SYDNEY SMITH ON GREEK.
(To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."1
Sm,—The enclosed extract from the late Mr. G. W. E. Russell's Sydney Smith in the "English Men of Letters" Series may be of interest to the writer of the article on com- pulsory Greek in the last Spectator.—I am, Sir, Sc.,
ARCHIBALD J. ALUM.
"He thought that schoolmasters encouraged their pupils to `Love the instrument better than the end—not the luxury which the difficulty encloses, but the difficulty—not the filbert, but the shell—not what may be read in Greek, but Greek itself." We think that, in order to secure an attention to Homer or Virgil, we must catch up every man, whether he is to be a clergyman or a duke, begin with him at six years of age, an never quit him till he is twenty; making him conju- gate and decline for life and death; and so teaching him to estimate his progress in real wisdom as he can scan the verses of the Greek tragedians.' He advocated the use of transla- tions, but ' a literal translation, or any trhnslation, of a school- book is a contraband article in English schools, which a school- master would instantly seise, as a custom-house officer would seize a barrel of gin.'"
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