TEACHING OF SCIENXE 207 



had experience of teaching or examining. On the 

 hterar}^ side of things I am, I fear, a Phihstine,or 

 enfant terrible. I belong to that class of persons 

 (which has at least the merit of being very large) 

 who have hardly opened a Greek or Latin book since 

 the day they passed their Little-go. 



I grudge the time that is given at school to 

 making small boys groan over books not well 

 suited to them, while French and German are, or 

 were in my day, all but untaught. If I had had 

 good oral teaching in modern languages (such, for 

 instance, as that given at the Perse School in Cam- 

 bridge) I could forgive my teachers. We should 

 without tears have learned to talk fluently and 

 write correctly in at least one modern language, 

 and for the sake of this I could perhaps have borne 

 the weariness of Greek and Latin grammar. If it 

 were not for the tyranny of examinations, classical 

 teaching might be put to its proper use, which is 

 not to serve as an instrument of torture, but to 

 enable us to read ancient authors. 



I would teach Latin and Greek only to older 

 boys, and by the method in which we all learn a 

 modern language — that is when we have the 

 advantage of being at once teacher and learner. 

 I mean by reading quickly, with a translation 

 if necessary ; at first without understanding 

 half of what we read, but gradually picking up 

 words as we go along. This is how I learned to 

 read easy Italian, By the advice of the late Henry 

 Sidgwick I began on a bad Italian translation 

 of a French novel, because such a version, being full 

 of French idioms more or less literall}'^ translated, is 



