44 SELECTIONS FROM HUXLEY 



What science can present greater attractions than phil- 

 ology ? How can a lover of literary excellence fail to rejoice 

 in the ancient masterpieces? And with what consistency 

 could I, whose business lies so much in the attempt to' de- 

 5 cipher the past, and to build up intelligible forms out of the 

 scattered fragments of long extinct beings, fail to take a sym- 

 pathetic, though an unlearned, interest in the labors of a 

 Niebuhr, a Gibbon, or a Grote ? Classical history is a great 

 section of the paleontology of man; and I have the same 



10 double respect for it as for other kinds of paleontology 

 that is to say, a respect for the facts which it establishes as 

 for all facts, and a still greater respect for it as a preparation 

 for the discovery of a law of progress. 



But if the classics were taught as they might be taught 



15 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 Mediter- 

 ranean, two thousand years ago, were imprinted on the minds 

 of scholars ; if ancient history were taught, not as a weary 



20 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, 



25 instead of with their verbal and grammatical peculiarities; 

 I still think it as little proper that they should form the basis 

 of a liberal education for our contemporaries, as I should think 

 it fitting to make that sort of paleontology with which I am 

 familiar, the backbone of modern education. 



30 It is wonderful how close a parallel to classical training 

 could be made out of that paleontology to which I refer. In 

 the first place I could get up an osteological primer so arid, so 

 pedantic in its terminology, so altogether distasteful to the 

 youthful mind, as to beat the recent famous production of the 



