has done enough. It is not his business to teach political philosophy; and if it were, a much better handbook could be found for beginners in that subject.

The teacher of advanced classes in English does not even undertake to explain difficulties or obscurities of meaning, except to point a language lesson. It is doubtful how far he should take upon himself to explain figurative allusions; he certainly should not charge himself with interpreting the far-fetched comparisons of florid writers and poets, nor make these the occasion for giving desultory information in history, mythology, geography, natural history, manners and customs. Such explanations are suitable in those early reading lessons wherein meaning and language are not yet differentiated. But in the later stages of instruction in style, such things are to be forborne. General information is now given in most subjects by systematic teaching; and the miscellaneous contributions from the allusions of poets are superseded by a more excellent way. Pupils need not follow out the references to the similes of Milton farther than to feel their force; and such as need much explaining may be passed over. The pressing matter is, to be led to discriminate the effects of the composition, and to see what are the arts that bring about these effects.

The same rigid principle of division of labour would exclude from English teaching whatever relates to the history, manners and customs of the country, and all occasions for calling forth patriotic and moral sentiment. Such matters obviously belong to historical and other teaching, and should not be encroached upon by the English master any more than by the Drawing master.

CHAPTER X.

THE VALUE OF THE CLASSICS.

THE chapter on Education Values was purposely left incomplete; the vexed question of the study of the Classics demanding a separate and full discussion. As respects the Higher Education this is the most important of all the questions that can be raised at the present time. The thorough-going advocates of Classics hold Latin and Greek to be indispensable to a liberal education. They do not allow of an alternative road to our University Degrees. They will not admit that the lapse of three centuries, with their numerous revolutions, and their vast developments of new knowledge, make any difference whatever to the education value of a knowledge of the Greek and Roman classics. They get over the undeniable fact, that we no longer employ these languages, as languages, by bringing forward a number of uses that never occurred to Erasmus, Casaubon or Milton.

In the Middle Ages, the use of Latin was universal. After the taking of Constantinople, Greek literature burst upon Western Europe, and so entranced the choicer spirits as to bring about a temporary revival of Paganism. To the Christian scholarly enquirer, Greek was welcomed as laying open the original of the New Testament, to

gether with the Eastern Fathers of the Church. The zeal thus springing up rendered possible the imposition of a new language upon educated youth, which might have well seemed too much for human indolence. Our Universities accepted the addition; and the teachers and pupils had to speak Latin, and read Greek.'

The men of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries had their own follies, errors, and superstitions; but their mode of estimating the worth of the classical tongues was plain common sense. Says Hegius, the Dutch scholar (master of Erasmus, head of the College of Deventer, 1438-1468): 'If anyone wishes to understand grammar, rhetoric, mathematics, history, or Holy Scripture, let him read Greek. We owe everything to the Greeks.' Luther advocated the new learning, in his own vehement way: True though it be that the Gospel came and comes alone by the Holy Spirit, yet it came by means of the tongues, and thereby grew, and thereby must be preserved.' Melancthon regarded the languages solely as means to ends, and his scheme of education embraced all the departments of knowledge on their own account. Hieronymus Wolf, of Augsburg, was emphatic on the same point: 'Happy were the Latins,' he says, 'who needed only to learn Greek, and that not by school-teaching, but by intercourse with

'Thus in the Middle Ages Latin was made the groundwork of education; not for the beauty of its classical literature, nor because the study of a dead language was the best mental gymnastic, or the only means of acquiring a masterly freedom in the use of living tongues, but because it was the language of educated men throughout Western Europe, employed for public business, literature, philosophy, and science, above all, in God's providence, essential to the unity, and therefore enforced by the authority, of the Western Church.'-(Mr. C. S. Parker, in Farrar's Essays on a Liberal Education, p. 7.)

WORTH DECREASING.

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living Greeks. Happier still were the Greeks, who, so soon as they could read and write their mother tongue, might pass at once to the liberal arts and the pursuit of wisdom. For us, who must spend many years in learning foreign languages, the entrance into the gates of Philosophy is much more difficult. For, to understand Latin and Greek is not learning itself, but the entrancehall and antechamber of learning.' (Parker.)

That the value of a knowledge of the classics, on the ground of the information exclusively contained in Greek and Latin authors, should decrease steadily, was a necessary result of the independent research of the last three hundred years. The rate of decrease has been accelerated during the last century by the abundance of good translations from the classics. In this progressive decrease a point must be reached when the cost of acquiring the languages would be set against the residuum of valuable information still locked up in them, and when the balance would turn against their acquisition. In the meantime, however, other advantages have been put forward that are considered sufficient to make up for the loss of value brought about by the causes now mentioned.

I. The Information still locked up in Greek and
Latin Authors.

This is the professional argument, but the case respecting it is so very obvious that we can hardly be too brief in presenting the matter.

That there is not a fact or principle in the whole compass of physical science, or in the arts and practice

of life, that is not fully expressed in every civilized modern language, will be universally allowed. There will not be quite the same consent as regards moral and metaphysical science; it being contended that in Plato and in Aristotle, for example, there are treasures of thought that never can be separated from their original setting in the Greek language. Again, the ancient literatures are the exclusive depositories of the historical and social facts of the ancient world; but all this is eminently translatable, and has been abundantly reproduced in the modern tongues. A certain exception, however, is made here also, namely, that for the inner or subjective life of the Greeks and Romans, the best translations must still be at fault.

As regards Greek philosophy, it may be safely said that its doctrinal positions and subtle distinctions are at this moment better understood through translators and commentators, writing in English, French, and German, than they could have been to Bentley, Porson, or Parr. The truth is that, in translating, a knowledge of the subject is at least co-essential with a knowledge of the language. When the Professor of Greek Literature, in Cosmo's Platonic Academy at Florence, lectured on Plato, the Latin Aristotelians asked with indignation how a philosopher could be expounded by one who was none himself.

That the inner life of the Greeks and Romans cannot be fully comprehended unless we know their own language, is a position that gives way under a close assault. The inner life must be understood from the outer life, and that can be represented in any language. Whatever sets well before us the usages, the modes of