The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-03-15
B. C. BYNUM MILLINERY co.

long been disturbed by the apparent loss of interest in their studies and there certainly has been a tendency in some high schools to discard Greek in order that the time formerly devoted to 1t might be employed to more utilita- rian subJects-more utilitarian from the twentieth century point of view.
 The experiment that Is under way at Brown university consists in teaching the classics in English. so that young man who had no chance to study them before he came to college and who feels after he gets to college as if he could not spare the time to begin the long process of learning to read them in the original may get as much benefit as possible from them at second-han SC to speak.
 The first question raised when this attempt was started was, What good are Greek and Latin to modern American anyway" And If Greek and Latin are considered merely as lam guages the answer is, "To those who will write for a living, preach, argue in the courts or otherwise employ ian- guage as an implement of their calling, very useful; to other Americans, of very little use.
 Huckleberry Finn took a huge inter- est in Moses and the bullrushers" un-
 
 After that he had no use for them. for as he said, he didn't take any stock in dead folks. That is a good deal the attitude of mind toward the classics which classical teach CTS have. to meet every where. They do it generally by pointing out that in law, in business. in politics and in literature, the twentieth = century American has derived his ideas and customs from the Athenians and A realty intelligent and correct under standing in other words, of modern ln stitutions and government. of modern science and commercialism -a thor ough going, always workable, never can be- muddled compreh ension of them-demands knowledge of the sources from which they sprung.
 One very wholesome the effort to keep the classic. has been a modernzing of the VI of teaching them. It is no longer enough for the instructor to drill his pupils in the grammar, rhetoric and versification of Caesar. Cicero and Virgil or Keno phon, Plato and Homer. The form is of less importance than the substance, though the mental exercise given py mastering the forms is still appreciat- ed The student at Browns who tries to get in touch with the spirit of the ancients may do so through the med1- um of the Greek or Latin langua ges or he may use translations, not as a means of hoodwinking his instructors but in classes where the sole endeavor is to impart such Knowledge as an En- glish speaking person can properly ac- ouire of the Latin essayists or the Greek dramatists.
 Particularly for those students who have no gift of learning languages and a great many people are so limited by nature--these courses In CLASSIC literature minus classic tongues are likely to be valuable. The involved periodic sentences of Cicero and De- mosthenes are no longer stumbling blocks in the path of scholarship The , oration against Catiline is not employ ed as a means of testing industry Tn the use of Latin dictionary
 The inspira tion to good citizenship, according to the Brown idea, Is the chief lesson to be learned from the courses in the wisdom of the anclents among whom the idea of the c1ty-state was developed for the first time in his- tory Socrates. from dusty plaster bust in one corner of the lecture hall. becomes kindly. patient, wise old man who understands better than his fellow citizens the evil influences that in time must break down the structure of society. The young American is taught to know the ancient Greeks and Romans as living human beings. just as human as he is. whose struggles for liberty. for purity of government and for better social conditions were just as real as the same struggles are in our time.
 As they are taught through the medium of the English language the classics divide themselves into litera- ture, history and politics. The sole purpose ip all the courses Is to span the distance of twenty centuries and