement of the everlasting problems of human 

 life, instead of with their verbal and grammatical pecu- 

 liarities ; I still think it as little proper that they should 

 form the basis of a liberal education for our contempo- 

 raries, as I should think it fitting to make that sort of 

 palaeontology with which 1 am familiar, the back-bone 

 of modern education. 



It is wonderful how close a parallel to classical 

 training could be made out of that palaeontology to which 

 I 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 boys upon easy fossils, and bring out all their 

 powers of memory and all their ingenuity in the applica- 

 tion of my osteo-grammatical rules to the interpretation, 

 or construing, of those fragments. To those who had 

 reached the higher classes, I might supply odd bones 

 to be built up into animals, giving great honour and 

 reward to him who succeeded in fabricating monsters 

 most entirely in accordance with the rules. That 

 would answer to verse-making and essay- writing in 

 the dead languages. 



