A NEW PREJUDICE.
The Directors of the Edinburgh Academy, in their Annual Report for the present year, just distributed in London, state a somewhat curious circum- stance, that of late years a melancholy prejudice against classical education has arisen in Scotland.—.21forniu9 Chronicle.
The existence of this prejudice is not surprising. Everybody engaged in what in called the business of life, feels sensibly, that if a portion of the time devoted to the composition of bad Latin verses and the study of the Greek metres, had been given to the acquisition of the French, Spanish, or German lan- guages,— if instead of poring over heathen antiquities he had made himself acquainted with modern statistics, and in the place THUCYDIDES had read Cr./our:0N, LaiNG, and HALLAM,— he would have been a more useful member of society, and better qualified to push his fortunes in the world. We arc the last to decry or undervalue classical acquirements, but it has cer- tainly been a great blunder in the modern system of edu- cation, to instruct young persons, intended for very different pursuits in life, in precisely the same manner. At all our great schools, the course of instruction for a sailor, a soldier, a merchant, a divine, a legislator, or a man of fortune, is exactly the same ; and when the scene changes to Oxford or Cambridge there is little variation. The consequence is. that in the present severe com- petition for the means of reputable existence, many complain of the time misspent at school and college; and it is very probable that they may now go too far in the opposite course,—declaring, as we have heard many fathers declare, that their sons shall not fool away their time at a grammar-school, but learn something useful. The chance is that the next generation will be sadly deficient in classical lore. The national mind will not improve in refinement or elegance: it may become more robust. But it is idle for those to complain of the prejudice against classical education, who have taught Latin and Greek and nothing more. We cannot all afford to dream away existence in lettered leisure.
Previous page
