` 34 scare co1.LEGE on Knnrucxv. v_
another from English into Greek or Latin, and then to write out declensions and conjuga. ~ 
tions, with careful attention to the length of syllables and to accentuation. His work is .i
then rapidly corrected by the teacher, who in making his corrections supplements the .; 
lesson of the text—book with instruction on the order of the words, on synonyms, on the  .
derivation of English words suggested by the words of the exercise, and on other pertinent i
matters. This process involves great labor for the student and drudgery for the teacher I
but it leads to a mastery of the grammar and to much more.
The second session is spent mostly in reading the easy Latin of Viri Romm, Nepos, and
Czesar, or the easy Greek of the Reader and Xenophon, considerable attention being still .
directed to the writing of exercises. The student is encouraged in the habit of first reading ’
the sentences in the Greek or Latin order of the words, and of then translating them in the i
English order and idium. The translations are partly oral, partly written. ·
During the remainder of the courses tl1e bright and diligent student proceeds from the
easier authors to the more difficult, enlarging his vocabulary, extending and sharpening his
knowledge of forms, syntax, and idioms, incidentally directing his attention to metres, V
geography, history, mythology, and antiquities, and perpetually and supremely to the effort
to find the best English expression for tl1e Greek or Latin thought; for, while more than a
third, and that too unspeakably tl1e most diflicult third, of our own magnificent language is
derived from Greek and Latin, and while the study of these tongues is therefore intensely _
. practical to those who speak English, and indispensable to all who would thoroughly acquire
it, yet it is in the intellectual training to be had from the proper translation ofthe Greek and
Latin authors that the advocates of classical learning find their amplest justification and
defense, their most cogent plea. The ceaseless quest for the clearness, force, and beauty
of the bestEngllsl1, in order to find an equivalent for the best Greek or Latin, calls into play
every faculty of the mind and gives to classical studies an educational value which, we
insist, no substitute can equal.
 
The Germans are admitted to be the leading educators of the world. In the nine years'
curricculum of their 443 gymnasia. which are their best secondary schools (corresponding to
our colleges, but conferring no degrees and with fewer studies far better taught), they assign
to the study ofGreek and of Latin a higher educational value than to any other study.*
In the 227 Prussian gymnasia, for example, Latin, by the time devoted to it, is valued at 62, _
Greek at 36, at1d Mathematics, the next highest study, at 34. In the other parts of Germany
the difference is greater still. I11 the Saxon gymnasia, Latin is valued at 72, Greek at41,
mathematics at 33; in those of Wiirtemberg, Latin at 81, Greek at 4o, mathematics at33.
Similarly, in the great public schools of England, including Oxford and Cambridge (with a
higher extimate of mathematics, however), as well as i11 the Lycées, the leading secondary
schools of France, the utility of the study of the Latin language as a medium of intellectual
training and culture is everywhere recognized as supreme. And the results have justified
the estimate. A system of education by which a host of great men, from Bacon to Glad-
stone, have been fitted for their splendid careers, is assuredly not a bad one, and in that ,
system Greek and Latin have always held the first place.
The National Commissioner of Education reports that in the secondary schools of the A
United States there were, in 1889-1890, 1oo,144 students of Latin; in 1897-1898. 27.{,2Q3,Elll
increase of 174 per cent., and greater than any other study; that in the same nine years the
students of Greek increased from 12,869 to 24,994, an increase of Q4 per cent.; and that in
1897-1898, 49.44 per cent., almost exactly one-half of all the students of secondary schools,
. were studying Latin. When the immense number of classical students in the 629 colleges
and universities ofthe United States is added to the 300,000 and more now in our secondary ,
*"'I`he classical literature is, and will continue to be, the source of all our culture. lt y *~
must remain, therefore, IIOY only an indispensable but by far the most important study in
our higher schools."—Frederic Gedike And yet the German language owes little to Greek
and Latin, while the English owes to them nearly half its words. The inference of course
is that the study of Greek and Latin is far more useful to an American or an Englishman
than it can be to a German, for the German derives culture from the study and the Ameri _
can or Englishman both culture and a knowledge of his language.
A
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