Greek Poetry and Architecture.
Some school historians and teachers decry the effort to mingle with the political history any study of Greek art. But to the writer’s mind that would be a robbery of the children. Our modern life is so saturated with things almost purely Greek in origin that our budding citizens, who may never get elsewhere a glimpse of the origins of so much that is beautiful, ought surely to get such glimpses now.
In towns large enough to contain varied examples the teacher can show the Doric, Ionic and Corinthian styles by going with his classes to the buildings illustrative of each, or at least by telling where such may be found. In the smaller towns pictures of famous buildings may be used. (Remember that the dome is not Greek, but Roman.) In like manner the poetry of the Greeks may be used. The epic, the elegy, the lyric and their great exemplars call for mention. The drama comes a little later. Meter appears to have been of Greek origin. Some of its distinctions are worth a few minutes. And here is opportunity for correlation with the work in English literature. Our poetic forms go back to the people we are studying now. A recent writer makes the caustic comment that with most teachers correlation is “a poor relation.” Rightly viewed, it would appear that no subject better than history furnishes the opportunity for side lights on other branches of the student’s work. For here we get the beginnings of so many things that are commonplaces with us. But they were new once, and so many of the choicest of them had their birth in the little land and among the wonderful people of our present study.