Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1883-07-07
SHAM EDUCATION.


| Charles Francis Adams, jr., in his address
before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard
University on Thursday attacked the system
| which now prevails in the colleges of making
Greek and Latin the basis of liberal education
He was graduated from Harvard in 1856 OF the
education he received he said:
| Such training as got, useful for the struggle
| 1 got after instead OF before graduation. and i,
| came hard; while never have been able-and
now no matter how long may live. never
| shall be able-tO overcome some great disad
vantages which the superstitious and wrong
] theories and worse practices Of my alma mater
| inflicted upon me. And not on me alone. The
| same may be said Of my contemporaries. as
have observed them in success and failure
What was true In this respect of the college Of
| thirty years ago is, apprehend, at least par.
| TALLY true of the college of to-day. 1t falls
properly to lit graduates for the work they have
got to do in the life that awaits them.
The college fitted us for this active. bustling,
hard-hitting, many tOngued world, caring
nothing for authority and little for the past,
! but full of it's living thought and living issues
| in dealing with which there was no man who
| did not stand IN pressing and constant need OF
every possible preparation as respects knOwl-
edge and exactitude and thoroughness-the
| poor old college prepared us to play our parts
| In this world by compelling u.s. directly and in
directly, to devote the best part of our school
lives to acquiring confessedly superficial
knowledge OF TWO dead languages.
We are living in this world of to day; and 1t
is the business of the college to fit men for it.
Does she do it? As l have said. my own expo
| rience of thirty years ago tells me that she did
| not do It then. The facts being much the same.
| do not see how she can do 1t now. 1t seems
| to ME she starts from radically wrong basis.
| 1t is, to use plain language, basis OF fetch
worship, in which the real and practical Is
Systematically sacrificed to the ideal and theo-
| retical.
Latin / will not stop to contend over. That
| is small matter. Not only is it a compare
lively simple language but apart from Its lite
| rature-fOr which I cannot myself profess to
have any great admiraton--lt has its modern
uses. Not only is it directly the mother tongue
OF all southwestern Europe, but it has by COM
mon consent been adopted in scientific nOmcn-
clature. Hence there are reasons why the edu-
Gated man should have at least an elemental
! ry knowledge of Latin. That knowledge also
can be acquired with no great degree of labor.
To master the language would be another mat
ter: but in these days few think of mastering it.
How many students during the last thirty
years have graduated from Harvard who could
read Horace and Tacitus and Juyenal as we
read Goethe and MOmmsen and Heine? Ii
there have been ten, certainly do not believe
there have been a score This it is to acquire
language. knowledge of its rudiments is a
wholly different thing and with knowledge
OF the rudiments of Latin as a requirement
for admission to college am not here to quar-
rel. Not so Greek.
The study of Greek, and I speak from the
unmistakable result of my own individual ex-
perience in active life. as well as from that of a
lOng-continued family experience study of
Greek In the way 1t Is additionally insisted upon
as the chief requirement to entering college Is
positive educational wrong. 1t has already
wrought great individual and general injury,
and is now working It, 1t has been productive
of no compromising advantage. 1t Is a super
stitiOn.
would rather myself be familiar with the
German tongue and its literature than be equal
ly familiar with the Greek. / would unhesitat-
lngly make the same choice for my child What
l have said OF German as compared with Greek
l will also say of French as compared with Latin
On this last point have no question. AuthOri-
ty and superstition apart, am indeed unable to
see how an intelligent man. having any con-
siderable acquaintance with the two lteratures.
can, as respects either richness or beauty, COM
pare the Latin with the French; while as O.
worldly accomplishment. were it not for fetch
worship in these days of universal travel the
man would be properly regarded as out of his
mind who preferred to be 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 draw
eth to close; and shall hold that / was not
myself sacrificed wholly in vain if what l have
said here may contribute to so Shaping the
policy of Harvard that 1t will not much longer
use IFS prOdigiOus influence toward indirectly
closing for its students. as it closed for me- the
avenues to modern life and living thought