THE RETROSPECTIVE HABIT 197 



the principle which has dominated the past century 

 in our education and government but a little longer 

 and the time for reform will be past. The principle 

 in question cannot be better illustrated than by 

 quoting- the opening words of Charles Stuart Parker's 

 ''Essay on the History of Classical Education/' in 

 the volume to which I have already alluded. Referring 

 to the Greeks and Romans, as well as the Jews, as 

 our spiritual ancestors, he says : " They left treasures 

 of recorded thought, word and deed, by the timely 

 and judicious use of which their heirs have become 

 the leaders of mankind. But they left them in their 

 native tongues." If one comes out of a fog or mist 

 among the mountains, natural colours of grass, 

 flowers and sky take on an unreal vividness in 

 contrast to the blank pall of a moment before. 

 I can imagine that after the Dark Ages, when the 

 world once more emerged from the fog of barbarism, 

 the treasures of the recorded thoughts of the ancients 

 must, by contrast, have appeared similarly vivid and 

 satisfying, and I can imagine how the tradition arose 

 that to these treasures the renaissance of Italy, 

 France, Germany, and, though assuredly least of all, 

 Britain, as great nations, was to be traced. I am 

 not concerned with its historical truth or otherwise. 

 But if we ask ourselves to-day, fifty years after the 

 words I have quoted were written, whether the great 

 nations of the earth the United States, France, 

 Germany, Italy, Austria, Britain, Japan, to name 

 them in haphazard order do actually lead the world, 

 or can ever hope to do so again, either the world of 

 thought, the world of action, or even the world of 

 art, because of the recorded treasures of Greeks, 

 Romans and Jews, the question appears too 

 ridiculous to be answered. They will lead or fail, 

 primarily, because of the timely and judicious use or 

 the suicidal neglect of those treasures also written 



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