128 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



If we wish perfection of form or something for study in 

 style we must go to the classics for highest teachings, bear- 

 ing in mind their limitations, that they were pagans seeking 

 for light. If a Greek wished instruction, he walked to the 

 market place. All their instruction was by dialogue or 

 conversation. Socrates conversed with Plato and many 

 others. He caused much to be written, but did not write 

 a w T ord himself that has survived. Homer's "Iliad "is the 

 leading poem of the world in regard to art. Herodotus, 

 484 B.C., was the father of history, as Homer was the 

 father of poetry; Socrates, the foremost philosopher; 

 Plato, the foremost philosophical writer; Sappho, the fore- 

 most woman of genius, and whom Plato called the tenth 

 muse. iEschylus represents tragic poetry and Demos- 

 thenes oratory, and with Demosthenes perished the last 

 of the free voices of Athens. Greece was the first civilized 

 nation of Europe, and many of the ideas and institutions of 

 the world had their source with the Greeks. 



The Greek literary spirit did not die with Demosthenes, 

 but took a flight to Rome and into all the various literatures 

 that have flourished in Europe since the Christian era. In 

 Rome it manifested itself in Cicero, Sallust, Virgil, Horace 

 and Juvenal. Those Romans gave a language and also a 

 law and spirit to early French literature which was entirely 

 unlike that of the present period. Out of the confusion 

 Dante brought the Italian tongue. He was its creator. No 

 man except Shakespeare has looked on mankind w T ith a 

 more penetrating eye. It is the opinion of many critics 

 that his "Divine Comedy" is the only poem of more mod- 

 ern times which can compare with Milton's " Paradise 

 Lost." What the men were in their inner lives marked 

 their works with a different spirit. Milton was exalted. 

 Although he had blindness, sickness, poverty, domestic 

 trouble, public neglect and abuse, yet he rose superior to 

 all, and dwelt in a majestic peace. Dante was melancholy, 

 and it came from within as well as from without. He was 

 uniformly sorrowful, and so marked his work. So we 

 mark our eflbrts in life with what we are. 



French literature, taken as a whole, may not be the wisest 



