METHODS OF SCHOLASTIC TEACHING 317 



501. Now, whether the classical method be good or bad, 

 one thing concerning it is certainly true ; it does not in the 

 remotest degree resemble the mental training received by the 

 Greek and Roman youth. It is classical only in the sense 

 that the languages, the systems of verbal signs in which 

 instruction is given, are the same as those in which the 

 ancients expressed their thoughts. The ancients acquired 

 a perfect knowledge of their systems of signs colloquially 

 through the natural exercise of the very young child's 

 imitative instincts a method quite different from and very 

 much superior to that employed by the modern school-boy, 

 who toils in misery at his desk for years and yet gains only a 

 very rudimentary knowledge. In the one case, there was no 

 exceptional strain on the memory and its contents linked up 

 with the experiences of adult life ; in the other, the strain on 

 the memory is immense, but the knowledge gained is so little 

 connected with the interests and occupations of adult life 

 that, as a rule, it is speedily forgotten. The literature, the 

 thoughts embalmed in the languages so acquired, makes no 

 impression on the average boy. He thinks of classical authors 

 only as immense bores. If then this form of teaching has 

 any merit it consists solely in such expansions of the think- 

 ing powers as may arise through committing words to memory 

 and studying their relationships. 



502. Exceptionally the classical languages are acquired 

 with greater thoroughness, and a real study is made of the 

 literature. But it is evident that the mental effect produced 

 is not the same as that which was produced when the litera- 

 ture was a fresh and living thing, a subject of lively interest 

 and discussion, to the early Pagans or to the men of the 

 Renaissance, inquirers standing on the threshold of scientific 

 knowledge and eagerly curious concerning it. It would, in- 

 deed, be difficult to imagine a being more unlike the antique 

 Greeks or Romans, the men who thought and fought and 

 wrought so daringly, than the average classical scholar of 

 distinction, the university magnate or the learned ecclesiastic, 

 for example, men who turn respectful eyes on the past, 

 rather than a scrutinizing gaze on the present and the 

 future. We can hardly conceive the nimble-minded Greeks, 

 with their intense curiosity and mental activity, or the equally 

 keen and practical-minded Romans of the Republic, ignoring 

 the whole science of the day a science which has developed 

 so magnificently of late, and on which the very existence of 

 civilized nations depends. The true modern representatives 

 of the great Pagans are not to be found in college halls or 



