abandonment of the study of the ancient classics as a requisite for even the higher degrees.

These changes have been justified by the argument that the study of the ancient languages has lost its relative educational value, a knowledge of the physical sciences having become more important than that of the humanities, as well as by the argument that the modern languages had been neglected and that they would in future, by reason of the substitution, be more effectively taught and more generally learned. The former argument, which touches a fundamental point, will be considered farther on; the second may be disposed of somewhat briefly. Its validity may readily be tested by comparing the earlier with the later results in the case of candidates in our universities who apply for the higher degrees, such as that of doctor of philosophy. Of candidates for these degrees a knowledge of the ancient languages, or at any rate of Latin, and also of two modern languages other than the candidate's native tongue, was strictly exacted. In recent days there has been a logical tendency, conforming to the subordination or waiving of classical studies in college courses, to permit the candidate to substitute modern languages for the classical tongue. It is probable that no one having experience in such matters could be found to affirm that this subordination or waiving of the classics has resulted in a higher proficiency in the modern languages. The earlier candidate who knew Latin usually knew his French far better and his German equally well. So that, from the linguistic point of view, there has been no gain, but a net loss.

The observation of results such as these has contributed to the agitation now going on for the revival and restoration of the study of the classics. This movement may be said to be international, and the fact that it is international merely denotes that the same process of educational deterioration has been of wide extent, and that the

need of its correction is recognized and felt in many lands. The other day I had the pleasure to receive from that eminent judge and jurist, Lord Finlay, formerly Lord Chancellor of Great Britain and now a member of the Permanent Court of International Justice at The Hague, a copy of an address which he delivered on the occasion of his recent installation as President of the Scottish Classical Association. In the numerous proofs which Lord Finlay adduces of the returning sense of the importance of classical studies, he cites the decree issued in France as late as May 3, 1923, restoring Latin and Greek to their former place as essentials of secondary education. This decree, which has also been noted and widely discussed in the United States, was based upon a report of the Minister of Public Instruction, M. Léon Bérard, in which he maintained the sound and enduring doctrine that the object of training in the secondary schools is to introduce the mind to fruitful methods of learning rather than to burden it with a mass of heterogeneous and unrelated facts.

But another and yet profounder reason may be given for preserving our acquaintance with the languages commonly called dead; and, when I say "commonly called dead," I speak advisedly, since the mortuary assumption is supported by the proofs only in a limited sense. The Apostle Paul, when referring to one long departed, of whose gifts God had testified, described him as one who "being dead yet speaketh." No dubious license is needed to extend this affirmation of continuing vital force to Homer and Virgil, Herodotus and Livy, Thucydides and Tacitus, Demosthenes and Cicero, Plato and Seneca, to say nothing of others whose works still furnish models for students of poetry and prose, of eloquence and logic, of history, politics and philosophy. No less evident is the persistence of Greek in the terminology of science, or the perpetuation of the speech of the Romans in the great

Romance languages, of which Latin is the vital source. Nor is this all. Long after Greek had ceased to be widely spoken, Latin remained, even as in limited circles it does today, the language of ecclesiastics and scholars, thus serving both as the vehicle of expression, and as the living repository and perpetuation, of the learning of the times as well as of the ancient learning. Nor was the inexorable character of this succession altogether done away with by the advent of the Encyclopedists. Should anyone entertain a doubt on this point, let him, for instance, essay to trace the application of judicial methods to the settlement of international disputes during the past thousand years.

The educational results accomplished by the encyclopedist are severely conditioned by the nature of his task, the fundamental limitation of which may be illustrated by an anecdote, more witty than polite, told of Lord Eldon. Speaking one day of the narrowness of his early circumstances, his lordship is said to have remarked that when, at his marriage, he repeated the words "with all my worldly goods I thee endow," he had barely a crown to his name; and when Lady Eldon, who was present, amiably observed that his lordship had his "splendid talents," he is reported to have replied: "Yes, my dear; but I did not endow you with them."

So it is with the encyclopedist. No matter how profound may be his individual researches, he cannot endow the general reader with that understanding of a subject which can be gained only by the mastery of all its processes, nor has he the time and attention of his reader at command for such a purpose. Especially is this true of subjects which, although they touch the primary springs of human conduct, can, because they are technical and essentially recondite, be mastered only by recurring to the original sources.

Thus by converging streams of argument are we surely

borne to the consummate conclusion that, for preserving a familiar acquaintance with the ancient languages, the profoundest reason that can be given is the fact that the study of them, in conserving our connections with the past and its inexhaustible treasures, not only induces habits of inquiry and reflection, but qualifies us intelligently to estimate the current phenomena of life, relatively and in their true perspective, as incidents in the unbroken procession of human activities, and not, in dazed and hasty fashion, as new and isolated things, without precedent in the annals of human experience.

This vital phase of the subject, so far as I am acquainted with what has been said concerning it, has never been explained with greater force or felicity than was done by President Coolidge, in the address which, while he was still Vice-President of the United States, he delivered at the annual meeting of the American Classical League at the University of Pennsylvania in July, 1921. Speaking on that occasion, President Coolidge said:

"We come here today in defense of some of the great realities of life. We come to continue the guarantee of progress in the future by continuing a knowledge of progress in the past.. The age of science and commercialism is here. There is no sound reason for wishing it otherwise. The wise desire is not to destroy it, but to use it and direct it rather than to be used and directed by it, that it may be as it should be, not the master but the servant, that the physical forces may not prevail over the moral forces and that the rule of life may not be expediency but righteousness.

"No question can be adequately comprehended without its historical background. Modern civilization dates from Greece and Rome. The world was not new in their day."

As the world was not new in the days of Greece and Rome, so it is not new in our own day. As we owe our models in art, in literature, and even in politics and government in some measure to Greece, so also do we owe a

large part of our heritage of literature and law, and of experience in the forms and processes of government, to Rome.

Very recently I had occasion to reperuse the Politics of Aristotle, and I confess that I did it in an expert translation, my own knowledge of Greek, which was at one time, as things go, relatively substantial, having been impaired by a desuetude which I will not call innocuous or otherwise seek to extenuate. If there is any phase of political action not dealt with in the disquisition of Aristotle, it is a phase which, I do not hesitate to affirm, our modernists will not be able to point out. The most fundamental conceptions are there. The doctrine of the separation of governmental powers is often spoken of as a modern development, for the exposition of which few go farther back than to the celebrated treatise of Montesquieu. But it is set forth with unsurpassed comprehensiveness, clearness and force in the work of Aristotle. This is but a single illustration.

We beat the air today and demand the instant eradication of all human ills, chiefly by means of legislation, national and international. In keeping with the profound and serious character of such demands, a popular but apparently inopulent writer has lately offered a lock of a certain senatorial Sampson's hair as a prize for the best definition of a "progressive." The competition for the prize is said to be very active, but there appears to be a dominant note of common sense in the comment of a western editor who, while professing to be "avowedly progressive and proud of it," declares that he is prepared to endorse "neither extreme communism nor extreme corporationism," but prefers to "fumble along, trying to salvage some of the old finer western American qualities of courage and independence, being illogical, inconsistent, and full of fight."

No one who reflects upon current transactions and con