258 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



assumption has been made of reserving the monopoly of the full 

 development of the mind for literary instruction. Literary edu- 

 cation has hitherto found its highest and most efficient formula 

 in the teaching of the ancient languages. The teaching of the 

 modern languages is less efficient because modern literary culture 

 was derived from ancient culture, and is still, in principle at least, 

 subordinate to it. However brilliant and original our modern 

 systems may be, they have not produced, in either literature or 

 the arts, superior models to those of ancient, particularly Greek, 

 culture. So far, then, as the essential object proposed in secondary 

 instruction is the formation of cultivated minds, there is no rea- 

 son for expecting equivalent results from the simple substitution 

 of the teaching of living for that of the ancient languages. But 

 a purely literary teaching, even if it preserves its form and inten- 

 tion, does not adequately meet the needs of modern societies. 

 Everybody, even the most enthusiastic partisans of literary stud- 

 ies, demands the addition of a certain amount of scientific teach- 

 ing as a subordinate affair, comprising at least the elements of 

 the sciences, to which no cultivated man of our age has a right to 

 remain a stranger, whatever place he may propose to take in so- 

 ciety. We may go still further, for it is certain that the formula 

 of classical literary teaching, even as thus comprehended, is not 

 adequate to all the careers and fundamental needs of our period. 

 A very large number of citizens demand another discipline, based 

 on a more thorough knowledge of the sciences, which have be- 

 come indispensable for practical life, as well as for the general 

 direction of society. Human society does not live on art and 

 literature alone, as it once did ; it now lives more on science and 

 industry. Hence the necessity for a scientific not less than for a 

 literary teaching, not only from the practical point of view but 

 also from that of mental and moral culture, and these should be 

 given parallel with one another. This scientific teaching should 

 not be exclusive any more than the literary teaching; and it 

 should be complemented by a subordinate literary teaching to 

 which no cultivated man should be a stranger. The ancient lan- 

 guages are not indispensable for the realization of this special 

 kind of literary teaching, because it no longer constitutes the fun- 

 damental object of the new organism. 



Two parallel courses of instruction, endowed with the same 

 prerogatives one founded essentially on ancient letters, with the 

 addition of some scientific culture ; and the other based on sci- 

 ence, to which some modern literary culture is added that ap- 

 pears to me the most desirable formula of our time, and that to 

 which we are destined to be led by the force of events. Trans- 

 lated for the Popular Science Monthly from the author's book, Sci- 

 ence et Morale. 



