12 APRIL 1930, Page 3

The Archbishop of York on the Classics The Archbishop of

York delivered the Presidential address to the Classical Association on Wednesday. His subject was " The Distinctive Excellencies of Greek and Latin." If there is any " decay of the classics " it is not apparent in the Classical Association, which is able, year after year, to find a President who can deliver a critical address, classical in form and thought. If Dr. Temple seemed on Wednesday to exalt the humani- ties at the expense of science he was, of course, only trying to trim the ship of education ; himself an accomplished classical scholar, he could not possibly perform the unclassical feat of repelling knowledge of any kind. His case for the classics was that they are the supreme dis- ciplinarians of the mind, and that without them we neglect our foundations and the clue to all our modem culture. What would it profit us if we disclosed every secret of the physical universe and forgot whence we came culturally.