{To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Setting aside lessons in
the science of politics and in philosophy to be learnt from the ancient classics, as these can be only slightly touched on at school, the educational value of the study of ancient Greek and Latin would appear to be mainly twofold. (1) They are unrivalled instruments in training the mind in habits of accuracy and in logical thinking. (2) Through the " loveliness " enshrined in their literature, these languages may be the means of training the taste and of opening the eyes of youth to the joy and splendour of great writing.
Mr. Benson—probably overrating the power of the im- mature mind to appreciate great thoughts expressed in a foreign tongue—lays stress on the second, and depreciates the first ; though the first might be represented as the schoolmaster to lead us to the second, and I venture to assert that there is a stage at which a boy likes the " crabbed " Greek language and its " odd characters," before he is capable of appreciating its literature. It is possible that, when Mr. Benson was at school, too much time was spent on the minutiae of grammar, and the verbal trees obscured the splendour of the literary wood, but I doubt if he is aware of the changes which have taken place in this respect.
Some schools are more conservative than others, and the methods in vogue vary, but speaking generally 'much more attention is given to the subject-matter of the classics than of old—certainly less to grammar. Many school books are admirably and attractively edited—with photographs of Greek sculpture or vases, etc., or of scenes where great events were enacted—and made easy with vocabularies and literary appreciations. These facilities, it is true, are sometimes excessive.
. Several schools act Greek or Latin plays and boys are occasionally encouraged to read good English translations.
Libraries, corridors and class rooms are frequently adorned with casts from the antique and fine photographs of such places as the Acropolis or the Forum. Greek and Roman history are intelligently taught and an honest attempt is made to help boys to appreciate the beauties of classical literature and to visualize the times and people of which they are reading.
Mr. Benson says that classical teaching begins at the wrong end and seems to think that a boy ought to start his adventures in the Greek language by plunging into " the Chorus in Oedipus Coloneus." This, of course, could only be done in translation. An able boy of some age and previous culture might enjoy the process and might be stimulated thereby to make further excursions into translations from the classics, if he could find them ; but he would be no whit nearer a knowledge of the Greek language, which many competent authorities—including apparently Mr. Benson himself—consider a valuable acquisition, and which can only be gained by assiduous application, begun generally at an early age. This application is itself of great value, even if its results are small, and is the only means of attaining to the high intellectual joys which lurk in Greek literature.
I think, too, that Mr. Benson unduly depreciates the old Method of teaching these languages, which, though modified and supplemented, as I have indicated, is still partly in vogue and which he calls " sterile."
As a training of the mind, and as a foundation for the learning of modern languages, it is much to have been drilled into the habit of accuracy in observing grammatical forms and the right structure of sentences in languages so logical as Latin and so subtle as Greek. Accurate analysis of language may be said to be at the root of the appreciation of literature.
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