HUMANISM AND REALISM. 541 
lar institutions transplanted to democratic countries can only be 
overcome by a gradual understanding of the totally different 
conditions to which they owe their existence. The educational 
systems of Europe, of the Teutonic as well as of the Latin races, 
are agiftof the Church, and a legacy of Graeco-Roman civilisation. 
Our forefathers have not had the same invaluable advantages 
as the Greek youth possessed, who not only were inspired by 
their great national poets, but also taught to look upon their own 
_ language as the most beautiful and expressive, and to regard the 
Greek nation as the most accomplished race, and its ancestors 
as the most sublime heroes of mankind. No wonder that 
they accomplished great deeds, and as philosophers, artists, 
poets, and statesmen, stood far above their contemporaries, 
-and remain models for imitation even to the present time. 
The same may be said to some extent of the education of 
the Roman youth during the most illustrious period of the 
Roman history, though Greek influence, as civilisation advanced, 
was felt more and more conspicuously. But alas! the young 
Teuton has not been so fortunate. The language in which he 
was taught in the monastic schools as far back as the seventh 
century was a foreign one, foreign the thought presented to 
him for assimilation. The bloodless spectre of ancient Rome 
undertook to take revenge upon the destroyer of his dominion 
over the world, and to bend the neck of his successor. Latin 
language and monastic discipline were instrumental in build- 
ing up a high wall to separate effectually the Teutonic youth 
from the primeval forest with its sacred groves, where the 
religions and poetical traditions of their ancestors were preserved 
foratime. Charlemagne, a thorough Teuton, had the great 
German heroic songs and traditions collected and noted down, 
but it was of no avail Nothing of them remains to us; they 
doubtless disappeared under some Roman influence, through 
which the Teutonic youth were taught to despise their own na- 
tionality. If for some time longer Scandinavia and Iceland 
had not been faithful to the religion of their forefathers and 
had not possessed their traditions, nothing would have remained 
to give us an insight into the grand conceptions of our ances- 
tors, except what we can find in the writings of Julius Cesar 
and Tacitus. And so the Trivium and Quadrivium reigned su- 
preme in the land of the Teuton under the hard and merciless 
hand of the Church, forming priests, monks, lawyers, and states- 
- men, to whom all that was Roman was of principal importance 
and foremost value. No wonder that Latin was considered 
the only language worth knowing, and that the powerful and 
expressive Teutonic language was neglected, German being only 
fit for the vulgar mass of the people. This contempt for the 
mother tongue (for many centuries called the vulgar tongue 
in comparison with the classical languages) is still, after the 
lapse of more than a thousand years, unconsciously shown in 
our own University. Thus, whilst Latin is compulsory, Eng- 
lish belongs to the optional subjects. However it proves the 
