New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-01-31
Rediscovering the Classics

| The explosive reaction of conservatives
/ far and wide to the announcement of the
Modern School to undergo experiment at
Teachers College would be amusing were
it not pathetic. And the pathos would be
easier to mourn with heartily were it not
for the evil influence of such superannu-
ated opposition, past, present and future.
Some one recently expressed in print a.
yearning for the utter extinction Of con-
servatives of every breed. The yearning
is understandable and the gain to human
progress would doubtless be great could the
extremes Of radcalism and reaction both
be eliminated. But the world is not built
that way; progress comes not as the or
derby result Of rational agreement but
blunderingly, by fits and starts, as first
one end of the tug-of-war prevails and
then the other. We climb upward not
nearly so much like the beautiful spiral
which excited the imagination of Leonardo
da Vinci as like a subway crush trying to
proceed both up and down the same Grand
Central stairway at one and the same
moment.
The case of Greek and Latin has stirred
the most wrath and anguish. Yet what
are the facts? AS the critics of DR.. FleX-
ner concede, the study of Greek and Latin
has almost entirely disappeared both in
school and college. And it is the proposal
of the General Education Board to ascer-
tain, as part of the Teachers College ex-
pertinent, whether the important ancient
classics cannot be effectively used in trans
llations" In short, the aim Of the Modern
School will be to resurrect as much as
possible from the wreck which has over
taken the classics. Yet "unblushing ma
terialism" is the cry which greets this
clear-headed effort to restore the essence
of Greek and Latin culture!
The whole story of the dropping Of
Greek and Latin is a perfect Illustration
of the stupid fashion in which conserva-
tism defeats its own ends. The average
college student of twenty years ago felt
linstinctively that there was something ri
diculously wrong with his intellectual ra-
tions. Science was the new faith; its
discoveries represented the most eXtraordi-
nary advances of the human intellect in
historic times. Yet by the time the neces-
sary Greek and Latin had been served up
there was time only for an occasional
morsel of chemistry, of physics, of psy-
chology. And, gravest absurdity of all,
the eight or nine years of Greek and Latin
did not succeed in giving what they were
supposed to give under that pretty theory
Of the classics which conceived its worship
pers as soaring with Pindar with steady
eyes against the SUM-" Eyes fixed on the
aorist and the distinction between gerund
and gerundive have little time to play with
things of the sky. The occasional pro
fessor with real sense of the literature
he was handling came as gift from the
gods. But he was sheer accident, contra
dieting the whole policy and spirit of
classical education. He was quite as ex-
ceptional as was real literature in the
midst of prescribed dulness with which
Greek and Latin faculties sought to dis
courage their students.
As pressure came to bear upon Greek and
Latin little or no effort was made to meet
these fair grounds of criticism. What had
been must continue to be was the motto
behind the breastworks. A better illustra-
ton of the hopeless methods of conserva-
tive defence it would be hard to find. Had
there been a common-sense yielding before
the Just demands OF science, who knows
how much Greek and Latin might have
been preserved As it stands, the breast
works have been carried Greek and Latin
have all but disappeared, and it remains
for the experimenters of the General Edu-
cation Board to search the ruins for some