[A volume has recently appeared under the title of The Value of the Classics, in which “three hundred competent observers, representing the leading interests of modern life” in America, and including three living Presidents of the United States—Wilson, Taft, and Roosevelt—testify their conviction that classical studies are of essential value in the best type of liberal education.]
O ye Humanists half-hearted, now reluctantly resigned
To concede the claim of Science to control the youthful mind,
Once again cry Sursum corda—reinforcement comes at last
From an unexpected quarter in a wondrous counter-blast.
If there is a modern country which effete tradition hates,
Surely ’tis the Great Republic known as the United States,
Home of hustlers and of boosters, home of energy and “vim,”
Filled with innovating notions bubbling over at the brim.
Nowhere else can we discover, though we closely scan the map,