LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
GREEK AT OXFORD.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR:1 SIR,—The view of Sir Philip Magnus in the letter he con- tributed to the Spectator of November 22nd seems to be that the old historic Universities are to be retained exclusively for the use of the clergy, men of letters and schoolmasters, and others who are placed beyond the necessities of an active career in the world, and that the lawyer, the diplomat, the doctor, the chemist, the architect, the engineer, the banker, the man of commerce, and manufacturers may go to London, Birmingham, or Manchester and get there what they need. His plea for variety of training appears to a plain mind one for exactly the opposite, and to be in fact for exclusion instead of comprehen- sion. Seeing that science is so permeating all the higher branches of life, it seems clear that these latter classes, con- stituting the cultured minority upon whom the progress of the nation largely depends, must be scientifically and mathe- matically educated if this country is to take its proper position in the intellectual race in which the nations are engaged; and they are to be relegated to Universities possess- ipg, with all their great qualifications, none of the glorious traditions and links with the past which are of such value in steadying the mind of a nation or of an individual ! It is only necessary to attend sittings of a Law Court, a Parliamentary Committee, or of a House of Parliament itself, to see bow often a ready grasp of problems having a scientific or mathematical basis is lacking in our classically trained classes. To insist upon all young fellows desiring to have a career at Oxford acquiring sufficient knowledge of two dead languages— in the first place, to enter a public school by the time they are thirteen or fourteen, and, in the second, to enter the University five years later—crowding out not only adequate training in mathematics and modern languages, but, in a majority of cases, any scientific training at all, and, quite as bad, if not worse, any deep knowledge of the literature and history of our own country (a sadly neglected means of real culture), would appear to us all, if we were not so blinded by custom, such a travesty of true methods of education as calls for the pen of a Swift to portray adequately. No educated man decries Latin or Greek as means • for mental training, but only by neglecting most of the fountains of knowledge and means of training having some relation to the circumstances of life in the world is there sufficient time thoroughly to master both those languages, except in the case of the most gifted, to whom and to the classes first mentioned it appears the advantage of a career at Oxford is to be restricted. This claim, when it is fully appreciated by the nation, will, I venture to predict, be rejected. The mental gymnastics theory would be fully met by the mastery of one of these languages, and it can only be ignorance of the facts which can lead any one to believe that five per cent. of the youths most got whose time is mainly spent over Latin and Greet verse ever reach, or ever could reach, the state of epicurean delight in the refinements of the ancient Greek writers, read in the original, which we bear of so often. For it must be remembered that the matter of the ancient writers is free to all in translations; it is only their literary flavour that we must spend years to acquire the power of appreciating. As to the theory that a man is better able to learn science and modern languages because of having reached high attainments in Latin and Greek in early life, it is probable that a person of such exceptional mental qualities would be competent to master any subject without difficulty whether he had been grounded entirely in classics or not; certainly the argument that this demands the acquirement of two classical languages seems against common-sense. It would not be difficult to give illustrations of eminent men of high classical attainments whc have from time to time in their careers shown a lack of the
intellectual balance resulting from a less stereotyped educa- tion, than one confined to the two dead languages as a classical education in practice really is. To found theories upon par- ticular instances is doubtless risky, yet I cannot help saying that an experience (now closed) of some years as a lecturer in connection with one of our professional institutions convinced me that the ordinary public-school boy and the University man are the least fitted to grasp the particular mathematical and scientific subjects upon which modern professional work is based. The classically trained boy has to lose a precious year acquiring the rudiments of science and mathematics, and is, so far as I can see, in every way worse off than the boy who has had a less expensive but more general education. The plea of the Spectator for Greek instead of Latin, if only one classical language is to be insisted upon, I think loses sight of the fact that the Latin language, though doubtless less delightful, and Latin literature, though less original; than Greek, lie at the root of our system of law, of our national historical records, of cosmopolitan medicine, and more directly of our language, and consequently would be more useful to a youth who is to be a man of the world, and not an ecclesiastic or man of letters. I am sorry to use the word " useful," for I know it is unfashionable in this connection to a large school of thinkers, to whom apparently the less "useful" a study the more valuable it is. The cult of the " useless " in education is surely one of the most extraordinary of all the paradoxes that have ever confused and afflicted the minds of men. Indeed, we need another " Gulliver's Travels " at the beginning of this century to laugh us, or sting us, into a conception of the absurdities which professorial clinging to a pedantry of roots and derivatives has imposed upon a large section of the easy- going British public.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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