The Teacher and the State 63 



not in things that are recorded by any generous regis- 

 trar, but in those things so hard to classify or name, re- 

 corded in some strange way in the book of experience, in 

 the tapestry of each human life. You know by this time, 

 I am sure, that it is not so much the subject, but the ef- 

 fect, that you have won. Latin, for instance, you have 

 studied ; but it is not in the amount of actual knowledge 

 of great Caesar's speech that you rejoice to-day. Even 

 now that hard-earned taste of ancient or medieval lore 

 begins to die upon the palate, and promises soon to van- 

 ish quite, unless sedulously kept up, and to leave but a 

 lingering reminiscence ; and yet, suppose that by some 

 finest intellectual telepathy we could stretch a viewless 

 wire back across the centuries as we stretch threads of 

 copper across the valleys. Take up the receiver and let 

 the Roman speak; you could hardly understand him. 

 At this end of the line his Latin sounds Italian, French, 

 Spanish, Roumanian, even. Nothing in it but has 

 changed "into something rich and strange;" but you 

 have added two thousand years to the compass of your 

 life, and all the history of modern civilization lies be- 

 tween ; this you have gained ! You may not understand 

 Caesar, but you do understand the outcome of Caesar's 

 life. 



German, too, you have attempted ; and the most philo- 

 sophic tongue now spoken among men has spread itself 

 before you. You have caught some glimpses of it; but, 

 perplexed by the genders, perhaps, of things inanimate, 

 or overwhelmed by the genius that can keep in mind the 

 unfinished first word of a sentence, going on, through 

 phrase after phrase, only at length to find completion in 



