Litchfield enquirer., 1879-02-20
NEW HAVEN Feb. 17th, 1S79..

Mir. Editor Il have watched with great in- terest the progress of the controversy on Col lege Education which has for some time past been going on in your colums, but not yet hav- ing emerged from the struggle with Latin and Greek, Tfelt that the smoke of the contest might prevent me from seeing clearly, else you might have heard from me sooner. ,-"f
 On reading over your last editorial en the subject, however, was struck by a statement
 which, it seemed to me, ought not to be allow ed tetpass unchallenged.1 aa.s r -.cr
 You say "Itis our firm belief, that the mind of the average college student at the age of seventeen or eighteen, has not arrived at the receptive period', when the artistic excellence nf fine oIosoio a..tI.or,g -roufu ue appreciated, even if he could then master the difficulties of he-lauguages ip which they are written"
 Now, Mir. Editor, you are making a serious accusation, If a young man of eighteen has not yet reached the C receptive period," why send him to college at all :? Will he appreci-, ate Shakespeare or Chaucer, Goethe or Schiller, if he is unable to see the beauties of Eschylus or Sophocles AS the writer is young man of the age you mention he has somewhat of
 personal interest in the matter. .. .,.e ,.-
 As far as myself am concerned I feel that
 I derive as much pleasure from. reading Soph- ocles as Shakespeare, and ten times as much from Cicero as from Carlyle. That am not alone in this, is shown, I think, by the fact that the first division of the Sophmore class in Yaie numbering some forty men, have lately petitiened one of their instructors to translate te them several of those Greek tragedies which are not taken up in the college course Only
 those in the first division were asked to sign this petition, but have no doubt that over one hundred names could have easily been ob- tained T' t- E" '. -.
 But, you say, can you rate at it's true value a chorus in one of the Greek tragedies which takes you an hour to translate? ask why struction of passage is obscure hinder it's ap- preciation when fully understood But, you think that the drudgery of looking up words in the lexicon degrades 8 noble work to the level of a task. Does student of English literature appreciate Hamlet's solilequy any
 the less after he has weighed with care each sentence and traced each word back to it's der ivation s aI e.rr' 't- 'shn"w af -Afterthe student has carefully translated the song of the frenzied To, in the Prometheus or one of the laundering invectiyes of Demos themes, let him stop, and readit over'in Greek, without rendering into English, and he cannot but be thrilled with much of it's original grand cur, asv1Jal{ 70s Isatoi al l's fat aaea
 When think that with the present year ends my study of what you call s'useless luin. Der am much mere inclined to feel sorry,
 than otherwise. It may be that the scholarly bias of which you speak has already claimed me for it's own, but because 'otheri we'll in- structed persons do not agree with the fddler's estimate of the violin" are you, Mr. Editor,
 to abandon your cello,l and are Thomas and his Cincinnati college of music to beabolished. | The more I write on this subject the more I feel like writing, but as someone says, Ihaye forgotten who, 'there is a limit both to your paper and to the patience of your readers, and so, with the parting assurance that collegians of the present day are not soincapable as you seem to think. of appreciating the monuments of literature which Antiquity has handed down to us, beg leave to subscribe myself TT .g. F. ....,. ......,....... A YALE SOPHOMORE. ['The foregoing letter comes to us from, a avery promising Litchfeld scholar now at Yale. It will be readily, observed that at | eighteen he is much more mature than most
 young men of that age. We imagine, however,
 that his comparative estimate of Sophocles and Shakespeare of Cicero and Carlyle; will be
 very different, twenty years hence, from the l one he now announces. H ra77st ru's .di We do not desire the abolition of classical
 studies from our universities. Let those who
 enjoy, study them They will never form
 any part of the working literature" of the
 average American graduate. What we want 1 is a fair chance for the modern tongues. and
 a better acquaintance with the best thought of modern times for the practical instruction .ot
 our young men of the receptive period.
 No doubt the ivieloncello is a yerynoble fiddle,