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547 



to work. At first, through the intermediation of Arabic transla- 

 tions, afterwards, by the study of the originals, the western 

 nations of Europe became acquainted with the writings of the 

 ancient philosophers and poets, and, in time, witli the whole of 

 the vast literature of antiquity. 



Whatever there was of high intellectual aspiration or dominant 

 capacity in Italy, France, Germany, and England, spent itself 

 for centuries in taking possession of the rich inheritance left by 

 the dead civilisations of Greece and Rome. Marvellously aide I 

 by the invention of printing, classical learning spread and 

 flourished. Those who possessed it prided themselves on having 

 attained the highest culture then within the reach of mankind. 



And justly. For, saving Dante on his solitary pinnacle, there 

 was no figure in modern literature at the time of the Renascence 

 to compare with the men of antiquity ; there was no art to 

 compete with their sculpture ; there was no physical science but 

 that which Greece had created. Above all, there was no other 

 example of perfect intellectual freedom — of the unhesitating 

 acceptance of reason as the sole guide to truth and arbiter of 

 conduct. 



The new learning necessarily soon exerted a profound influ- 

 ence upon education. The language of the monks and school- 

 men seemed little better than gibberish to scholars fresh from 

 Virgil and Cicero, and the study of Latin was jilaced upon a 

 new foundation. Moreover, Latin itself ceased to afford the sole 

 key to knowledge. The student who souglit the highest thought 

 of antiquity, found only a second-hand reflection of it in Roman 

 literature, and turned his face to the full light of the Greeks. 

 And after a battle, not altogether dissimilar to that which is 

 at present being fought over the teaching of physical science, the 

 study of Greek was recognised as an essential element of all 

 higher education. 



Thus the Humanists, as they were called, won the day ; and 

 the great reform which they effected was of incalculable service 

 to mankind. But the Nemesis of all reformers is finality ; and 

 the reformers of education, like those of religion, fell into the 

 profound but common error of mistaking the beginning for the 

 end of the work of reformation. 



The representatives of the Humanists, in the nineteenth 

 century, take their stand upon classical education as the sole 

 avenue to culture, as firmly as if we were still in the age of 

 Renascence. Yet surely the present intellectual relations of the 

 modern and the ancient worlds are profoundly different from 

 those which obtained three centuries ago. Leavin4 aside the 

 existence of a great and characteristically modern literature, of 

 modern painting, and, especially, of modern music, there is one 

 feature of the present state of the civilised world which separates 

 it more widely from the Renascence, than the Renascence was 

 separated from the middle ages. 



This distinctive character of our own times lies in the vast and 

 constantly increasing part which is played by Natural Knowledge. 

 Not only is our daily life shaped by it, not only does the 

 prosperity of millions of men depend upon it, but our whole 

 theory of life has long been influenced, consciously or uncon- 

 sciously, by the general conceptions of the universe, which have 

 been forced upon us by physical science. 



In fact, the most elementary acquaintance with the results of 

 scientific investigation shows us that they offer a broad and 

 striking contradiction to the opinions so implicitly credited and 

 taught in the middle ages. 



The notions of the beginning and the end of the world enter- 

 tained by our forefathers are no longer credible. It is very 

 certain that the earth is not the chief body in the material 

 universe, and that the world is not subordinated to man's use. 

 It is even more certain that nature is the expression of a definite 

 order with which nothing interferes, and that the chief business 

 of mankind is to learn that order and govern themselves accord- 

 ingly. Moreover this scientific "criticism of life" presents 

 itself to us with different credentials from any other. It appeals 

 not to authority, nor to what anybody may have thought or said, 

 but to nature. It admits that all our interpretations of natural 

 fact are more or less imperfect and symbolic, and bids the 

 learner seek for truth not among words but among things. It 

 warns us that the assertion which outstrips evidence is not only a 

 blunder but a crime. 



The purely classical education advocated by the representatives 

 of the Humanists in our day, gives no inkling of all this. A 

 man may be a better scholar than Erasmus, and know no more 

 of the chief causes of the present intellectual fermentation than 

 Erasmus did. Scholarly and pious persons, worthy of all 



respect, favour us with allocutions upon the sadness of the 

 antagonism of Science to their mediaeval way of thinking, which 

 betray an ignorance of the first principles of scientific investiga- 

 tion, an incapacity for understanding what a man of science 

 means by veracity, and an unconsciousness of the weight of 

 established scientific truths, which is almost comical. 



There is no great force in the iu quoqne argument, or else the 

 advocates of scientific education might fairly enough retort upon 

 the modern Humanists that they may be learned specialists, but 

 that they possess no such sound foundation for a criticism of life 

 as deserves the name of culture. And, indeed, if we were dis- 

 posed to be cruel we might urge that the Humanists have brought 

 this reproach upon themselves, not because they are too full of 

 the spirit of the ancient Greek, but because they lack it. 



The period of the Renascence is commonly called that of the 

 " Revival of Letters," as if the influences then brought to bear 

 upon the mind of western Europe had been wholly exhausted 

 in the field of literature. I think it is very commonly forgotten 

 that the revival of science, effected by the same agency, although 

 less conspicuous, was not less momentous. 



In fact, the few and scattered students of nature of that day 

 picked up the clue to her secrets exactly as it fell from the hands 

 of the Greeks a thousand years before. The foundations of 

 mathematics were so well laid by them that our children learn 

 their geometry from a book written for the schools of Alexandria 

 two thousand years ago. Modern astronomy is the natural 

 continuation and development of the work of Hipparchus 

 and of Ptolemy ; modern physics of that of Democritus and 

 Archimedes ; it was long before modern biological science out- 

 grew the knowledge bequeathed to us by Aristotle, Theophrastus, 

 and Galen. 



We cannot know all the best thoughts and sayings of the 

 Greeks unless we know what they thought about natural pheno- 

 mena. We cannot fully apprehend their criticism of life unless 

 we understand the extent to which that criticism was affected by 

 scientific conceptions. We falsely pretend to be the inheritors 

 of their culture, unless we are penetrated, as the best minds 

 among them were, with an unhesitating faith that the free em- 

 ployment of reason, in accordance with scientific method, is the 

 sole guide to truth. 



Thus I venture to think that the pretensions of our modern 

 Humanists to the possession of the monopoly of culture and to 

 the exclusive inheritance of the spirit of antiquity must be abated, 

 if not abandoned. But I should be very sorry that anything I 

 have said should be taken to imply a desire on my part to de- 

 preciate the value of classical education, as it might be and as it 

 sometimes is. The native capacities of mankind vary no less 

 than their opportunities ; and while culture is one, the road by 

 which one man may best reach it is widely different from that 

 which is most advantageous to another. Again, while scientific 

 education is yet inchoate and tentative, classical education is 

 thoroughly well organised upon the practical experience of 

 generations of teachers. So that, given ample time for learning 

 and destination for ordinary life, or for a literary career, I do not 

 think that a young Englishman in search of culture can do better 

 tlian follow the course usually marked out for him, supplementing 

 its deficiencies by his own efforts. 



But for those who mean to make science their serious occupa- 

 tion ; or ^^ho intend to follow the profession of medicine ; or 

 who have to enter early upon the business of life ; for all these, 

 in my opinion, classical education is a mistake ; and it is for 

 that reason that I am glad to see " mere literary education and 

 instruction " shut out from the curriculum of Sir Josiah Mason's 

 College, seeing that its inclusion would probably lead to the 

 introduction of the ordinary smattering of Latin and Greek. 



Nevertheless, I am the last person to question the importance 

 of genuine literary education, or to suppose that intellectual 

 culture can be complete without it. An exclusively scientific 

 training will bring about a mental twist as surely as an exclu- 

 sively literaiy training. The value of the cargo does not com- 

 pensate for a ship's being out of trim ; and I should ,be very 

 sorry to think that the Scientific College would turn out none 

 but lop-sided men. 



There is no need however that such a catastrophe should 

 happen. Instruction in English, French, and German is pro- 

 vided, and thus the three greatest literatures of the modern world 

 are made accessible to the student. 



French and German, and especially the latter language, are 

 absolutely indispensable to those who desire full knowledge in 

 any department of science. But even supposing that the know- 



