HOME RULE BILL 221 



Such knowledge should, I think, be confined to as 

 small a list of books as possible ; but the books should 

 be representative. Now it strikes me that your list 

 is at once too big and too little. Look at your classics. 

 — It is a large order to prescribe the whole of Homer, 

 of Hesiod, of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristo- 

 phanes, Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon, Aris- 

 totle's Ethics and Politics, Plato's Republic and the 

 Phaedo, to say nothing of Plutarch's Lives and Aesop. 

 You may say, this course is necessary to give the student 

 an adequate idea of the wondrous Greek literature ; and 

 for giving a truly adequate idea it may be so : but, even 

 so, you don't give enough. Pindar is as essential as 

 half the plays of Euripides or half the books of the 

 Iliad ; and the omission of Demosthenes is incompre- 

 hensible. Surely a few orations might take the place of 

 the Hellenics of Xenophon. Then what a loss is the 

 father of pastoral poetry, Theocritus ! and I should say 

 a word for Lucian too. 



How do you treat the Latin Classics ? Where are 

 Livy ? and Tacitus ? (They are perhaps excluded as 

 historians ; yet you keep Herodotus and Thucydides.) 

 Of course, I see you have the Agricola and Germania. 

 You are constantly dipping your feet into historical 

 waters, but not stepping boldly. But I leave history 

 for a bit, and go back to poetry. Where is Lucretius ? 

 and where is Juvenal ? and where is Ovid ? 



Now as to the Moderns, I almost refuse to enter upon 

 the consideration of a list which does not include Chaucer ! 

 Of course he must be expurgated for general reading ; 

 but with the excision of three or four tales and of a very 

 few passages, he stands at the head of English literature. 

 Of course in the phrase " English Literature " I don't 

 include the few world-wide reputations like Shakespeare : 

 but, out-taken Shakespeare, I really don't know a writer 

 with so many charms, or one who so brings home to you 

 the life of his day, or who touches the tender feelings so 

 effectively, or who has such an eye for the beauties of 

 Nature. 



I have not time to go through your list of Moderns ; 

 and I want to say a word about the exclusion of history. 

 Surely we could not understand, far less appreciate, any 

 other books, except perhaps books of pure science, 

 without some acquaintance with history. It is essential 



