TEACHERS AND THEIR PUPILS 497 
department, will very soon find it necessary to go to the original sources 
and acquire a working knowledge of foreign languages. It is regret- 
table that under existing conditions a scientific student sometimes 
passes through his university without acquiring even this necessary 
equipment. I believe this to be largely due to the fact that he is com- 
pelled to spend so much of his time in preparatory work of a school 
character during the early stages of his university career. 
In the literary subjects, and especially in classics, there 1s, of course, 
not the same scope for the spirit of investigation which it 1s so easy to 
encourage in experimental science. Here the only new advances and 
discoveries which can appeal to the imagination in quite the same way 
are those which are being made every year in the field of archeology, 
and it is therefore not surprising that this subject attracts many of 
the most ardent students: the methods of the archeologist are more akin 
to those of the scientific investigator, and his work is accompanied by 
the same enthralling excitement of possible discovery. For the more 
able pupils and those who had a natural taste for language and litera- 
ture no subjects have been more thoroughly and systematically taught 
for very many years at school, as well as at the university, than the 
classics ; but for the less intellectual children or those who had no nat- 
ural taste for such studies no methods could well be more unsuitable 
than those which used to prevail at schools. The grammatical rules 
and exceptions, the unintelligent and uncouth translation, the dry 
comparison of parallel passages, the mechanical construction of Greek 
and Latin verse, produced in many minds nothing but distaste for the 
finest literature that exists. 
With the improved methods now in use Greek and Latin may be, 
and are, presented to the ordinary boy and girl as living literature and 
history, and school training in them may be made as interesting as 
anything else in the curriculum. Upon such a foundation the univer- 
sity should surely be able to build a course devoted to literary, philo- 
sophical, historical or philological learning even for the average student, 
provided that the university teacher undertakes the task of helping his 
pupils to learn for themselves, and to pursue their studies with a pur- 
pose, not merely as a preparation. 
The spirit of inquiry which drives the literary student to find for 
himself the meaning of an author by study and by comparison of the 
views of others is really the same spirit of inquiry which drives the 
scientific student to interpret an experiment, or the mathematical stu- 
dent to solve a problem. Only by kindling the spirit of inquiry can 
teaching of a real university character be carried on. Give it what 
name you will, and exercise it in whatever manner you desire, there is 
no subject of study to which it can not be applied, and there are no 
intelligent minds in which it can not be excited. 
The first question which a university teacher should ask himself is, 
VOL. LXXVII.—34. 
