The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-03-09


Now in recalling this experience the
wish strengthens in me that this same
enthusiasm of scholarship this delight
in knowledge for it's own sake, might
be more successfully developed in the
pupils of the college. I wish-do we not
all wish THAT the literary and intel
lectual life We're stronger among the
undergraduates Of Yale. DO we not
wish that as they have so CALAMITY re-
vived the spirit of the Olympic games,
they might cultivate a little more than
Of present appears of the spirit OF
Plato's Academy? / take it for grant
ed that we shall all agree in this. While
we gladly recognize that there has been
large progress in the facilities Of schol-
arship, that the opportunities and in
elements are greater than they form
erly were, yet measuring by an ideal
standard, we must desire far greater
progress
Now I wish to speak of what l be-
lieve to be the greatest single obstacle
in the way of a living and ardent in
terest of the undergraduates body in
their studies. That obstacle lies in the
very nature of the subject matter on
which they are chiefly employed. Con-
slider it for a moment. When boy be-
gins his special preparation for college
he is set to- work on Latin He stud
les Latin for four or five years before
he goes to college, and for two years
after he gets there. Not long after he
begins Latin he is set to work on Greek,
Greek, Greek, he must study until he is
half through his college course. These
two languages, it is safe to say, require
fully half of his working hours during
the greater part of the long period
They monopolize the heart and strength
of his collegiate education. Now, for
what purpose, under any rational sys-
tent had almost said under any con-
ceivable system-does a person study
language? Surely, that he may speak
1t, read it, write it. Now, can our col
legiate student, when he has completed
this long study, either speak, or write,
or read either Latin or Greek? Most
certainly the average student can do
nothing of the sort, Can even the su-
perior student, the man who ranks near
the head? Can he, at the end of his
sophomore year, read Latin, let us say,
with any such facility that he would
think Of perusing new Latin work for
its interest or pleasure? How many of
us here (who are not professional in
uctors)-graduates of fifty years ago
or of last year, could read easy Latin
at sight? How many of us could read
Homer or Plato without lexicon at
our elbow? Do you suppose there is
one in ten, that there is one in fifty, of
the graduates of Yale (still barring
teachers), to whom Latin
and Greek are not in very truth dead
languages, in the sense that they are
utterly unuseable for the ordinary lit
erary purposes of languages? And yet,
it was to the study Of Latin and Greek
that we gave the best years of our
youth.
The whole business is so preposterous
that it is not easy to discuss it calmly
as if it were an open question. And
truly it is not an open question. Year
after year, and decade after decade, the
doors seem locked and barred in the
face of reform. A few years ago
Charles Francis Adams in his Phi Beta
Kappa grafton at Harvard, upon "A
college fetich.' made an audacious and
brilliant assault upon Greek as an es-
sential requisite in a collegiate educa-
ton. His attack was so widely and
supported that 1t actually
won a victory-in appearance. But it
was only in appearance. Greek was
withdrawn from the requis-
ties for admission to Harvard but the
path of substitution was made so
.horny and difficult that it remains
practically untraversed to this day.
And meanwhile we at Yale go stead
lastly on in the good old way that our
'athers trod.
Against this tenacious and tremen-
lous conserva tism--conservatism not
If Yale alone, but Of the whole body of
sometimes seems useless to-
lrgue or protest. To simply denounce
n declaim is a most ungracious part. |
let me simply indicate what seem the |
ightful lines of reform. First, it
eems reasonable that for the purposes
# collegiate education one Of the great |
living languages should count as equal |
o one of the great dead languages; |
nd secondly, any language, living or |
lead, should be taught primarily and |
mainly for the purpose of enabling the |
tudent to at least read 1T with ease, il |
lot to speak and write it.
The first proposition, that French and |
1erman should be given equal place of |
steem with Greek and Latin, will not
ere debate. Let me only meet in adj
ance the point which may be brought:
But at present we do teach all four,
ireek, Latin, French and German"
Our pardon, none of them is taught:
hey are all at best only half-taught
md so, word as to my second point
ny language which is taught at all
hould be so taught as to become the
rec and serviceable instrument of
bought and speech. For any purpose
,orthy of liberal educatian langu-
ge Is above all the instrument of liter
ture--literature, which is itself an in
appreciation Of life.
To sum up: 1t seems to me that the
ncient language should be dethroned
'om that central place which they now
ccupy in our collegiate education.
hat place is a usurpation and tyran-
y. 1t is a relic of medievalsm. Our
o-called classical education. as the
anoply of one who is to do mans
art in the stirring and splendid activ-
les of to-day, is as inappropriate as a {
lit of ancient armor on modern bat
efield.
In saying this let me not be thought
disparage the classic languages and +