488 Culture and Science. 
studies which may be most useful to them in their chosen walks 
in life. 
In coming time there must needs be a modification of educational 
methods for adaptation to the increasing ramification and develop- 
ment of the tree of knowledge ; and if early youth is the best time 
for learning languages, so is it—and to even a greater degree—the 
best time for the cultivation of the logical and observing faculties. 
There must be sacrifice of some branch of learning, and what that 
shall be should probably be determined by the position of the indi- 
vidual and his tastes and aptitude. A technical education is at least 
more likely to be of future use to most persons than a classical one, 
and will certainly fit one better for the struggle of life, even if, as 
might be contended, it will be less apt to render him “ philosophi- 
cal ” under its calamities. 
I cannot forbear, even at the risk of being regarded digressive, 
to here interject some remarks respecting the place of the classical 
languages in general philosophy. We are constantly being told 
that the Latin and Greek are the most perfected and the highest 
developed of all tongues, and it is implied that others are less so to 
the extent by which they deviate from those stocks. I have no 
hesitation in utterly denying such a statement, and the claim in 
question is the result of that lack of broad culture which is inci- 
dent to exclusive or undue attention to what is called a classical 
curriculum. The Greek and Latin languages really represent an 
immature although nearly adolescent stage of linguistic develop- 
ment, the former being nearer the primitive stage, while the latter 
is on the whole appreciably more advanced in natural development. 
The inflections, which have been claimed as a feature of excellence, 
in truth are characteristic of the youth of language and of barbar- 
ous peoples. Such nations, for example, as the American aborigines 
(Choctaws, Creeks, ete.) and the Eskimo, exhibit a complexity of 
inflection which is immeasurably in advance of the classical ones, 
and the same reasons which have been urged for the supremacy 
of Greek and Latin are applicable in a far higher degree to the 
Eskimo and Choctaw. The decay of inflections may almost be said 
to be in an inverse ratio to the healthy growth of expression, 
and we may justly claim, on scientific grounds, that of all lan- 
guages, English is the most advanced in its developmental career, — 
so far at least as differentiation of its elements is concerned. These 
utterances, although they may appear heterodox to some, I feel 
