New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1897-05-30
QUALITIES OF THE GREEK.
THE MODERN REPRESENTATIVE HAS
MOST OF THE ANCIENT CHAR
ACTERISTICS.
PROFESSOR GRosvENoR. OF AMHERST COLLEGE,
FINDS FEATURE AND INTELLECT THE SAME
REASONS FOR THE COLLAPSE OF
THE cprrH cAf-cr

FINDS FEATURE AND INTELLECT THE SAME
REASONS FOR THE COLLAPSE OF
THE GREEK CAUSE
Professor Edwin A. Grosvenor. professor OF
European History at Amherst College, recently
read a paper on THE Permanence Of the
Greek Type before the Phi Beta Kappa Alumni
Of New-York. Professor Grosvenor's opportuni-
ties for observation have been great and his
paper contained much that was of timely
interest that The Tribune reproduces certain
portions Of II herewith.
"A prominent Senator Of the United States.
said the professor. "a member Of the Senate
Committee on Foreign Relations. asked me in
Washington few days since. rs there any con-
nection between the ancient and modern
Greeks" cultured lady OF my acquaintance
quoted last week a sentence that had the sting
Of an epgram; The Greeks are the spoiled chill
dren Of memory. The editor OF one OF our fore
most monthies wrote last March with cruel
hiprancy, There is no evidence that the modern
Greeks are capable Of engaging In anything more
heroic than the wearing OF pettcoats. the SELL
Ing of dried currants and the cheating OF the
national creditor"
THE ACTUAL ANCIENT GREEK
These animadversions the professor proceeded
to answer indirectly. He said that to decide
whether the modern Greek was a degenerate one
must compare him with the actual and not the
imaginary and poetical ancient Greek All
Greeks. he said. even most OF the Greeks were
not pre-emnent or lllustrous. or models for their
own time posterity. any more than they were
all sw!ft-footed as Choroebus, or strong as Milo.
Tho modern, like the ancient. Greeks are few
in number and like them are widespread race
Perhaps five million of them nhabt the very
places In which they are found In early times.
They love best nearness to the sea. The tiny
kingdom Of free Greece. hardly more than half
the size of classic Hellas. Of the State OF
Maine. contains nearly 100000.
The classic writer's abound in description Of
the ancient national type. No other people, not
even the Romans. possess in the gallery Of ma
tons portrature so definite and detailed. We
read OF the olive tint, the ebon hair the cold and
coal-black eye. The shapely head the oval con-
tour OF the face, the forehead broad and low,
stand out not only from old variations. but from
countless statues and carvings still preserved
The nose affords unerring indication as to the
nationality of those peoples who have developed
an individual type.
INSIDE MUSEUM AND OUT
I'm q museum at Athens one beholds more
than eighty marble busts, chselled prior to the
whom they represent. From the calm repose OF
this museum the visitor turns to the crowded,
tumultuous street With eager scrutiny he con-
templates the hurrying throng and is thrilled at
the striking sameness between the features dis
tinct on the marble busts and in the glowing
faces Of the passers-by. Yet Athens Is OF all
towns In Greece the least advantageous in which
TO observe the people The inhabitants Of Plym-
outh and Salem IN Massachusetts differ many
fold more from the Pilgrim and Puritan than do
the Greeks of the Spo:ades and-cyciades from
the race Of which we read in our textbooks AT
Pente Nesoi, at Samos, at Sco, have seen physi-
cal types OF masculine and feminine beauty SINH
lar in artistic appearance and equal in statuesQue
perfection to anything which sculpture has
handed down. AS the historian Byzantios re-
marked in 1863 Were Phidias Apelles to
return to earth to-day, he would find among us
at San Dimitri Smyrna or the islands as
worthy subjects for his chisel brush as existed
in the days Of Perlces and Alexander
IN THE MEETING PLACES.
"In the popular meeting places Of the Greeks
there is the same vivacity and swiftness Of utter
ance, the same copious stream Of words the
same sharpness at repartee. the same heat and
passion over trifes the same desire to speak that
characterized their ancestors
Again, the modern Greek talks and thinks
OF Hydrologic and classic personages as II he
had known them, II his father did. Once,
while visiting Mount Athos, remarked on the
arm of my muleteer the tattooed effigy Of an
ancient warrior Whom does that representa- I
asked him. 1t is the picture of one OF our peo-
pie called Achilleus, who fought over there
Meanwhile, he pointed eastward toward the
signan promontory, behind which flow the
,,ybt
could not have declphered a single letter OF the
"Ilad" and his knowledge. hardly more than g
norance was most vague OF that ten years
siege He was sure however, that whether the
fight took place hundred a thousand years
before his fellow -countryman Achieus the
principal warrior.
Retention of ancient names has done much
to bring into almost personal contact the widely
separated ages Of the present and the past
Men and alike rejoice to hear the old
glorious names The first class | ever taught
after being graduated from Amherst College.
consisted entirely Of Greek youths. Among them
were a Xenophon Socrates, and Scion. Each
bore his title with a half-consciousness that 1t
was transmitted to him with his blood.
THE LANGUAGE THE SAME.
"Yet similarity Of name is trivial in COMPARE
son with identity of speech. The essential one
ness Of the Greek language through almost thirty
centuries Is 4 linguistic marvel without parallel
The suffering children Of the immortal race
have always held communion with each other in
the same immortal tongue. There is less resem-
blance between the English OF Wycf and Hor-
ace Greeley than between the Greek OF Xeno-
phon and the Athenian newspaper of to-day.
LAS TO daily vocation. physical traits Of face
and form. distinctive personal habits and audi
bic speech, the modern Greek Is what the
cient Greek was.
But character other than externals, indicates
the man. Not an excellence or defect glorihed or
disngured the old Greek which does not exist
in the new. The modern Greek Is &C honest as
the old Greek The average Greek of any social
class is as honest rs the average member of that
same class In any other land.