120 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



for the first time, it is so small that I 

 have never seen one. . . . 



" Can a person be said to know a 

 language which he can not read? And 

 is it a result worth the time and labor 

 expended upon it to attain such a 

 doubtful acquaintance with a language 

 or anything else, as that which the 

 majority of our graduates carry away 

 with them of these, at the close of 

 their educational career? Might not 

 the same amount of time and labor dif- 

 ferently employed have produced at 

 last something having a value at least 

 appreciable ? And is not the immense 

 dispropoi'tion between labor expended 

 and results obtained itself the best evi- 

 dence that this labor has not been ex- 

 pended most wisely for the accomplish- 

 ment of its own avowed end? For 

 surely there can not be any language, 

 dead or living, in the known world, 

 which any intelligent person ought not 

 to be able to acquire, so as at least to 

 read it, in a course of ten years' study." 



But it may be said that the Ameri- 

 can standard of classical attainment is 

 low, and that we must go where the 

 system has been more faithfully tried, 

 for the highest evidence of its advan- 

 tages. Very well, and it happens that 

 this evidence is abundant. Classical 

 studies have been tested upon the most 

 extensive scale, and under all the most 

 favorable conditions. For hundreds of 

 years they have been the staple ele- 

 ments of English culture. The English 

 universities and the great public schools 

 of England form a consolidated system 

 devoted for centuries almost exclusively 

 to classical teaching. The system has 

 had the authority of tradition, it has 

 been backed by abounding wealth, it 

 has had the patronage of church and 

 state, and has been cherished by insti- 

 tutions of every grade, which have been 

 independent of all disturbance from 

 the caprice of public opinion. If " the 

 perfection of the Greek language," as 

 President Porter assumes, fits it as " an 

 instrument for the perpetual training 



of the mind of the later generations," 

 then the circumstances of English edu- 

 cation have been most favorable for 

 proving it. But what is the result? A 

 thousand authorities may be summed 

 up in the following sentence of a letter 

 from Professor Blackie, of Edinburgh, 

 to the late Dr. Hodgson. He says, " I 

 entirely agree with you that the present 

 system of classical education, as a gen- 

 eral method of training English gentle- 

 men, is a superstition, a blunder, and a 

 failure." The evidence is overwhelm- 

 ing that the great mass of students, in 

 the best English institutions, so far from 

 gaining access to the sphere of clas- 

 sical thought, do not even get a decent 

 knowledge of the bare forms of the 

 dead languages themselves. To such 

 an extent had classical study become 

 itself an utter failure, and to such an 

 extent did it stand in the way of all 

 other studies, that it came to be widely 

 denounced as a scandal to the nation, 

 and the Government was called upon 

 to interfere and put an end to it. They 

 are very cautious in England about 

 meddling with old and venerated things 

 by the intervention of law, but they 

 have a salutary habit of inquiring into 

 them with great thoroughness upon 

 suitable occasions. Parliamentary com- 

 missions were therefore appointed to 

 investigate the condition of education, 

 both in the universities and in the 

 great public schools which prepare 

 young men for the universities. The 

 reports that resulted were monuments 

 alike of searching inquiry and the to- 

 tal failure of the cherished classical 

 education. The London " Times " thus 

 summed up the report of the commis- 

 sioners upon the teaching of the pub- 

 lic schools: "In one word, we may 

 say that they find it to be a failure — a 

 failure, even if tested by those better 

 specimens, not exceeding one third of 

 the whole, who go up to the universi- 

 ties. Though a very large number of 

 these have literally nothing to show 

 for the results of their school-hours, 



