trial to experiments in education, which own, and deny-to think himself above afford a rational prospect of success. If everything which has been of use to nothing can be altered in the old schools, him in time past-and to cultivate that leave them as they are. Destroy nothing injure none-but let the public try whether they cannot have something better. If the experiment do not succeed, the public will be convinced that they ought to acquiesce in the established methods of instruction, and parents will send their children to the ancient seminaries with increased confidence."-(pp. 47-49.)

We are well aware that nothing very new can remain to be said upon a topic so often debated. The complaints we have to make are at least as old as the time of Locke and Dr. Samuel Clarke; and the evil which is the subject of these complaints has certainly rather increased than diminished since the period of those two great men. A hundred years, to be sure, is a very little time for the duration of a national error; and it is so far from being reasonable to look for its decay at so short a date, that it can hardly be expected, within such limits, to have displayed the full bloom of its imbecility.

There are several feelings to which attention must be paid, before the question of classical learning can be fairly and temperately discussed.

exclusively from which he expects future advantage in short, to do everything for the advancement of his knowledge, which it would be infamous to do for the advancement of his fortune. If mankind still derive advantage from classical literature proportionate to the labour they bestow upon it, let their labour and their study proceed: but the moment we cease to read Latin and Greek for the solid utility we derive from them, it would be a very romantic application of human talents to do so from any feeling of gratitude, and recollection of past service.

To almost every Englishman up to the age of three or four and twenty, classical learning has been the great object of existence; and no man is very apt to suspect, or very much pleased to hear, that what he has done for so long a time was not worth doing. His classical literature, too, reminds every man of the scenes of his childhood, and brings to his fancy several of the most pleasing associations which we are capable of forming. A certain sort of vanity, also, very naturally, grows among men occupied in a common pursuit. Classical quotations are the watchwords of scholars, by which they distinguish each other from the ignorant and the illiterate; and Greek and Latin are insensibly become almost the only test of a cultivated mind.

We are apt, in the first place, to remember the immense benefits which the study of the classics once conferred on mankind; and to feel for those models on which the taste of Europe has been formed, something like sentiments of gratitude and obligation. This is all well enough, so long as it continues to be a mere feeling; but as Some men through indolence, others soon as it interferes with action, it through ignorance, and most through nourishes dangerous prejudices about necessity, submit to the established education. Nothing will do in the education of the times; and seek for pursuit of knowledge but the blackest their children that species of distinction ingratitude; the moment we have got which happens, at the period in which up the ladder, we must kick it down they live, to be stamped with the apas soon as we have passed over the probation of mankind. This mere bridge, we must let it rot; when we question of convenience every parent have got upon the shoulders of the must determine for himself. A poor ancients, we must look over their heads. man, who has his fortune to gain, must The man who forgets the friends of his be a quibbling theologian, or a classical childhood in real life is base; but he pedant, as fashion dictates; and he who clings to the props of his child- must vary his error with the error of hood in literature, must be content to the times. But it would be much more remain as ignorant as he was when a fortunate for mankind, if the public child. His business is to forget, dis-opinion, which regulates the pursuits of

individuals, were more wise and en-language. Compared to them, merely lightened than it at present is. as vehicles of thought and passion, all All these considerations make it ex-modern languages are dull, ill contrived, tremely difficult to procure a candid and barbarous. hearing on this question; and to refer this branch of education to the only proper criterion of every branch of education-its utility in future life. There are two questions which grow out of this subject: 1st, How far is any Bort of classical education useful? 2d, How far is that particular classical education, adopted in this country,

useful?

That a great part of the Scriptures have come down to us in the Greek language, is of itself a reason, if all others were wanting, why education should be planned so as to produce a supply of Greek scholars.

The cultivation of style is very justly made a part of education. Everything which is written is meant either to please or to instruct. The second Latin and Greek are, in the first object it is difficult to effect, without place, useful, as they inure children to attending to the first; and the cultivatellectual difficulties, and make the tion of style is the acquisition of those life of a young student what it ought rules and literary habits which sagato be, a life of considerable labour. city anticipates, or experience shows to We do not, of course, mean to confine be the most effectual means of pleasing. this praise exclusively to the study of Those works are the best which have Latin and Greek; or to suppose that longest stood the test of time, and other difficulties might not be found pleased the greatest number of exerwhich it would be useful to overcome:cised minds. Whatever, therefore, but though Latin and Greek have this our conjectures may be, we cannot be merit in common with many arts and so sure that the best modern writers sciences, still they have it; and, if they can afford us as good models as the do nothing else, they at least secure a ancients; - we cannot be certain that solid and vigorous application at a they will live through the revolutions period of life which materially influences of the world, and continue to please in all other periods. every climate under every species of To go through the grammar of one government-through every state of language thoroughly is of great use for civilisation. The moderns have been the mastery of every other grammar; well taught by their masters; but the because there obtains, through all time is hardly yet come when the Languages, a certain analogy to each necessity for such instruction other in their grammatical construction. longer exists. We may still borrow Latin and Greek have now mixed descriptive power from Tacitus; dignithemselves etymologically with all the fied perspicuity from Livy; simplicity languages of modern Europe and from Cæsar; and from Homer some with none more than our own; so that portion of that light and heat which, it is necessary to read these two tongues dispersed into ten thousand channels, for other objects than themselves. has filled the world with bright images The two ancient languages are as and illustrious thoughts. Let the culmere inventions-as pieces of mechan- tivator of modern literature addict himincomparably more beautiful than self to the purest models of taste which any of the modern languages of Europe; France, Italy, and England could their mode of signifying time and case, supply, he might still learn from Virgil by terminations, instead of auxiliary to be majestic, and from Tibullus to be verbs and particles, would of itself tender; he might not yet look upon amp their superiority. Add to this the face of nature as Theocritus saw the copiousness of the Greek language, it; nor might he reach those springs with the fancy, majesty, and harmony of pathos with which Euripides softened of its compounds; and there are quite the hearts of his audience. In short, it suficient reasons why the classics appears to us, that there are so many should be studied for the beauties of excellent reasons why a certain number

no

of scholars should be kept up in this and in every civilised country, that we should consider every system of education from which classical education was excluded, as radically erroneous, and completely absurd.

if you have fed him only with words, he will remain a narrow and limited being to the end of his existence.

The bias given to men's minds is so strong, that it is no uncommon thing to meet with Englishmen, whom, but for their grey hairs and wrinkles, we might easily mistake for school-boys. Their talk is of Latin verses; and it is quite clear, if men's ages are to be dated from the state of their mental progress, that such men are eighteen years of age, and not a day older. Their minds have been so completely possessed by exaggerated notions of classical learning, that they have not been able in the great school of the world, to form any other notion of real

That vast advantages, then, may be derived from classical learning, there can be no doubt. The advantages which are derived from classical learning by the English manner of teaching, involve another and a very different question; and we will venture to say, that there never was a more complete instance in any country of such extravagant and overacted attachment to any branch of knowledge, as that which obtains in this country with regard to classical knowledge. A greatness. Attend, too, to the public young Englishman goes to school at feelings-look to all the terms of apsix or seven years old; and he remains plause. A learned man!—a scholar! in a course of education till twenty- -a man of erudition! Upon whom are three or twenty-four years of age. In these epithets of approbation bestowed? all that time, his sole and exclusive Are they given to men acquainted with occupation is learning Latin and the science of government? thoroughly Greek; he has scarcely a notion that masters of the geographical and comthere is any other kind of excellence; mercial relations of Europe: to men and the great system of facts with who know the properties of bodies, and which he is the most perfectly ac- their action upon each other? No: quainted, are the intrigues of the Hea- this is not learning; it is chemistry, or then Gods: with whom Pan slept ?-political economy-not learning. The with whom Jupiter?- whom Apollo distinguishing abstract term, the epithet ravished? These facts the English of Scholar, is reserved for him who youth get by heart the moment they quit the nursery; and are most sedulously and industriously instructed in them till the best and most active part of life is passed away. Now, this long career of classical learning, we may, if we please, denominate a foundation; but it is a foundation so far above ground, that there is absolutely no room to put anything upon it. If you occupy a man with one thing till he is twenty-four years of age, you have exhausted all his leisure time: he is called into the world and compelled to act; or is surrounded with pleasures, and thinks and reads no more. If you have neglected to put other things in him, they will never get in afterwards;

Unless he goes to the University of Cam' ridge; and then classics occupy him entirely for about ten years; and divide

him with mathematics for four or five

more.

writes on the Æolic reduplication, and is familiar with the Sylburgian method of arranging defectives in and The picture which a young Englishman, addicted to the pursuit of knowledge, draws—his beau idéal, of human nature-his top and consummation of man's powers-is a knowledge of the Greek language. His object is not to reason, to imagine, or to invent; but to conjugate, decline, and derive. The situations of imaginary glory which he draws for himself, are the detection of an anapest in the wrong place, or the restoration of a dative case which Cranzins had passed over, and the never-dying Ernesti failed to observe. If a young classic of this kind were to meet the greatest chemist or the greatest mechanician, or the most profound political economist of his time, in company with the greatest Greek scholar, would the slightest comparison between them

ever come across his mind?-would | sacrificed in gaining these little delicahe ever dream that such men as Adam cies. It would be of use that we should Smith and Lavoisier were equal in go on till fifty years of age making dignity of understanding to, or of the Latin verses, if the price of a whole same utility as, Bentley and Heyne? life were not too much to pay for it. We are inclined to think, that the feel- We effect our object; but we do it at ing excited would be a good deal like the price of something greater than our that which was expressed by Dr. George object. And whence comes it, that the about the praises of the great King of expenditure of life and labour is totally Prussia, who entertained considerable put out of the calculation, when Latin doubts whether the King, with all his and Greek are to be attained? In victories, knew how to conjugate a Greek every other occupation, the question is verb in . fairly stated between the attainment and the time employed in the pursuit :

Another misfortune of classical learng, as taught in England, is, that but, in classical learning, it seems to scholars have come, in process of time, be sufficient if the least possible good is and from the effects of association, to gained by the greatest possible exertion; love the instrument better than the end; if the end is anything, and the means -not the luxury which the difficulty everything. It is of some importance encloses, but the difficulty;-not the to speak and write French; and infibert but the shell;-not what may be numerable delicacies would be gained read in Greek, but Greek itself. It is by writing ten thousand French verses: not so much the man who has mastered but it makes no part of our education the wisdom of the ancients, that is to write French poetry. It is of some valued, as he who displays his know- importance that there should be good ledge of the vehicle in which that wis-botanists; but no botanist can repeat by dom is conveyed. The glory is to show heart the names of all the plants in the I am a scholar. The good sense and known world; nor is any astronomer ingenuity I may gain by my acquaint- acquainted with the appellation and ace with ancient authors is matter of magnitude of every star in the map of pinion; but if I bestow an immensity the heavens. The only department of of pains upon a point of accent or human knowledge in which there can quantity, this is something positive; I be no excess, no arithmetic, no balance establish my pretensions to the name of profit and loss, is classical learning. of Scholar, and gain the credit of learn- The prodigious honour in which Latin ing, while I sacrifice all its utility. verses are held at public schools is Another evil in the present system surely the most absurd of all absurd of classical education is the extraordi- distinctions. You rest all reputation ry perfection which is aimed at in upon doing that which is a natural gift, teaching those languages: a needless and which no labour can attain. If a perfection; ;an accuracy which is sought | lad won't learn the words of a language, for in nothing else. There are few his degradation in the school is a very boys who remain to the age of eighteen natural punishment for his disobedience, of nineteen at a public school, with- or his indolence; but it would be as out making above ten thousand Latin reasonable to expect that all boys should Verses;-a greater number than is con- be witty, or beautiful, as that they tained in the Eneid: and after he has should be poets. In either case, it made this quantity of verses in a dead would be to make an accidental, unatlanguage, unless the poet should happen tainable, and not a very important gift to be a very weak man indeed, he never of nature, the only, or the principal test makes another as long as he lives. It of merit. This is the reason why boys, may be urged, and it is urged, that who make a considerable figure at this is of use in teaching the deli- school, so very often make no figure in cacies of the language. No doubt it is the world; and why other lads, who of use for this purpose, if we put out of are passed over without notice, turn new the immense time and trouble out to be valuable important men. The

test established in the world is widely | suspects every man whose boldness and different from that established in a place originality call upon him to defend which is presumed to be a preparation his opinions and prove his assertions. for the world; and the head of a public school, who is a perfect miracle to his contemporaries, finds himself shrink into absolute insignificance, because he has nothing else to command respect or regard, but a talent for fugitive poetry in a dead language.

A very curious argument is sometimes employed in justification of the learned minutia to which all young men are doomed, whatever be their propensities in future life. What are you to do with a young man up to the age of seventeen? Just as if there The present state of classical educa- were such a want of difficulties to overtion cultivates the imagination a great come, and of important tastes to indeal too much, and other habits of spire, that, from the mere necessity of mind a great deal too little; and trains doing something, and the impossibility up many young men in a style of of doing anything else, you were driven elegant imbecility, utterly unworthy of to the expedient of metre and poetry; the talents with which nature has en- - as if a young man within that period dowed them. It may be said, there are might not acquire the modern languages, profound investigations, and subjects modern history, experimental philosoquite powerful enough for any under-phy, geography, chronology, and a constanding, to be met with in classical siderable share of mathematics ;—as if literature. So there are; but no man the memory of things were not more likes to add the difficulties of a lan-agreeable, and more profitable, than guage to the difficulties of a subject; the memory of words. and to study metaphysics, morals, and The great objection is, that we are politics in Greek, when the Greek alone hot making the most of human life, is study enough without them. In all when we constitute such an extensive, foreign languages, the most popular and such minute classical erudition, an works are works of imagination. Even indispensable article in education. Up in the French language, which we know to a certain point we would educate so well, for one serious work which has every young man in Latin and Greek; any currency in this country, we have but to a point far short of that to which twenty which are mere works of imagi- this species of education is now carried. nation. This is still more true in clas- Afterwards, we would grant to classical sical literature; because what their erudition as high honours as to every poets and orators have left us is of other department of knowledge, but infinitely greater value than the remains not higher. We would place it upon a of their philosophy; for, as society footing with many other objects of advances, men think more accurately study; but allow to it no superiority. and deeply, and imagine more tamely; Good scholars would be as certainly proworks of reasoning advance, and works duced by these means, as good chemists, of fancy decay. So that the matter of astronomers, and mathematicians are fact is, that a classical scholar of twenty-now produced, without any direct prothree or twenty-four years of age is a man principally conversant with works of imagination. His feelings are quick, his fancy lively, aud his taste good. Talents for speculation and original inquiry he has none; nor has he formed the invaluable habit of pushing things up to their first principles, or of collect ing dry and unamusing facts as the materials of reasoning. All the solid and masculine parts of his understanding are left wholly without cultivation; he hates the pain of thinking, and

vision whatsoever for their production. Why are we to trust to the diversity of human tastes, and the varieties of human ambition, in every thing else, and distrust it in classics alone? The pas sion for languages is just as strong as any other literary passion. There are very good Persian and Arabic scholars in this country. Large heaps of trash have been dug up from Sanscrit ruins. We have seen in our own times, a clergyman of the University of Oxford complimenting their Majesties in Cop