who offer Greek, while allowing to it two points, the same as to Latin with composition. Yet the number of her candidates who go up from the schools with Greek is growing smaller, both relatively and actually. According to information from Harvard there has been a decline in four years of 240 in the number offering Greek at entrance. The inference would be that the number of students of Greek in the schools of the country at large is declining, and this inference is confirmed by facts which I have soon to present.

I pass from Harvard College to the State of Massachusetts, the stronghold of Greek study in the United States. There are more students of Greek in the public schools of Massachusetts than in New York, with approximately thrice its popularity; more than in all the other New England states and in the eleven westermost states combined. Yet Mr. Macdonald, agent of the Board of Education, tells me that Greek is rapidly going out of the rural high schools. In distinctively classical schools we should expect Greek to strike its roots most deeply. Yet I know one such school where Greek, though optional, is encouraged, and yet for some years no more than from a third to a half of its graduates have gone up to college with Greek.

Let us look now at the country as a whole. From Commissioner Harris' report it appears that in the academic year 1897-98 a little over three per cent., exactly 3 12-100 per cent of pupils in the public high schools were studying Greek. The per cent. had not varied greatly in the preceding nine years, but three years later, in 1900-1901, the per cent. had fallen to 2 63-100 per cent.

The result of this inquiry, stated in a word, points to

a decline in the number studying Greek both at home and abroad. The movement away from Greek, so far as it can be traced, seems a world movement. There are signs that influences are at work that will hasten this decline in our own country. It is a part of the conflict between ideal studies and the more immediately or obviously useful studies. We are credited with being an intensely practical people, and it is likely that the question will be more frequently and more insistently asked, "Does Greek pay?" Only about two per cent. of the high school pupils of the South and West are pursuing Greek.

Less than three per cent. of our boys and girls in the public high schools are studying Greek at the present time, and another decade will probably see that number sensibly diminished. Is it to be regretted that other subjects are supplanting Greek, and does it mean a deterioration in education? What is the duty of schoolmasters who believe the movement should be resisted or compensated for, if that is possible?

So far, I do not believe that the interests of liberal education have suffered loss, because a smaller proportion, now pursue Greek. Nothing is more certain than that, when Greek was imposed upon all who entered college, it was pursued by many who had neither inclination nor aptitude for it, who dropped it as soon as it was possible, and who never derived from the study the slightest lasting good. Greek as an optional study, which it is fast becoming, will attract those who are best fitted by natural powers to profit by it and enjoy it, and their progress will no longer be delayed and obstructed by the indifference and incapacity of

those to whom the study would be a burden and a drudgery, or as some one has said, "a prolonged nightmare."

Before answering the second question, What should be the attitude and aim of schoolmasters? we ought to ask ourselves just what we understand by the study of Greek. In its common acceptation it means the rather narrow and very limited study of the language, with an implication of the study of the literature. But school study of Greek, which is our theme, hardly includes the study of the literature at all. It is true that the student, if well taught, gets here and there some glimpses of literature, but under such distracting conditions that impressions are fitful and dim. Nothing is read and comprehended as a whole, which we think in English training is a matter of prime importance. Some books of Xenophon, some fragments of Herodotus, some parts of the Odyssey, here and there stories from the Iliad, constitute about the whole for the more favored. Drill in forms and syntax and the acquisition of a limited vocabulary, with the scanning of hexameters after an utterly artificial method consume the time and fatigue the energies of the mind. There is no opportunity, such are the exigencies of examinations. ahead, to digest and enjoy what is so "got up."

If the progress of decline is to be stayed, or can be stayed, it will be, in my judgment, through a decided liberalizing of the study of Greek. As Professor Wright has finely said, the teacher of the Greek language must be a teacher of Greece, that is, of its literature, its history, its religion, its art, its politics, in a word, its civilization and its spirit. And the teacher whose knowledge of the language is limited and im

perfect may still be an excellent teacher of Greece. Once this would have been impossible. How is it possible now? It is possible because all the written records have been deciphered by the learning of generations of men. The writings of the Greeks have been translated into the languages of Europe, and may be read, studied, comprehended, and mastered by each one in his own vernacular.

But here rises the old question, not merely of translations as instruments, but of the comparative value of reading works written in foreign languages in the original and in translations. I know very well the common attitude of scholars towards translations of the classics. I am not now speaking of the abuse of translations by pretended students in school and colleges as ponies, as miserable makeshifts and substitutes to avoid genuine work. I speak of scholars in the proper sense, men of learning. Their tone is apt to be that of disparagement, if not of contempt, though I seem to see a change, since, within the last fifty years so many eminent scholars have themselves produced translations which no one can speak of with disrespect.

Grant that it is better to read Greek books, if you can, with "feet on the fender," how many of those who have made a prolonged study of the language can do it? Perhaps, but probably not, one in a thousand. Consider what it means to read Greek ad librum apertum. It implies a mastery of an enormous vocabulary, which can be got only by reading many times as much as the ordinary student goes through in his preparatory and college course. One would not expect to acquire mastery in so easy a language as French without reading, say, roughly 10,000 pages, or twenty vol

umes of duodecimo size. I think any competent judge would say that Greek is ten times as hard to read as French. That, for example, it would cost ten times the preparatory study to read Aeschylus that it would to read Racine. Briefly put, a mastery of Greek sufficient to read with rapidity, ease, and pleasure, demands an amount of concentrated and prolonged study, that only here and there a student can and will afford. It follows, then, that all but a select few must call to their aid translations, if they are to get any wide acquaintance with Greek literature.

The defence of Greek can no longer rest upon the original ground, that the treasures of Greek thought, deed, and word, are sealed up from all access except by the door of the Greek language, since a fallacious defence of a good cause, sometimes does more harm than a hostile attack. Persons who do not read Greek are at no such fearful disadvantage, as compared with those who do; and it does not follow that they are debarred from all knowledge and appreciation of the wealth of Greek literature. I am far from maintaining that they lose nothing of what perfect mastery of Greek may yield, but I do assert that the loss is relatively not great. Let us clear our minds of cant. How is it with the Bible? Are the millions of men who have found in their Bible unending sources of comfort, hope, and exaltation, to be pitied because the original Hebrew was to them a sealed book? And if it had not been, would the impressions upon mind and heart have been more vivid, real, and penetrating, coming direct from the Hebrew than through the medium of translation in the vernacular?

My object is not to belittle the study of the Greek