The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-07-07

er West Broad and Liberty streets.
MARITIME, to Viguy, to Michelet, 10 sainte-
Beuve to Renan and to others among us
and because 1 passed twelve years of
my life in learning Latin and Greek I
recognize more and more that I know
nothing. l am ignorant of English. which
half of the world speaks; and l know so
little of German that it is a shame. You
viii say that l had the choice of studying
them when | was young; but is 1t my
fault if, like almost all other children, 1
possessed only a limited and mediocre ca
pacity for Intellectual work which was
entirely absorbed by these dead languages.
the study of which blind tradition inn
posed upon me, and from which l was
10 draw so little advantage?
THE beauty of German and of English,
which l only half see, so rich so pro-
found, is closed to me l am not able
even to travel with profit. 1 have forgot
ten the little that 1 knew of mathematics
and natural science; my limbs are awk-
ward; l do not even possess a manual
trade, and l would be, in a desert land,
the most helpless of Robinsons. am
good for nothing but to write. And even
this I would not dare to affirm that
owe to my Latin; for, after all, neither
you nor l can pretend to write more pure
ly than Louise Veuillot or George Sand.
ancient classics.
''The fact remains, then, that the study
of dead languages is valuable simply as
an exercise of the mind. But why would
| the study Of living languages be less val
| liable in this respect? So far as 1 am
able to judge, the German grammar is
more beautiful, more harmonious In it's
complexity, than the Latin, and is not
less so than the Greek. And as to the in
tellectual and moral substance of ancient
| literatures, it is not only through the
| classics among us that it would penetrate
into the minds of our children, it is still
| more-and how enrichedi-through mod
| ern languages and literature.
IF the benefit of Latin is lost on me
| who have known it for twenty years, and
| who have been what one calls a man
| DARN q can say it without vanity, since
we are thousands), and If, on the con-
trary, ii has prevented me from acquiring.
of what profit can Latin be for nine-tenths
of our students, who have only the APP
| pearance of learning 1t, but who do not
| and may never know it?
| THUS they will have doubly lost their
! time since they will have passed it in not
! learning a language which, if they had
! learned it, would have been almost USE
/ less TO them. And this time would have
| been better employed, 1 do not even say in
| the study of living languages, of natural
/ sciences and of geography Chat Is too ev-
! idenD, but in games in gymnastics, in
manuel work-anything, debauchery ex-
! cepted.
Understand me well; 1t is not a question
! of uncrowntng the French mind. 1t is not
a question of suppressing the Faculty des
! Lettres, the College de France, the Ecole
! Normale Superieure, the Ecole DIES Hautes
| ELudes nor the Ecole des Charles. 1t is
not question of abolishing high culture.
| for which secondary classical instruction
SC to-.
| question of destroying this teaching
but to know whether 1t is reasonable to
| give il, as we do TO the majority of the
| children of the people.
1T is well that there should be learned
men, epigrammists, historians, philosop-
| hers and even simple humanists. But.
| never fear, we shall always have enough
| Of them. and those who will remain to
us will be worth the more. since they will
only obey a decided taste and follow an
imperious vocation.
Besides l do not occupy myself now
with exceptions, but with the mass. 1 say
| that a mediocre Bachelor of Ietters-that
is to say, good young man who knows
neither Latin nor Greek but who an re-
turn, does not know living languages, ge-
ography or natural science and better-is
a monster, prodigy of nothingness.
Here is what is to be desired
For the great majority of children who
| VIII nave W earn lnSlf living by daily toll
| a modern education not more hybrid
than it is to-day but more largely and
| freely organized, the programmes of which
will no longer appear servile limitations,
in Latin and Greek, at least, of those of
classical studies.
"A transformation of most of the lyceee
into lycees of modern instruction. Two or
three lycees of Paris, and, If 1t is desired,
those of the university cities, should re-
main alone consecrated to the teaching of
! Greek and Latin, which we should
| strengthen by the restoration of old meth
DDS.
Finally equality for the two branches
in the qualifications for entrance into the
School of Medicine and the School of Law
| 1t IS a joke to pretend that Greek and
Latin are necessary to a physician. an
apothecary, judge and a lawyer. In or
der that the physician should know the
Technology of his art il is sufficient for
him to learn a vocabulary of 200 or 30C
Latin or Greek words The indispensable
vocabulary of lawyer is still less. And
there exist good TRANSACTIONS of Roman
law-to which besides, l doubt If they will
ever have recourse
This third point which 1 maintain, ]
know, viii run counter to many prejudices
but it appears to me necessary. This will
not cease 30 be SO until the French have
lost their superstition about the liberal
professions A university man of grea,
experience said to me: so long as Latir
is demanded of candidates for medicine
ana law. nothing can be DONE and many
fathers and families, even thinking as
you and l, viii at all hazard see Their
children on the benches of classical In
structlon'
zone of the principal obstacles to tn,
development of modern teaching is il
fact, the vanity OF the bourgeois 1t is
from simple vanity that the greater par
Of such fathers obstinately demand fol
their children secondary classical instruc
ton, faire ses classes 'faire SEES etudes.
l This, among us, has but one sense: t
learn Geek and Latin rs IL all other