pro THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR:1
Si,—'Your article in the Spectator of June 4th may be illus- trated by a letter written by the German Emperor (then Prince of Prussia) in 1885, translated in Dr. Jack's interesting Life of his Majesty, recently published by Messrs. MacLehose, of Glasgow. In that letter the Kaiser refers to the "fossi- lised and spirit-killing" system of classical education to which he himself had been subjected, and exclaims :—
" Homer, the magnificent man, for whom I was very enthusi- astic, Horace, and Demosthenes, whose speeches must inspire each one, how were they read? Perhaps with enthusiasm for the battle or the weapons or the descriptions of Nature ? Nothing of the kind. Under the dissecting knife of the grammatical, rapid philologist, each little sentence was divided, quartered, until the skeleton was found with relish, and exhibited to the general astonishment in how many ways tip or is-1, or some such thing could be used as a prefix or affix. It was heartrending. How much pain and work have the Latin and Greek themes (stark nonsense) caused, and what sort of stuff wits produced ! I believe Horace would have given up the ghost in horror.
Away with the rubbish! War to the knife against such teach- ing! The result of this teaching is that our youth knows the syntax and the grammar of the ancient languages better than the old Greeks themselves that they know by heart all the generals, battles, and order of battles of the Punic and Mithridatic wars, but have a very hazy notion about the battles of the Seven Years' War, to say nothing of the much too modern' struggles of '66 and '70, which they have not yet had.' " am, Sir, &c., RALPH RICHARDSON. Bridge of Earn, N.B.
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