WHY TEACH MODERN LANGUAGES? 27 



learn Greek for the sake of reading Homer; it is worth while to learn 

 Italian for the sake of reading Dante. If we are really in earnest in 

 asserting that modern languages can give a full literary training, we 

 cannot omit Dante: Germany, France, Spain, have no epic poet in 

 his class. He is indispensable. 



In one year a college class can be taught the elements of Italian, 

 and can read the whole of the Divine Comedy in the original with 

 time for comment and interpretation. How many soul journeys of 

 one hundred and sixty days can reveal such wealth ? 



The great middle term between Aeschylus and Ibsen is Moliere. 

 He is the first great master to write for the modern stage. He was 

 born 6nly six years after Shakespeare's death; but compared with 

 Moliere, Shakespeare's stage is well-nigh mediaeval. Aeschylus 

 played in an immense open air theater; the stage a complete circle 

 on the ground before the spectators. Shakespeare wrote for a stage 

 projecting into the audience in a theater open to the sky and lighted 

 by the sun. Moliere is the first of the moderns. A great master 

 can not transmit his genius; but a great master of conditions like 

 Aeschylus or Moliere can transmit his technique. After the death 

 of Moliere in 1673 England had the most vigorous and vivacious 

 school of comic dramatists in Europe; but the model then and thence- 

 forth was not Shakespeare but Moliere. During many years of the 

 nineteenth century France produced the chief dramas that were 

 acted in continental Europe, in England and in America. France 

 cannot be left out by the earnest student of the most interesting 

 of all art forms. 



Earlier I suggested another use of French — as a model for prose. 

 The novels are too long for undergraduate study in French; but the 

 short story of the school of Poe is available; and this has been culti- 

 vated with the highest success in France. 



In two years a student can acquire the elements of French, read 

 the best short stories of the age, learn Moliere in his plays and in his 

 marvelously complete biography — what would the world not give 

 for such light on Shakespeare? — and trace the development of the 



