St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1883-07-06
Charles Francis Adams on Col
lege Education.
PRESS OPINIONS ON HIS ARRANGEMENT
AT HARVARD.

contempt of classical learning as such,
we cannot fail to agree with him that
there are few college graduates who
ever attain 1t or to whom it could be
of much use if it were attained. There
fore, we must admit that much valua-
bic time is misspent in the laborious
requirement of an imperfect knowledge
of the Latin and Greek languages and
still more imperfect appreciation of
the literature of those tongues.-INew
York Times.
This question is by no means a new
one, and Mr.. Adams does not pretend
to do more than to bring it before the
public again in Il vigorous presenta-
ton, enlivened by some characteristic
and interesting bits of family history.
But it is probable that he has succeed
ed in giving new impulse to the con-
sideration of the subject. and that his
proposition to make the knowledge of
Greek optional as a requirement for
admission to the regular college course,
with the alternative of German and
French, will commend itself as practi-
cal and reasonable New York Even
ing Post.
classics will meet with general sympa-
thy both among scholars and among
those who do not pretend to that term,
as few graduates who have to earn
their living can. Many college gradu-
ates of the professional class who are
rot scholars will feel the force, more
fully perhaps than they will like to ac-
knowledge, of his arraignment of the
policy of requiring the ancient Ian
guages. In his urgency that the mod
ern languages be accepted in their
stead, and be better taught than they
are, he carries conviction. The time
is ripe to offer a liberal education on
other bases than the dead languages,
and to make those other bases solid
springfield Republican.
Mr.. Adams speaks out with much ur-
gency and bluntness, the thoughts
which are in the minds of many men
who, like himself, have learned by hard
and sometimes humiliating experience
the defects of their college training
We are mistaken if his complaints dc
not find many responses. 1t is Il seri.
GUS thing, if the colleges, instead o
fitting young men to acquit thcmselve,
well i'll life are actually handicappins
them. Mr.. Adams address should a
least impel il denomination of tn,
reasons which are supposed to iusti
fly the place given to Latin an,
Greek i'll the requirements for admis
sion to college. If the existing system
is, as MIR. Adams so vigorously main
taIns, tradition, a superstition,
4 fetch, 1t should he swept away and re
placed witt. one better suited to mod
ern deeds. Why should not somethin!
of the tieXibility and range of choic,
which increasingly characterize til,
college course itself characterize ais,
the requirements for admission to it
} / Boston Journal.
1t is undoubtedly true that the edu
cational methods of our colleges. 70
the practical aims of life, can be mucl
improved. The infusion of the subtil,
; spirit of dead literature, even wheI
/, acquired by the study of Greek. is
poor substitute to the majority of stu
dents for the ability to follow moderl
/, thought in living or to meet stranger
! on the neutral ground of speech. An,
all this cannot he gained, in addition
to the other college requirements, il
|
American colleges. Mr. Adams con
cedes that Il knowledge of Latin is es
sential, but he thinks that Il choic,
should he allowed in the beginning be
tween Greek and il modern tongue. III,
has not found that the smattering q
Greek obtained ut college has been o
any assistance in keeping abreast o
modern thought. There is truth in til,
statement that living questions cannO
he grappled through the medium o
dead languages, but II knowledge o
them is essential to the finished schol
ar New York Tribune.
We have learned to expect, when on,
of the Adams family speaks, somethin!
fresh, frank and independent. and thi
Grafton Is no exception to the rule.
is of special interest inasmuch as it eX
presses Il feeling which has been slow
ly but surely gaining ground anon:
progressive educators, and, mdOubted
ly, pretigureS Il most important chang,
of system i'll college education, il
which Harvard will probably take tn,
lead at an early day. The growing
feeling of which we speak, and the sub
Ject of the Grafton, is that the cOlleg,
does not fit its graduates for the wOrl
F they have to do in the life that await,
them. His views are I'M
doubtedly in accordance with the spiri
of the age. For those who wish t.
pursue the study of the classics, tn,
college should provide, but to ninety.
nine out of hundred boys who go tc
college they are only Il stumbling
block. That is one of the chief reasons
why bright, intelligent young men are
lazy in college. They are full of the
life of these stirring times, and the
learning of the dead past has no at.
fractions for them Boston Herald.