Daily Republican., 1883-07-17
SHAM EDUCATION.
Charles Francis Adams. Jr.. on the
Futllity Of the Dead LanguageA.

Cnar!eS FRANCIS Aua'nS, JT., Ill DlS
address before the Phi Beta Kappa So
ciety at Harvard College, attacked the
system which now prevails in the col
leges of making Greek and Latin the
basis of a liberal education. He was
graduated from Harvard in 1856. OF
the education he received he said
Such training as got, useful for the
struggle, got after in 'teal OF before
graduation, and il came hard while |
never have been ahle-and now, no
matter how long may live, | never
shall be able to overcome some great
disadvantages which the superstitiolls
and wrong theories and worse practice
Of my alma mater inflicted upon me.
And not on me alone.
The same may be said of my cotem.
poraries, ;ts | have observed them in
success and failure. What was true in
this respect of the college of thirty
years ago is, | apprehend, at least
partially true OF the college to-day. 1t
fails properly to tit graduates for the
work they have got to do in the life
that awaits them.
The college fitted us for this active,
bustling, arl-hitriug, many-tongued
world, caring no,hing for authority and
little for the past. hut full of its living
thought and living issues, i'll dealing
with which there was no man who did
not stand in pressing and constant need
Of every possible preparation as respects
knowledge, and exactilule, and
thoroughnrsS-tbe poor Old college pre-.
pared us to play our parts in this world
by compelling uS, directly and inti-
rectly, to devote the best part Of our
school lives to acquiring II confessedly
superficial Knowledge Of two dead
languages.
We are liyiugin this world of to-day;
and it is the business Of the college to tit
men for it. Does she do it? As have
said, my own experience of thirty years
ago tells me that she did not do it then.
The facts being much the same, | do not
see how She r;,n DO it now. IL seems to
me she starts from IA radically wrong ha-
sis. II is, 10 l,s- plain language, IA ba-
sis of fetch worship, in which the real
and practical t. Systematically sacrificed
to the ideal and the oretcal.
Latin will not stop to contend over.
Th at is a small matter. Not only is II
comparatively simple language, but
apart from its littrature-tOr which |
cannot myself profess to have any great
admiration--it has modern uses. Not
only is it directly the mother tongue OF
all southwestern Europe, but 1t has by
common consent been adopted in scien-
tifc nomenclature Hence there are
reasons why the educated man should
have at least an elementary knowledge
of Latin That knowledge also can be
acquired wit III no great degree of labor.
To master the language would beanoth-
er matter but in these days few think
of mastering it.
How many students during the last
thirty years have graduated from Har-
ward who could read Horace and Taci-
tus and Juvenal, as we read Goethe and
Mommsen and Hrine If there have
been ten, | certainly do not believe
there have been score.
This it is to acquire a language. A
knowledge of the rudiments il IA wholly
different thing and with knowledge
Of the rrlliluents OF Latin as II require
ment for admission to college | am not
here to quarrel. Not so Greek.
The study OF Greek, and speak from
the unmistakabe results of my own in
|uividual experience in active life, as
well as from that of lOng-cOntinued
family experience-the study of Greek
in the way it is additionally insisted
upon us the chief requirement. to enter
ing college is II positive educational
wrong. 1t has already wrought great
individual and general injury, and is
now workingi 1t has been produce
tive of no compensa'ing advantage. 1t
is superstition.
would rather myself be familiar
with the German tongue and its litera-
ure than be equally Y familiar with the
Greek | would unhesitatingly make
the same choice for my child. What |
have said Of German as compared with
Greek will also say OF Fsench as com.
pared with Latin. Ga this last point |
have no question. Authority ami su-
perstition apart, am indeed unable to
see how an intelligent man, having any
considerable acquaintance with the two
iteratures, can, rs respects ither rich
ness or beauty, comp the Latin with
the French while, rs Il worldly accom-
plishnent, were it not for fetch wOr-
ship, in these days Of universal travel
the man wolld be properly regarded as
out of his mind who preferred to b. able
to read an ode of Horace rather than to
feel at home in the accepted neutral
language of all refined society.
The worship even of the classical
fetch drawelh to u close; and shall
hold that | was not myself sacrificed
wholly in vain if what have said here
may contribute to so shaping the policy
of Harvard that it will not much longer
,lse its prodigiouS influence toward in
directly closing for its students, as it