Part 30

Permit me, therefore, before we separate, to say a few words on this glaring contrast. The greatest man of war and of silence which the present age has produced once asserted that perpetual peace is a dream, and not a beautiful dream at that. We may accord to this profound student of mankind a judgment in these matters and can also appreciate the soldier's horror of stagnation from all too lengthy peace. But it requires a strong belief in the insuperableness of mediæval barbarism to hope for and to expect no great improvement in international relations. Think of our forefathers and of the times when club law ruled supreme, when within the same country and the same state brutal assaults and equally brutal self-defence were universal and self-evident. This state of affairs grew so oppressive that finally a thousand and one circumstances compelled people to put an end to it, and the cannon had most to say in accomplishing the work. Yet the rule of club law was not abolished so quickly after all. It had simply passed to other clubs. We must not abandon ourselves to dreams of the Rousseau type. Questions of law will in a sense forever remain questions of might. Even in the United States where every one is as a matter of principle entitled to the same privileges, the ballot according to Stallo's pertinent remark is but a milder substitute for the club. Nor need I tell you that many of our own fellow-citizens are still enamored of the old original methods. Very, very gradually, however, as civilisation progresses, the intercourse of men takes on gentler forms, and no one who really knows the good old times will ever honestly wish them back again, however beautifully they may be painted and rhymed about.

In the intercourse of the nations, however, the old club law still reigns supreme. But since its rule is taxing the intellectual, the moral, and the material resources of the nations to the utmost and constitutes scarcely less a burden in peace than in war, scarcely less a yoke for the victor than for the vanquished, it must necessarily grow more and more unendurable. Reason, fortunately, is no longer the exclusive possession of those who modestly call themselves the upper ten thousand. Here, as everywhere, the evil itself will awaken the intellectual and ethical forces which are destined to mitigate it. Let the hate of races and of nationalities run riot as it may, the intercourse of nations will still increase and grow more intimate. By the side of the problems which separate nations, the great and common ideals which claim the exclusive powers of the men of the future appear one after another in greater distinctness and in greater might.

FOOTNOTES:

ON INSTRUCTION IN THE CLASSICS AND THE SCIENCES.

Perhaps the most fantastic proposition that Maupertuis, the renowned president of the Berlin Academy, ever put forward for the approval of his contemporaries was that of founding a city in which, to instruct and discipline young students, only Latin should be spoken. Maupertuis's Latin city remained an idle wish. But for centuries Latin and Greek institutions exist in which our children spend a goodly portion of their days, and whose atmosphere constantly surrounds them, even when without their walls.

For centuries instruction in the ancient languages has been zealously cultivated. For centuries its necessity has been alternately championed and contested. More strongly than ever are authoritative voices now raised against the preponderance of instruction in the classics and in favor of an education more suited to the needs of the time, especially for a more generous treatment of mathematics and the natural sciences.

In accepting your invitation to speak here on the relative educational value of the classical and the mathematico-physical sciences in colleges and high schools, I find my justification in the duty and the necessity laid upon every teacher of forming from his own experiences an opinion upon this important question, as partly also in the special circumstance that in my youth I was personally under the influence of school-life for only a short time, just previous to my entering the university, and had, therefore, ample opportunity to observe the effects of widely different methods upon my own person.

Passing now, to a review of the arguments which the advocates of instruction in the classics advance, and of what the adherents of instruction in the physical sciences in their turn adduce, we find ourselves in rather a perplexing position with respect to the arguments of the first named. For these have been different at different times, and they are even now of a very multifarious character, as must be where men advance, in favor of an institution that exists and which they are determined to retain at any cost, everything they can possibly think of. We shall find here much that has evidently been brought forward only to impress the minds of the ignorant; much, too, that was advanced in good faith and which is not wholly without foundation. We shall get a fair idea of the reasoning employed by considering, first, the arguments that have grown out of the historical circumstances connected with the original introduction of the classics, and, lastly, those which were subsequently adduced as accidental afterthoughts.

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Instruction in Latin, as Paulsen has minutely shown, was introduced by the Roman Church along with Christianity. With the Latin language were also transmitted the scant and meagre remnants of ancient science. Whoever wished to acquire this ancient education, then the only one worthy of the name, for him the Latin language was the only and indispensable means; such a person had to learn Latin to rank among educated people.

The wide-spread influence of the Roman Church wrought many and various results. Among those for which all are glad, we may safely count the establishment of a sort of uniformity among the nations and of a regular international intercourse by means of the Latin language, which did much to unite the nations in the common work of civilisation, carried on from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century. The Latin language was thus long the language of scholars, and instruction in Latin the road to a liberal education--a shibboleth still employed, though long inappropriate.

For scholars as a class, it is to be regretted, perhaps, that Latin has ceased to be the medium of international communication. But the attributing of the loss of this function by the Latin language to its incapacity to accommodate itself to the numerous new ideas and conceptions which have arisen in the course of the development of science is, in my opinion, wholly erroneous. It would be difficult to find a modern scientist who had enriched science with as many new ideas as Newton has, yet Newton knew how to express those ideas very correctly and precisely in the Latin language. If this view were correct, it would also hold true of every living language. Originally every language has to adapt itself to new ideas.

It is far more likely that Latin was displaced as the literary vehicle of science by the influence of the nobility. By their desire to enjoy the fruits of literature and science, through a less irksome medium than Latin, the nobility performed for the people at large an undeniable service. For the days were now past when acquaintance with the language and literature of science was restricted to a caste, and in this step, perhaps, was made the most important advance of modern times. To-day, when international intercourse is firmly established in spite of the many languages employed, no one would think of reintroducing Latin.

The facility with which the ancient languages lend themselves to the expression of new ideas is evidenced by the fact that the great majority of our scientific ideas, as survivals of this period of Latin intercourse, bear Latin and Greek designations, while in great measure scientific ideas are even now invested with names from these sources. But to deduce from the existence and use of such terms the necessity of still learning Latin and Greek on the part of all who employ them is carrying the conclusion too far. All terms, appropriate and inappropriate,--and there are a large number of inappropriate and monstrous combinations in science,--rest on convention. The essential thing is, that people should associate with the sign the precise idea that is designated by it. It matters little whether a person can correctly derive the words telegraph, tangent, ellipse, evolute, etc., if the correct idea is present in his mind when he uses them. On the other hand, no matter how well he may know their etymology, his knowledge will be of little use to him if the correct idea is absent. Ask the average and fairly educated classical scholar to translate a few lines for you from Newton's Principia, or from Huygens's Horologium, and you will discover at once what an extremely subordinate rôle the mere knowledge of language plays in such things. Without its associated thought a word remains a mere sound. The fashion of employing Greek and Latin designations--for it can be termed nothing else--has a natural root in history; it is impossible for the practice to disappear suddenly, but it has fallen of late considerably into disuse. The terms gas, ohm, Ampère, volt, etc., are in international use, but they are not Latin nor Greek. Only the person who rates the unessential and accidental husk higher than its contents, can speak of the necessity of learning Latin or Greek for such reasons, to say nothing of spending eight or ten years on the task. Will not a dictionary supply in a few seconds all the information we wish on such subjects?

It is indisputable that our modern civilisation took up the threads of the ancient civilisation, that at many points it begins where the latter left off, and that centuries ago the remains of the ancient culture were the only culture existing in Europe. Then, of course, a classical education really was the liberal education, the higher education, the ideal education, for it was the sole education. But when the same claim is now raised in behalf of a classical education, it must be uncompromisingly contested as bereft of all foundation. For our civilisation has gradually attained its independence; it has lifted itself far above the ancient civilisation, and has entered generally new directions of progress. Its note, its characteristic feature, is the enlightenment that has come from the great mathematical and physical researches of the last centuries, and which has permeated not only the practical arts and industries but is also gradually finding its way into all fields of thought, including philosophy and history, sociology and linguistics. Those traces of ancient views that are still discoverable in philosophy, law, art, and science, operate more as hindrances than helps, and will not long stand before the development of independent and more natural views.

It ill becomes classical scholars, therefore, to regard themselves, at this day, as the educated class par excellence, to condemn as uneducated all persons who do not understand Latin and Greek, to complain that with such people profitable conversations are not to be carried on, etc. The most delectable stories have got into circulation, illustrative of the defective education of scientists and engineers. A renowned inquirer, for example, is said to have once announced his intention of holding a free course of university lectures, with the word "frustra"; an engineer who spent his leisure hours in collecting insects is said to have declared that he was studying "etymology." It is true, incidents of this character make us shudder or smile, according to our mood or temperament. But we must admit, the next moment, that in giving way to such feelings we have merely succumbed to a childish prejudice. A lack of tact but certainly no lack of education is displayed in the use of such half-understood expressions. Every candid person will confess that there are many branches of knowledge about which he had better be silent. We shall not be so uncharitable as to turn the tables and discuss the impression that classical scholars might make on a scientist or engineer, in speaking of science. Possibly many ludicrous stories might be told of them, and of far more serious import, which should fully compensate for the blunders of the other party.

The mutual severity of judgment which we have here come upon, may also forcibly bring home to us how really scarce a true liberal culture is. We may detect in this mutual attitude, too, something of that narrow, mediæval arrogance of caste, where a man began, according to the special point of view of the speaker, with the scholar, the soldier, or the nobleman. Little sense or appreciation is to be found in it for the common task of humanity, little feeling for the need of mutual assistance in the great work of civilisation, little breadth of mind, little truly liberal culture.

A knowledge of Latin, and partly, also, a knowledge of Greek, is still a necessity for the members of a few professions by nature more or less directly concerned with the civilisations of antiquity, as for lawyers, theologians, philologists, historians, and generally for a small number of persons, among whom from time to time I count myself, who are compelled to seek for information in the Latin literature of the centuries just past. But that all young persons in search of a higher education should pursue for this reason Latin and Greek to such excess; that persons intending to become physicians and scientists should come to the universities defectively educated, or even miseducated; and that they should be compelled to come only from schools that do not supply them with the proper preparatory knowledge is going a little bit too far.

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After the conditions which had given to the study of Latin and Greek their high import had ceased to exist, the traditional curriculum, naturally, was retained. Then, the different effects of this method of education, good and bad, which no one had thought of at its introduction, were realised and noted. As natural, too, was it that those who had strong interests in the preservation of these studies, from knowing no others or from living by them, or for still other reasons, should emphasise the good results of such instruction. They pointed to the good effects as if they had been consciously aimed at by the method and could be attained only through its agency.

One real benefit that students might derive from a rightly conducted course in the classics would be the opening up of the rich literary treasures of antiquity, and intimacy with the conceptions and views of the world held by two advanced nations. A person who has read and understood the Greek and Roman authors has felt and experienced more than one who is restricted to the impressions of the present. He sees how men placed in different circumstances judge quite differently of the same things from what we do to-day. His own judgments will be rendered thus more independent. Again, the Greek and Latin authors are indisputably a rich fountain of recreation, of enlightenment, and of intellectual pleasure after the day's toil, and the individual, not less than civilised humanity generally, will remain grateful to them for all time. Who does not recall with pleasure the wanderings of Ulysses, who does not listen joyfully to the simple narratives of Herodotus, who would ever repent of having made the acquaintance of Plato's Dialogues, or of having tasted Lucian's divine humor? Who would give up the glances he has obtained into the private life of antiquity from Cicero's letters, from Plautus or Terence? To whom are not the portraits of Suetonius undying reminiscences? Who, in fact, would throw away any knowledge he had once gained?

Yet people who draw from these sources only, who know only this culture, have surely no right to dogmatise about the value of some other culture. As objects of research for individuals, this literature is extremely valuable, but it is a different question whether it is equally valuable as the almost exclusive means of education of our youth.

Do not other nations and other literatures exist from which we ought to learn? Is not nature herself our first school-mistress? Are our highest models always to be the Greeks, with their narrow provinciality of mind, that divided the world into "Greeks and barbarians," with their superstitions, with their eternal questioning of oracles? Aristotle with his incapacity to learn from facts, with his word-science; Plato with his heavy, interminable dialogues, with his barren, at times childish, dialectics--are they unsurpassable? The Romans with their apathy, their pompous externality, set off by fulsome and bombastic phrases, with their narrow-minded, philistine philosophy, with their frenzied sensuality, with their cruel and bestial indulgence in animal and man baiting, with their outrageous maltreatment and plundering of their subjects--are they patterns worthy of imitation? Or shall, perhaps, our science edify itself with the works of Pliny who cites midwives as authorities and himself stands on their point of view?

Besides, if an acquaintance with the ancient world really were attained, we might come to some settlement with the advocates of classical education. But it is words and forms, and forms and words only, that are supplied to our youth; and even collateral subjects are forced into the strait-jacket of the same rigid method and made a science of words, sheer feats of mechanical memory. Really, we feel ourselves set back a thousand years into the dull cloister-cells of the Middle Ages.

This must be changed. It is possible to get acquainted with the views of the Greeks and Romans by a shorter road than the intellect deadening process of eight or ten years of declining, conjugating, analysing, and extemporisation. There are to-day plenty of educated persons who have acquired through good translations vivider, clearer, and more just views of classical antiquity than the graduates of our gymnasiums and colleges.

For us moderns, the Greeks and the Romans are simply two objects of archæological and historical research like all others. If we put them before our youth in fresh and living pictures, and not merely in words and syllables, the effect will be assured. We derive a totally different enjoyment from the Greeks when we approach them after a study of the results of modern research in the history of civilisation. We read many a chapter of Herodotus differently when we attack his works equipped with a knowledge of natural science, and with information about the stone age and the lake-dwellers. What our classical institutions pretend to give can and actually will be given to our youth with much more fruitful results by competent historical instruction, which must supply, not names and numbers alone, nor the mere history of dynasties and wars, but be in every sense of the word a true history of civilisation.

The view still widely prevails that although all "higher, ideal culture," all extension of our view of the world, is acquired by philological and in a lesser degree by historical studies, still the mathematics and natural sciences should not be neglected on account of their usefulness. This is an opinion to which I must refuse my assent. It were strange if man could learn more, could draw more intellectual nourishment, from the shards of a few old broken jugs, from inscribed stones, or yellow parchments, than from all the rest of nature. True, man is man's first concern, but he is not his sole concern.

In ceasing to regard man as the centre of the world; in discovering that the earth is a top whirled about the sun, which speeds off with it into infinite space; in finding that in the fixed stars the same elements exist as on earth; in meeting everywhere the same processes of which the life of man is merely a vanishingly small part--in such things, too, is a widening of our view of the world, and edification, and poetry. There are here perhaps grander and more significant facts than the bellowing of the wounded Ares, or the charming island of Calypso, or the ocean-stream engirdling the earth. He only should speak of the relative value of these two domains of thought, of their poetry, who knows both.