All such courses belong to the general field of the study of the classical languages as distinguished from the study of the literature, history, or any other phase of the classical civilization. This branch of language study, of course, includes such purely linguistic courses as those in Comparative Philology, Comparative Grammar, the Morphology of the Ancient Languages, Syntax, Dialects, etc.

Gram

literature

The bulk of classical teaching in American colleges is Courses in devoted to the literature. The great majority of all college courses in Latin and Greek have the same general characteristics.1 A certain limited portion of text is assigned for preparation. This text is then translated by the students in class, and the translation corrected. matical and exegetical questions and the content of the passage are discussed. Most of the time at each meeting of the class is consumed in such exercises. Generally lectures or informal talks are given by the instructor upon the life and personality of each author whose work is read, upon the life and thought of his times, upon the literary activity as a whole, and upon the value of those selections from his works which are the subject of the course. times the students are required to read more of the original literature than can be translated in class. Generally some collateral reading in English is assigned. Often the instructor reads to the class, usually from the original, other portions of the ancient literature.

Some

The number and extent of such courses in the different institutions vary according to the strength of the faculty, the plan of the curriculum, and the number and demands of the students in each. In the main, however, the list of selections from the ancient literature presented in such courses in all the colleges is much the same. Many of these courses deal with one particular author and his works, such as Sophocles, Plato, Plautus, or Horace. Others deal with some particular kind of literature, such as Greek

1 This is true of the courses in secondary schools and graduate courses in universities also; but in the secondary and graduate schools the proportion of translation courses to the others is smaller.

Methods commonly pursued

Value of

such courses

tragedy or oratory, Latin comedy, etc., or with a group of authors of different types combined for the sake of variety.1 The methods as well as the aims of such courses are well exemplified in the following passages contained in the Circular of Information for 1915-1916 of the University of Chicago, page 211: "Ability to read Greek with accuracy and ease, and intelligent enjoyment of the masterpieces of Greek literature are the indispensable prerequisites of all higher Greek scholarship. All other interests that may attach to the study are subordinate to these, and their pursuit is positively harmful if it prematurely distracts the student's attention from his main purpose.

It is not immediately apparent what distinction is made here, if there is any, between the "prerequisites" and the "main purpose" of classical scholarship. What the chief aim of classical teaching is according to this view, however, is made clear by the two paragraphs which follow, as well as by the descriptions of the individual courses offered by the Chicago faculty.

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In the work of the Junior Colleges the Department will keep this principle steadily in view, and will endeavor to teach a practical knowledge of Greek vocabulary and idiom, and to impart literary and historic culture by means of rapid viva voce translation and interpretation of the simpler masterpieces of the literature. . . . In the Senior Colleges the chief stress will be laid on reading and exegesis, but the range of authors presented to the student's choice will be enlarged."

The advantage of such courses is that they make the students who take them familiar with at least some limited portions of the best of the ancient literature in its original form, and most people are agreed that this is the only way in which students can be taught to appreciate that part of this literature, the value of which lies chiefly or wholly in its form. But people are not agreed upon two most serious

1 For example, at Harvard one course includes Plato, Lysias, Lyric Poetry, and Euripides, with lectures on the history of Greek literature; another Livy, Terence, Horace and other Latin Poets.

questions which arise in this connection. The first is whether all students are capable of appreciating at all literature of this sort, especially when it is conveyed in an ancient and difficult language. The other question is how much of the classical literature really depends for its values chiefly upon its form. To say that the Psalms and the Gospels have no value or little value for the world apart from the original form and language in which they were written would, of course, be absurd. Is it any less absurd to say that the study of the Homeric poems, the Attic tragedies, the works of Thucydides and Plato would have little value for students unless this literature were studied in the original language? These questions cannot properly be ignored any longer by teachers of the Classics.

these

courses

The defects of such courses are manifest to most per- Defects o sons. Students who pursue these courses through most of the years of secondary school and college fail to acquire either such a knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages as would enable them to read with pleasure and profit a Greek or Latin book, or such a knowledge of the Greek and Roman literature and civilization as would enable them to appreciate the value of classical studies. Many of them graduate from college without even knowing that there is anything really worthy of their attention in the classical literatures. The fact stares the teachers of the Classics grimly in the face that they are not accomplishing the aims which they profess.

One explanation of this fact suggests itself. In the classical courses commonly given in American colleges the attention paid to the content of the literature, to the author and his times the lectures and readings by the instructor, the discussion of archaeological, historical, literary, and philosophical matters introduced into the course,- distract attention from the study of the language itself, and check this study before a real mastery of the language has been secured. On the other hand, the time and still more the attention devoted in these courses to the mere process of translation detracts from the appreciation of the literature

Courses not requiring knowledge of the ancient languages

and obstructs the study of the life and thought. In attempt. ing to accomplish both purposes in these courses the teachers fail to accomplish either, and the result is chiefly a certain mental training, the practical value of which depends largely upon the mental capacity and skill of each individual teacher, and is not readily appreciated.

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To obviate some of these defects, and also to provide courses on Greek and Roman culture for those unfamiliar with the ancient languages, courses which require no use of these languages are now given at various colleges on Classical Literature or Civilization.1 A course on the Greek Epic" at the University of California is described as follows: A study chiefly of the Iliad and the Odyssey; their form, origin, and content; Homeric and pre-Homeric Aegean civilizations; relative merits of modern translations; influence of the Homeric poems on the later Greek, Roman, and modern literature. Lectures (partly illustrated), assigned readings, discussions, and reports." The course at Harvard entitled "Survey of Greek Civilization is "A lecture course, with written tests on a large body of private reading (mostly in English). No knowledge of Greek is required beyond the terms which must necessarily be learned to understand the subject." "The prescribed reading includes translations of Greek authors as well as modern books on Greek life and thought." The lecturer frequently reads and comments upon selections from the ancient literature. At Brown University a course is given on Greek Civilization, including the following topics: I Topography of Greece, II Prehistoric Greece, III The Language, IV Early Greece (The Makers of Homer, Expansion of Greece, Tyrannies, The New Poetry, etc.), V The Transition Century, 600-500 B. C. ((a) Government and Political Life, (b) Literature, (c) art), VI The Classical Epoch, 500-338 B. C. ((a) Political and Military History, (b) Literature, (c) The Fine Arts), VII The Hellenistic and Græco-Roman Periods, ((a) History, (b) Literature. (c) Philosophy, (d) Learning and Science, (e) Art), VIII 1 See above, page 407 f.

The Sequel of Greek History (The Byzantine Empire, the Italian Renaissance, Medieval and Modern Greece). This is described as "Wholly a lecture course, with frequent written tests, examination of the notebooks, and a final examination on the whole. Definite selections of the most conspicuous authors are required in English translations." The lecturer also reads selections from Homer, the Greek drama, Pindar, etc. Similar courses on Roman civilization are given at both Brown and Harvard. There is also a course of fifteen lectures on "Greek Civilization at Vermont; "The Culture History of Rome, lectures with supplementary reading in English," at Washington University; "Greek Civilization, lectures and collateral reading on the political institutions, the art, religion, and scientific thought of ancient Greece in relation to modern civilization," at Wesleyan; "The Rôle of the Greeks in Civilization at Wisconsin.1

Whatever success such courses may have, they are open to one criticism. Most, if not all of them, appear to be primarily lecture courses, with more or less collateral reading controlled by tests and examinations. The experience of many, however, justifies to some extent the belief that college students derive little benefit from collateral reading controlled only in this way, because such reading is commonly most superficial. Little mental training, therefore, is involved in courses such as those just described, and the ideas which the students acquire in them are chiefly those given to them by others. And it may reasonably be doubted whether the value to the students of ideas received in this way is comparable to the value of those which they are led to discover for themselves. So far, then, as such courses fail to accomplish the purposes for which they were designed, their failure may be due wholly to this cause.

It is entirely possible to conceive of courses in which no use of the ancient languages would be required, but in which the students would acquire by their own efforts a 1 For a fuller list of institutions where classical courses not requiring a knowledge of the ancient languages are given see above, page 407.

Defects of the lecture

system

The study ture apart

of litera

from its original language