New-York tribune., 1903-01-01

excellent. training for military scouting The
Beers do without It, just as Keats was a Greek
without o. knowledge of the language of ancient
Hellas had near relation who ID a :s uis.alIt
isle camped unawares. above rcn gepos.o h 81 -
copper. When the was later fouilo ne COM.
planned that. he had lost fortune by peIhs tdus
Latin verss, not mneralogy. But ne "ouio
never have got the money; the praCtfcsi man
would ha1.e swiudled him even if he had found
the mine on the other hand, he wrote a WORK
most obscure topic quite reIia. .f pre - 1o.
observation and keen logic. The Latln Nerse
making Mr.. Ramsay will perhaps thlnk Vihoi
Gated its existence. after all CerIalnls lolae
the practical men who collared the copper 'o"'U
have Written the book -,
Let US tura from the opinion OF tnose Wno
may be raeiIsdiced nke the leather seller when
they say nhat there is nothing ike LatW. W.
regard the Americans as practical peope, ue
void of a traditional prepossesslon IN favor y.
the Roman Language and literature. NOW tie
subject in wftcfa the greatest advance OF all u
being made IN the secondary schools OF -Anerl-
ca. is the subtct OF classics one m.9w and
American specialists have the inausuy .S4 anu
subtlety Of the Germans even II the subtetg
and then Cegeneraues into hlsntlness ail1
illogical theorf4ng. In spite OF the losic W
Latin. German scholars are very capaple on
reasoning worthy, of such old theorists as JACOB
Bryant. An amusing example will be found IN
Mr. Headlam's criticism of American edition
of a Greek play in The Classical review 10Y
October Howey.eE We have examples enough
of 7ishty hypothetc,s at home. The point is that
Latin is and rnore being studied IN Amerl-
can secondary schools In lSgo there We're
states: in 1900 theue were 314,S56. while the
students of Greek had doubled in numbers
'ExaCtlV G
scholars" in American secondary schools ARE
learning La1in.'' and that lin solid continuous
courses of four five. or six years here we
the very opposite OF the miscellaneous ana
smattering culture courses whereof an Amer
lean writer lately made deserved mockery. Con-
tinuous courses of anything, not of Latin alone
are better than snippets of everything. from
cuneiform ceramics Now the great mass OF
these boys not going up to universities; let
ters are not TO be their occupation They are
learning a subject in which hard work is neces-
sary. and in which progress can be tested al
most as certainly and definitely as in mathe-
matics They are not much learning Latin.
perhaps. as learning to, learn, and acquiring Il
hopel the one thing necessary ahe concenIraIIoh I
of attention. The boyish mind is about as con-
centrated. naturally, as that OF the kitten or the
butterfly, Tie facts. says Mr. Ramsay, mean
that the middle classes in America are nndlnS
out that the most fruitful, useful instrument
for training the uiTS1 for ordinary commercial
life is to be found in the Latin language
physics and chemistry take back seat
Not betcause these subjects are not finely
taught aSd equipped g. America. but because
in special institutions suitably equipped for the
purpose" The American teachers, most proper
ly, are advised TO teach. the large human ele-
ments of the subject rather than dwell too nicely
upon minute points of grammar But here
the difficulty is that the mind of the dominic
revels in grammar, while the ooys never almost
get at the literature of Greece or Rome Pro
fessor Phillimore at Glasgow said that he would
rather have d student penetrated with the full
human bearing of one book of the Had than
that he should be able 10 catalogue all the an
Gent pottery of the Archiuslago" The same ap-
plies to reconcile nioeties of grammar; they are
for specialists. Bows tG the number of 3l4,So6
not going to be gTammarians, but human be-
ings. Yet it is the fashion to keep them grinding
at grammar in place of reading Homer or Lu-
cretius, Thusydides Tacitus-
Turning to Austria, Mr. Ramsay met DR..
Bauer of the technical chemical department Of
the Technical High School of Vienna. Mr.
Ramsay said that he presumed that the best
chemical students came from the Realschulen
Not at all he said; ''alI my best students come
from the Gymnasien, that is, from the classical.
not the modern side The Iumpish boys. when
/ " modern
side. and the classical youths could beat them
easily at cricket or anything In the same way
the classical German boys beat the Realschulen
boys at chemistry, though the Realschulen boys
have been taught chemistry already The
students from the Gymnasien, said DIR. Bauer,
have the better trained minds Give me
student who has been taught Latin grammar,
and will answer for his chemistry- Now. Dr.
Bauer was addressing Latin professor, and, 1t
may be urged, courtesy dictated his remarks.
But Professor Hofmann, professor of chemistry,
said much the same thing when rector OF the
University of Berlin in 1880. In mathematics
and natural science, he said, boys from Real
schulen jumped off with the lead. but al
most without exception oVertaken by the
classical boys before reaching the post. Perhaps
the explanation is that the boys of the modern
side are born stupid, and the sons OF stol!d
parents. who say: None of your useless Latin
aummery. Look at me, do I know Greek?"
Professors Tobler and MUllenhoff gave, with
even more energy, the same opinion as to the
incapacity of the mdern-side boys for the study
of French and German. The whole philosophical
faculty of Berlin agreed: the modern side is
rotten institution; its preparatory education
is taken altogether, inferior to that guaranteed
by the Gymnasium. :. Everything worth reckon
ing can be satisfactorily cultivated only by
our institution of classical learning
To be fair these opinions vented in 1880
But in Prussia in 1899 there We're one hundred
and fifty-two thousand and nineteen scholars in
secondary schools. while only thirty-nine thou
sand three hundred and twenty-t three were ''on
the modern side In England, unluckEy, it is
only too clear that many of our instructors (and
these are novelists and critics. know
of Latin than OF Quichua Hittite They order
these things better in Germany and America,
though even in America, all noveIiSts are not
scholars. But ca viendra-