THE CLASSICAL QUESTION IN GERMANY. 305 



or Homer without difficulty — not even in Yale College ; and the boy 

 who takes up a Greek author and reads him for the pleasure that 

 he derives from the thought is an avis rara indeed. It is the writer's 

 opinion, based upon considerable investigation and comparison of notes 

 with Greek teachers, both in America and Germany, that it is impossi- 

 ble for the average boy who spends the average amount of time on his 

 Greek up to the close of his sophomore year to acquire the power of 

 reading it easily. It is a universally admitted fact in Germany that 

 the gymnasiast, who spends so much more time and labor than the 

 American college boy, never acquires this power; and it is as true of 

 the former as it is of the latter that the last day of his school-life is 

 the last day of his Greek reading, with the exception of those follow- 

 ing a profession which calls for a knowledge of the Greek, such as the 

 philologists, philosophers, and clergymen. 



One other point is worthy of notice. President Porter attempts 

 to show that the main reason for unsatisfactory results in Greek study 

 is the bad teaching of Greek which prevailed long ago, and which he 

 hints has almost disappeared. That the teaching of Greek is now 

 superior to what it was a generation ago we are very ready to believe, 

 but it can hardly be said that there is any greater agreement among 

 teachers as to the proper object of Greek study and the advantages to 

 be derived from it. A visit to several of our leading colleges last 

 winter, and conversation with the professors and instructors in Greek, 

 revealed to the writer the very greatest differences of opinion, not only 

 among the various colleges, but even among the representatives of that 

 study within the same college. It is evident that the teachers who 

 believe that the most important object to be attained is the ability to 

 read Greek at sight, and to understand it without having to translate 

 it, will pursue a very different method from those who see in the " in- 

 cidental training " in grammar, logic, philology, etc., the chief benefit 

 from Greek study. And yet the writer recently found these two 

 opposite views held by two men in the same department of one of our 

 leading colleges, the one of whom had one division of the sophomore 

 class and the other the second division. It is hardly necessary to say 

 that, however much the second may have benefited his class, the first 

 did not get his division to read Greek at sight. 



The writer does not wish to be misunderstood. He is making no 

 attack on the study of Greek. He remembers well the keen pleasure 

 and, as he thinks, profit with which he pursued the study of Greek 

 under an exceptionally able series of teachers, and Jiis viris illustrissi- 

 mis sumrnas graticcs agit, seinperque habebit. But he realizes well the 

 great importance of these educational questions, and that many of 

 them can never be settled except by actual experiment. It is of the 

 highest importance that all things should be fairly tried, and that 

 held fast which is good. It is demanded in the interests of society 

 that modern education have a fair chance by the side of classical edu- 



TOL. XXIV. — 20 



