[To THE EDITOR OP THY " SPECTATOR.") Sue—With reference to
the letter of the Head-Master of the Persse School in your issue of November 11th, may I—with all deference to him—say that I, for one, rejoice at the prospect of the abolition of what Dr. Macau so aptly calls this " pink pill" of a modicum of Greek? And I so rejoice because of the time which will be saved to the future schoolboy by reason of his being spared the toilsome and unpalatable task of grinding up a useless modicum of Greek, if he intends in the future to pursue some wholly different subjects of study. Many years ago I found that before I could take seriously to my Tripos studies at Cambridge, I had to pass in Greek, for the Previous (" Little Go ") Examination. Now, although I possessed a sound knowledge of Latin, and also of French and German, I was not acquainted with. even the Greek alphabet, but, having a moderately good memory and fair powers of concentration, I set to work, and in three months' time managed to get up a Greek Play, the grammar and one of the Gospels in Greek. and so duly passed my " Little Go." I only mention this to show what waste of time and effort there must be under the existing system, in the case of a boy who does not intend or wish to "drink deep of the Pierian Spring " of classical knowledge, for I take it that the average schoolboy would be given three or four years to do what I was able to achieve in less than the same number of months. I should like to add that my knowledge of Greek has by this time vanished, although I can greatly appreciate Greek literature—in
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