4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



are essential to the one great end in view, that knowledge which is 

 the essential condition of the power of observing, interpreting, and 

 ruling natural phenomena. 



In such a course as this it is obvious that the study of Greek would 

 have no place, even if there were time to devote to it, and we can not 

 alter the appointed span of human life, even out of respect to this 

 most honored and worthy representative of the highest literary cul- 

 ture. Of course, no one will question that the scholar who can com- 

 mand both the literary and the scientific culture will be thereby so 

 much the stronger and more useful man ; and certainly let us give 

 every opportunity to the " double firsts " to cultivate all their abilities, 

 and so the more efficiently to benefit the world. But such powers are 

 rare, and the great body of the scientific professions must be made up 

 of men who can only do well the special class of work in which they 

 have been trained ; and, if you make certain formal and arbitrary 

 requisitions, like a small amount of Greek, obstacles in the way of 

 their advancement, or of that social recognition to which they feel 

 themselves entitled as educated men, those requisitions must neces- 

 sarily be slighted, and your policy will give rise to that cry of " fe- 

 tich " of which recently we have heard so much. 



Now, all the schools which prepare students for Harvard College 

 are classical schools. We do not wish to alter these schools in any 

 respect, unless to make them more thorough in their special work. As 

 I have already said, the small amount of study of natural science which 

 we have forced upon them has proved to be a wretched failure, and 

 the sooner this hindrance is got out of their way the better. We do 

 not wish to alter the studies of such schools as the Boston and Rox- 

 bury Latin Schools, the Exeter and And^ver Academies, the St. Paul's 

 and the St. Mark's Schools, and the other great feeders of the college. 

 No — not in the least degree ! We do not ask for any change which 

 in our opinion will diminish the number of those coming to the col- 

 lege with a classical preparation by a single man. We look for our 

 scientific recruits to wholly different and entirely new sources. For, 

 although we think that there are many stxidents now coming to us 

 through the classical schools who would run a better chance of be- 

 coming useful men if they were trained from the beginning in a 

 different way, yet such is the social prestige of the old classical 

 schools and of the old classical culture that, whatever new relations 

 might be established, the class of students which alone w^e now 

 have would, I am confident, all continue to come through the old 

 channels. 



This is not a mere opinion ; for only a very few men avail them- 

 selves of the limited option which we now permit at the entrance ex- 

 aminations — nine, at least, out of ten, offering what is called maximum 

 in classics. 



We look, then, for no change in the classical schools. Our only 



