. »
 , STATE COLLEGE OF KENTUCKY. 33 Z
si  The Professors of this Department offer courses of study equal to those of the best r
 I land-grant colleges, courses as long and as varied as the grade of their students and other l
 , limitations allow. In offering them they announce that their method of instruction, so far j
V., as it is distinctive, rests on the assumption that ability to write a language well is the infal- f
  lible test of a real knowledge of it. Unusual attention is therefore given to Greek and
~; Latin composition, the first session being devoted almost entirely to the writing of exer-
, cises. This leads directly to an accurate knowledge of the forms and meanings ofwords, of
; the rules of syntax, and of the idioms. Every student of the classes in grammar is re-
' quired daily to translate on the blackboard an exercise from Greek or Latin into English, _`
and another from English into Greek or Latin, and then to write out declensions and con-
jugations, with careful attention to the length of syllables and to accentuation. His work
A is 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
3 derivation of English words suggested by the words of the exercise, and on other pertinent
~ matters. This process involves great labor for the student and drudgery for the teacher,
  but it leads to a mastery of the grammar and to much more.
l The second session is spent mostly in reading the easy Latin of Viri Romae, Nepos, and
l Caesar, 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 idiom. The translations are partly oral, partly written.
_ During the remainder of the courses the bright and diligent student proceeds from the
Q easier authors to the most difhcult, enlarging his vocabulary, extending and sharpening his
, knowledge of forms, syntax, and idioms, incidentally directing his attention to meters,
l geography, history, mythology, and antiquities, and perpetually and supremely to the effort
; to find the best English expressions for the Greek or Latin thought; for, while more than a
l third, and that too unspeakably the most difficult third, of our own magnificent language is
F derived from Greek and Latin, and while the study of these tongues is therefore intensely
l practical to those who speak English, and indispensable to all who would thoroughly acquire
Y it, yet it is the intellectual training to be had from the proper translation of the Greek and
' Latin authors that the advocates of classical learning ind their amplest justification and V
defense, their most cogent plea. The ceaseless quest for the clearness, force, and beauty of
the best English, 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‘ ,
curriculum 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 of Greek and of Latin a higher educational value than to any other study*
, In the 227 Prussian gymnasia, for example, Latin, hy the time devoted to it, is valued at 62,
Greek at 36, and mathematics, the next highest study. at 34. In the other parts of Germany
the difference is greater still. In the Saxon gymnasia, Latin is valued at 72, Greek at 41,
mathematics at 33; in those of Wiirtternburg, Latin at 8i, Greek at 40, mathematics at 33.
Similarly, in the great public schools of England, including Oxford and Cambridge (with a
higher estimate of mathematics, however), as well as in the Lycées, the leading secondary
schools of France, the utility of the study of the Latin language as a medium of intellect-
, ual training and culture is everywhere recognized as supreme. And the results have justi-
fied the estimate. A system of education by which a host of great men, from Bacon to
’ Gladstone, have been fitted fortheir splendid careers, is assuredly not a bad one, and in
that system Greek and Latin have always held the first place.
.y» * " The classical literature is, and will continue to be, the source of all our culture, It
` must remain, therefore, not only an indispensable but by far the most important study in
our higher sch0ols."—Frederic Gedike. And yet the German language owes little to Greek
and Latin, while the English owes to them nearly half the 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-
7 can or Englishman both culture and a knowledge of his language. ,