2o8 TEACHING OF SCIENCE 



easier than idiomatic Italian. The right book to 

 begin on is a good murder story, such as one of 

 Gaboriau's, which are fortunately to be had in bad 

 Itahan. What would an old fashioned teacher of 

 Greek and Latin have said to this ! In my own 

 case I feel that the difficulty of reading the classics 

 was good discipline, and so far educational. In 

 Henry Sidgwick's method one is carried along by 

 the detective business, and learns Italian words as 

 a child picks up its own language, by context and 

 re-iteration. It will be said that this method s not 

 applicable to Latin and Greek, and that even if it 

 were so, it would not be educative. I confess I do 

 not expect my words to sink into the hearts of the 

 teachers of what are unkindly called the dead 

 languages. The great Moloch of examination 

 has constantly to be supplied with human 

 children, to say nothing of grown-up people* Some 

 escape, but how many are reduced to ashes ? 



I have said nothing about what should have 

 been my theme, namely, the beginning of the 

 College year. To my thinking beginnings have 

 something of the melancholy that seems more 

 appropriate to endings. Sad associations tend to 

 adhere to all that has the quality of periodicity. 

 I for one feel this when spring once more puts on the 

 familiar look with which our childhood and youth 

 seemed to mingle on equal terms, but which up- 

 braids us now we are no longer young. 



And in a more work-a-day spirit Monday morn- 

 ing is sad. I think this is so because the conception 

 Next Week is full of the ghosts of dead resolutions. 

 No doubt it was on Monday mornings that Mr. 



