Practical Essays Part 7

The founders of the University of London attempted to realise Mill's conception to the full. They retained Cla.s.sics; they added English and a modern language, and completed the course of the primary sciences by including both Chemistry and Physiology. This was a n.o.ble experiment, and we can now report on its success. The cla.s.sical languages, English and French or German, mathematics and natural philosophy, and (after a time) logic and moral philosophy, were all kept at a good standard; thus exceeding the requirements of the Scotch Universities at the time by English and a modern language. The amount of attainment in chemistry was very small, and was disposed of in the Matriculation examination.

Physiology was reserved for the final B.A. examination, and was the least satisfactory of all. Having myself sat at the Examining Board while Dr. Sharpey was Examiner in Physiology, I had occasion to know that he considered it prudent to be content with a mere show of studying the subject. Thus, though the experience of the University of London, as well as of the Scotch Universities, proves that the cla.s.sical languages are compatible with a very tolerable scientific education, yet these will need to be curtailed if every one of the fundamental sciences, as Mill urged, is to be represented at a pa.s.sable figure.

In the various new proposals for extending the sphere of scientific knowledge, a much smaller amount of cla.s.sics is to be required, but neither of the two languages is wholly dispensed with. If not taught at college, they must be taken up at school as a preparation for entering on the Arts' curriculum in the University. This can hardly be a permanent state of things, but it is likely to be in operation for some time.

2. The remitting of Greek in favour of a modern language is the alternative most prominently before the public at present. It accepts the mixed form of the old curriculum, and replaces one of the dead languages by one of the living. Resisted by nearly the whole might of the cla.s.sical party, this proposal finds favour with the lay professions as giving one language that will actually be useful to the pupils as a language. It is the very smallest change that would be a real relief.

That it will speedily be carried we do not doubt.

Except as a relaxation of the grip of cla.s.sicism, this change is not altogether satisfactory. That there must be two languages (besides English) in order to an Arts' Degree is far from obvious. Moreover, although it is very desirable that every pupil should have facilities at school or at college for commencing modern languages, these do not rank as indispensable and universal culture, like the knowledge of sciences and of literature generally. They would have to be taught along with their respective literatures to correspond to the cla.s.sics.

Another objection to replacing cla.s.sics by modern languages is the necessity of importing foreigners as teachers. Now, although there are plenty of Frenchmen and Germans that can teach as well as any Englishman, it is a painful fact that foreigners do oftener miscarry, both in teaching and in discipline, with English pupils, than our own countrymen. Foreign masters are well enough for those that go to them voluntarily with the desire of being taught; it is as teachers in a compulsory curriculum that their inferiority becomes apparent.

The retort is sometimes made to this proposal--Why omit Greek rather than Latin? Should you not retain the greater of the two languages? This may be p.r.o.nounced as mainly a piece of tactics; for every one must know that the order of teaching Latin and Greek at the schools will never be topsyturvied to suit the fancy of an individual here and there, even although John Stuart Mill himself was educated in that order. On the scheme of withdrawing all foreign languages from the imperative curriculum, and providing for them as voluntary adjuncts, such freedom of selection would be easy.[9]

[ALTERNATIVE OF MODERN LANGUAGES.]

3. Another alternative is to remit both Latin and Greek in favour of French and German. Strange to say, this advance upon the previous alternative was actually contained in Mr. Gladstone's ill-fated Irish University Bill. Had that Bill succeeded, the Irish would have been for fourteen years in the enjoyment of a full option for both the languages.[10] From a careful perusal of the debates, I could not discover that the opposition ever fastened upon this bold surrender of the cla.s.sical exclusiveness.

The proposal was facilitated by the existence of professors of French and German in the Queen's Colleges, In the English and Scotch Colleges endowments are not as yet provided for these languages; although it would be easy enough to make provision for them in Oxford and Cambridge.

In favour of this alternative, it is urged that the cla.s.sics, if entered on at all, should be entered on thoroughly and entirely. The two languages and literatures form a coherent whole, a h.o.m.ogeneous discipline; and those that do not mean to follow this out should not begin it. Some of the upholders of cla.s.sics take this view.

4. More thorough-going still is the scheme of complete bifurcation of the cla.s.sical and the modern sides. In our great schools there has been inst.i.tuted what is called the _modern side_, made up of sciences and modern languages, together with Latin. The understanding hitherto has been, that the votaries of the ancient and cla.s.sical side should alone proceed to the Universities; the modern side being the introduction to commercial life, and to professions that dispense with a University degree. Here, as far as the schools are concerned, a fair scope is given to modern studies.

As was to be expected, the modern side is now demanding admission to the Universities on its own terms; that is, to continue the same line of studies there, and to be crowned with the same distinctions as the cla.s.sical side. This attempt to render school and college h.o.m.ogeneous throughout, to treat ancient studies and modern studies as of equal value in the eye of the law, will of course be resisted to the utmost.

Yet it seems the only solution likely to bring about a settlement that will last.

The defenders of the cla.s.sical system in its extreme exclusiveness are fond of adducing examples of very ill.u.s.trious men who at college showed an utter incapacity for science in its simplest elements. They say that, by cla.s.sics alone, these men are what they are, and if their way had been stopped by serious scientific requirements, they would have never come before the world at all. The allegation is somewhat strongly put; yet we shall a.s.sume it to be correct, on condition of being allowed to draw an inference. If some minds are so const.i.tuted for languages, and for cla.s.sics in particular, may not there be other minds equally const.i.tuted for science, and equally incapable of taking up two cla.s.sical languages? Should this be granted, the next question is--Ought these two cla.s.ses of minds to be treated as equal in rights and privileges? The upholders of the present system say, No. The Language mind is the true aristocrat; the Science mind is an inferior creation.

Degrees and privileges are for the man that can score languages, with never so little science; outer darkness is a.s.signed to the man whose _forte_ is science alone. But a war of caste in education is an unseemly thing; and, after all the levelling operations that we have pa.s.sed through, it is not likely that this distinction will be long preserved.

[CLAIMS OF THE MODERN SIDE.]

The modern side, as at present const.i.tuted, still retains Latin. There is a considerable strength of feeling in favour of that language for all kinds of people; it is thought to be a proper appendage of the lay professions; and there is a wide-spread opinion in favour of its utility for English. So much is this the case, that the modern-siders are at present quite willing to come under a pledge to keep up Latin, and to pa.s.s in it with a view to the University. In fact, the schools find this for the present the most convenient arrangement. It is easier to supply teaching in Latin than in a modern language, or in most other things; and while Latin continues to be held in respect, it will remain untouched. Yet the quant.i.ty of time occupied by it, with so little result, must ultimately force a departure from the present curriculum.

The real destination of the modern side is to be modern throughout. It should not be rigorously tied down even to a certain number of modern languages. English and one other language ought to be quite enough; and the choice should be free. On this footing, the modern side ought to have its place in the schools as the co-equal of cla.s.sics; it would be the natural precursor of the modernised alternatives in the Universities; those where knowledge subjects predominate.

The proposal to give an _inferior degree_ to a curriculum that excludes Greek should, in my judgment, be simply declined. It is, however, a matter of opinion whether, in point of tactics, the modern party did not do well to accept this as an instalment in the meantime. The Oxford offer, as I understand it, was so far liberal, that the new degree was to rank equal in privileges with the old, although inferior in _prestige_. In Scotland, the decree conceded by the cla.s.sical party to a Greekless education was worthless, and was offered for that very reason.[11]

[SURRENDER OF CLAIMS FOR SOME.]

Among the adherents of cla.s.sics, Professor Blackie is distinguished for surrendering the study of them in the case of those that cannot profit by them. He believes that with a free alternative, such as the thorough bifurcation into two sides would give, they would still hold their ground, and bear all their present fruits. His cla.s.sical brethren, however, do not in general share this conviction. They seem to think that if they can no longer compel every University graduate to pa.s.s beneath the double yoke of Rome and Greece, these two ill.u.s.trious nationalities will be in danger of pa.s.sing out of the popular mind altogether. For my own part, I do not share their fears, nor do I think that, even on the voluntary footing, the study of the two languages will decline with any great rapidity. As I have said, the belief in Latin is wide and deep. Whatever may be urged as to the extraordinary stringency of the intellectual discipline now said to be given by means of Latin and Greek, I am satisfied that the feeling with both teachers and scholars is, that the process of acquisition is not toilsome to either party; less so perhaps than anything that would come in their place.

Of the hundreds of hours spent over them, a very large number are a.s.sociated with listless idleness. Carlyle describes Scott's novels as a "beatific lubber land"; with the exception of the "beatific," we might say nearly the same of cla.s.sics. To all which must be added the immense endowments of cla.s.sical teaching; not only of old date but of recent acquisition. It will be a very long time before these endowments can be diverted, even although the study decline steadily in estimation.

The thing that stands to reason is to place the modern and the ancient studies on exactly the same footing; to accord a fair field and no favour. The public will decide for themselves in the long run. If the cla.s.sical advocates are afraid of this test, they have no faith in the merits of their own case.

The arguments _pro_ and _con_ on the question have been almost exhausted. Nothing is left except to vary the expression and ill.u.s.tration. Still, so long as the monopoly exists, it will be argued and counter-argued; and, if there are no new reasons, the old will have to be iterated.

[EXAMPLE FROM THE GREEKS THEMSELVES]

Perhaps the most hackneyed of all the answers to the case for the cla.s.sics is the one that has been most rarely replied to. I mean the fact that the Greeks were not acquainted with any language but their own. I have never known an attempt to parry this thrust. Yet, besides the fact itself, there are strong presumptions in favour of the position that to know a language well, you should devote your time and strength to it alone, and not attempt to learn three or four. Of course, the Greeks were in possession of the most perfect language, and were not likely to be gainers by studying the languages of their contemporaries.

So, we too are in possession of a very admirable language, although put together in a nondescript fashion; and it is not impossible that if Plato had his Dialogues to compose among us, he would give his whole strength to working up our own resources, and not trouble himself with Greek. The popular dictum--_multum non multa_, doing one thing well--may be plausibly adduced in behalf of parsimony in the study of languages.

The recent agitation in Cambridge, in Oxford, and indeed, all over the country, for remitting the study of Greek as an essential of the Arts'

Degree, has led to a reproduction of the usual defences of things as they are. The articles in the March number of the _Contemporary Review, 1879_, by Professors Blackie and Bonamy Price, may claim to be the _derniers mots_.

Professor Blackie's article is a warning to the teachers of cla.s.sics, to the effect that they must change their front; that, whereas the value of the cla.s.sics as a key to thought has diminished, and is diminishing, they must by all means in the first place improve their drill. In fact, unless something can be done to lessen the labour of the acquisition by better teaching, and to secure the much-vaunted intellectual discipline of the languages, the battle will soon be lost. Accordingly, the professor goes minutely into what he conceives the best methods of teaching. It is not my purpose to follow him in this sufficiently interesting discussion. I simply remark that he is staking the case, for the continuance of Latin and Greek in the schools, on the possibility of something like an entire revolution in the teaching art. Revolution is not too strong a word for what is proposed. The weak part of the new position is that the value of the languages _as languages_ has declined, and has to be made up by the incident of their value as _drill_. This is, to say the least, a paradoxical position for a language teacher. If it is mere drill that is wanted, a very small corner of one language would suffice. The teacher and the pupil alike are placed between the two stools--interpretation and drill. A new generation of teachers must arise to attain the dexterity requisite for the task.

Professor Blackie's concession is of no small importance in the actual situation. "No one is to receive a full degree without showing a fair proficiency in two foreign languages, one ancient and one modern, with free option." This would almost satisfy the present demand everywhere, and for some time to come.

[ARGUMENT FROM RESULTS.]

The article of Professor Bonamy Price is conceived in even a higher strain than the other. There is so far a method of argumentation in it that the case is laid out under four distinct heads, but there is no decisive separation of reasons; many of the things said under one head might easily be transferred without the sense of dislocation to any other head. The writer indulges in high-flown rhetorical a.s.sertions rather than in specific facts and arguments. The first merit of cla.s.sics is that "they are languages; not particular sciences, nor definite branches of knowledge, but literatures". Under this head we have such glowing sentences as these: "Think of the many elements of thought a boy comes in contact with when he reads Caesar and Tacitus in succession, Herodotus and Homer, Thucydides and Aristotle". "See what is implied in having read Homer intelligently through, or Thucydides or Demosthenes; what light will have been shed on the essence and laws of human existence, on political society, on the relations of man to man, on human nature itself." There are various conceivable ways of counter-arguing these a.s.sertions, but the shortest is to call for the facts--the results upon the many thousands that have pa.s.sed through their ten years of cla.s.sical drill. Professor Campbell of St. Andrews, once remarked, with reference to the value of Greek in particular, that the question would have to be ultimately decided by the inner consciousness of those that have undergone the study. To this we are ent.i.tled to add, their powers as manifested to the world, of which powers spectators can be the judges. When, with a few brilliant exceptions, we discover nothing at all remarkable in the men that have been subjected to the cla.s.sical training, we may consider it as almost a waste of time to a.n.a.lyse the grandiloquent a.s.sertions of Mr. Bonamy Price. But if we were to a.n.a.lyse them, we should find that _boys_ never read Caesar and Tacitus through in succession; still less Thucydides Demosthenes, and Aristotle; that very few _men_ read and understand these writers; that the shortest way to come into contact with Aristotle is to avoid his Greek altogether, and take his expositors and translators in the modern languages.

The professor is not insensible to the reproach that the vaunted cla.s.sical education has been a failure, as compared with these splendid promises. He says, however, that though many have failed to become cla.s.sical scholars in the full sense of the word, "it does not follow that they have gained nothing from their study of Greek and Latin; just the contrary is the truth". The "contrary" must mean that they have gained something; which something is stated to be "the extent to which the faculties of the boy have been developed, the quant.i.ty of impalpable but not less real attainments he has achieved, and his general readiness for life, and for action as a man". But it is becoming more and more difficult to induce people to spend a long course of youthful years upon a confessedly _impalpable_ result. We might give up a few months to a speculative and doubtful good, but we need palpable consequences to show for our years spent on cla.s.sics. Next comes the admission that the teaching is often bad. But why should the teaching be so bad, and what is the hope of making it better? Then we are told that science by itself leaves the largest and most important portion of the youths' nature absolutely undeveloped. But, in the first place, it is not proposed to reduce the school and college curriculum to science alone; and, in the next place, who can say what are the "impalpable" results of science?

[WORTH OF THE CLa.s.sICAL WRITERS.]

The second branch of the argument relates to the greatness of the cla.s.sical writers. Undoubtedly the Greek and Roman worlds produced some very great writers, and a good many not great. But the greatness of Herodotus, Thucydides, Demosthenes, Plato, and Aristotle can be exhibited in a modern rendering; while no small portion of the poetical excellence of Homer and the Dramatists can be made apparent without toiling at the original tongues. The value of the languages then resolves itself, as has been often remarked, into a _residuum_.

Something also is to be said for the greatness of the writers that have written in modern times. Sir John Herschel remarked long ago that the human intellect cannot have degenerated, so long as we are able to quote Newton, Lagrange and Laplace, against Aristotle and Archimedes. I would not undertake to say that any modern mind has equalled Aristotle in the _range_ of his intellectual powers; but in point of intensity of grasp in any one subject, he has many rivals; so that to obtain his equal, we have only to take two or three first-rate moderns.

If a few fanatics are to go on lauding to the skies the exclusive and transcendent greatness of the cla.s.sical writers, we shall probably be tempted to scrutinize their merits more severely than is usual. Many things could be said against their sufficiency as instructors in matters of thought; and many more against the low and barbarous tone of their _morale_--the inhumanity and brutality of both their principles and their practice. All this might no doubt be very easily overdone, and would certainly be so, if undertaken in the style of Professor Price's panegyric.

The professor's third branch of the argument comes to the real point; namely, what is there in Greek and Latin that there is not in the modern tongues? For one thing, says the professor, they are dead; which of course we allow. Then, being dead, they must be learnt by book and by rule; they cannot be learnt by ear. Here, however, Professor Blackie would dissent, and would say that the great improvement of teaching, on which the salvation of cla.s.sical study now hangs, is to make it a teaching by the ear. But, says Professor Price: "A Greek or Latin sentence is a nut with a strong sh.e.l.l concealing the kernel--a puzzle, demanding reflection, adaptation of means to end, and labour for its solution, and the educational value resides in the sh.e.l.l and in the puzzle". As this strain of remark is not new, there is nothing new to be said in answer to it. Such puzzling efforts are certainly not the rule in learning Latin and Greek. Moreover, the very same terms would describe what may happen equally often in reading difficult authors in French, German, or Italian. Would not the pupil find puzzles and difficulties in Dante, or in Goethe? And are there not many puzzling exercises in deciphering English authors? Besides, what is the great objection to science, but that it is too puzzling for minds that are quite competent for the puzzles of Greek and Latin? Once more, the _teaching_ of any language must be very imperfect, if it brings about habitually such situations of difficulty as are here described.

[ARGUMENTS FOR CLa.s.sICS.]

The professor relapses into a cooler and correcter strain when he remarks that the pupil's mind is necessarily more delayed over the expression of a thought in a foreign language (whether dead or alive matters not), and therefore remembers the meaning better. Here, however, the desiderated reform of teaching might come into play. Granted that the boy left to himself would go more rapidly through Burke than through Thucydides, might not his pace be r.e.t.a.r.ded by a well-directed cross-examination; with this advantage, that the length of attention might be graduated according to the importance of the subject, and not according to the accidental difficulty of the language?

The professor boldly grapples with the alleged waste of time in cla.s.sics, and urges that "the gain may be measured by the time expended," which is very like begging the question.

One advantage adduced under this head deserves notice. The languages being dead, as well as all the societies and interests that they represent, they do not excite the prejudices and pa.s.sions of modern life. This, however, may need some qualification. Grote wrote his history of Greece to counterwork the party bias of Mitford. The battles of despotism, oligarchy, and democracy are to this hour fought over the dead bodies of Greece and Rome. If the professor meant to insinuate, that those that have gone through the cla.s.sical training are less violent as partisans, more dispa.s.sionate in political judgments, than the rest of mankind, we can only say that we should not have known this from our actual experience. The discovery of some sweet, oblivious, antidote to party feeling seems, as far as we can judge, to be still in the future. If we want studies that will, while they last, thoroughly divert the mind from the prejudices of party, science is even better than ancient history; there are no party cries connected with the Binomial Theorem.

The professor's last branch of argument, I am obliged, with all deference, to say, contains no argument at all. It is that, in cla.s.sical education, a close contact is established between the mind of the boy and the mind of the master. He does not even attempt to show how the effect is peculiar to cla.s.sical teaching. The whole of this part of the paper is, in fact, addressed, by way of remonstrance, to the writer's own friends, the cla.s.sical teachers. He reproaches them for their inefficiency, for their not being Arnolds. It is not my business to interfere between him and them in this matter. So much stress does he lay upon the teacher's part in the work, that I almost expected the admission--that a good teacher in English, German, natural history, political economy, might even be preferable to a bad teacher of Latin and Greek.

[CANON LIDDON'S ARGUMENT.]

The recent Oxford contest has brought out the eminent oratorical powers of Canon Liddon; and we have some curiosity in noting his contributions to the cla.s.sical side. I refer to his letters in the _Times_. The gist of his advocacy of Greek is contained in the following allegations.

First, the present system enables a man to recur with profit and advantage to Greek literature. To this, it has been often replied, that by far the greater number are too little familiarized with the cla.s.sical languages, and especially Greek, to make the literature easy reading.

But farther, the recurring to the study of ancient authors by busy professional men in the present day, is an event of such extreme rarity that it cannot be taken into account in any question of public policy.

The second remark is, that the half-knowledge of the ordinary graduate is a link between the total blank of the outer world, and the thorough knowledge of the accomplished cla.s.sic. I am not much struck by the force of this argument. I think that the cla.s.sical scholar, might, by expositions, commentaries, and translations, address the outer world equally well, without the intervening ma.s.s of imperfect scholars.

Lastly, the Canon puts in a claim for his own cloth. The knowledge of Greek paves the way for serious men to enter the ministry in middle life. Argument would be thrown away upon any one that could for a moment entertain this as a sufficient reason for compelling every graduate in Arts to study Greek. The observation that I would make upon it has a wider bearing. Middle life is not too late for learning any language that we suddenly discover to be a want; the stimulus of necessity or of strong interest, and the wider compa.s.s of general knowledge, compensate for the diminution of verbal memory.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 7: CONTEMPORARY REVIEW, August, 1879. A few months previously, there were printed, in the Review, papers on the Cla.s.sical question, by Professors Blackie and Bonamy Price; both of which are here alluded to and quoted, so far as either is controverted or concurred with.]

[Footnote 8: "The academical establishments of some parts of Europe are not without their use to the historian of the human mind. Immovably moored to the same station by the strength of their cables and the weight of their anchors, they enable him to measure the rapidity of the current by which the rest of the world is borne along."]