220 Classic Literature. [Chap. XIII. 



our colleges require in their students but a super- 

 ficial acquaintance with the Latin language ; and 

 Avith respect to the Greek, are contented with a 

 smattering which scarcely deserves the name of 

 knowledge. And although in otliers laudable ex- 

 ertions have been, and continue to be, made for 

 retaining to some profitable extent this part of 

 education, yet the popular prejudice against it is 

 slrons: and o-rowino^ : and there is too much reason 

 to fear that this prejudice will, at no great distance 

 of time, completely triumph*. 



The causes of this revolution are various. Since 

 the commencement of the eighteenth century the 

 physical .sciences have been gradually extending 

 their bounds, demanding more attention, and ac- 

 quiring greater ascendency. As the objects of 



course ; and as this foundation in classic literature is too seldom 

 built upon, in after life, by the youth in America, it has fewer 

 proficients in this department of learning than its just proportion. 



The author has been lately informed, and mentions with great 

 pleasure, that in some parts of the United States there are promise 

 ing appearances of a revival of classic literature. 



* While a great fondness prevails in the United States for giv- 

 ing young men a college cdncotioii, and obtaining for them the usual 

 academic honour of a diploma, there is also a prevailing disposi- 

 tion, not only among the youth themselves but also among pa- 

 rents and guardians, to give them as small a portion of classic, 

 and especially of Greek, literature as possible. Against this latter 

 language, it seems, particular hostility is denounced. And in 

 some of our colleges it requires the exertion of all the authority 

 vested in the immediate instructors, and the governors, to prevent 

 popular ignorance and prejudice from expelling the study of Greek 

 from their plans of education. This is a circumstance which 

 threatens much evil to the interests of literature in the country ; 

 and unless the trustees and other officers, to whom the direction 

 of the seminaries of learning is entrusted, combine to oppose the 

 plausible but delusive literary heresy, another generation will wit* 

 ness the mOBt unhappy effecti arising from its prevalence. 



