George P. Marsh, in his lectures on the English language, thus speaks: “Let me repeat, that so far from dissuading from the study of Greek, as a branch of general education, I do but echo the universal opinion of all persons competent to pronounce on the subject, in expressing my own conviction that the language and literature of ancient Greece constitute the most efficient instrument of mental training ever enjoyed by man: and that a familiarity with that wonderful speech, its poetry, its philosophy, its eloquence, and the history it embalms, is incomparably the most valuable of intellectual possessions.” Such testimony from so eminent a scholar, and from so critical a mind is decisive in regard to the value of the study of Greek as a discipline, as well as in respect to the richness of the literature which it contains.
In the field of art we admit that he who would be great must study the great models, and be directed by competent masters. Even a Raphael owes something of his high renown to the patient diligence with which he studied the best pieces of his master Pietro Vanucci, the most noted artist of his day. So he who aspires to become a master in the expression of thought will wisely seek the masterpieces of those who have embalmed great thought in the most finished and excellent language. That the writers of Greece are preëminently the writers who have done this as profound and widely read a linguist as Max Müller testifies. He says: “What the inhabitants of the small city of Athens achieved in philosophy, in poetry, in art, in science, in politics, is known to all of us; and our admiration for them increases tenfold if, by a study of other literatures, such as the literatures of India, Persia, and China, we are enabled to compare their achievements with those of other nations of antiquity. The rudiments of almost everything, with the exception of religion, we, the people of Europe, the heirs to a fortune accumulated during twenty or thirty centuries of intellectual toil, owe to the Greeks; and strange as it may sound, but few, I think would gainsay it, that to the present day the achievements of these, our distant ancestors and earliest masters, the songs of Homer, the dialogues of Plato, the speeches of Demosthenes, and the statues of Phidias, stand, if not unrivalled, at least unsurpassed by anything that has been achieved by their descendants and pupils. Like their own goddess, Athene, the people of Athens seem to spring full armed into the arena of history; and we look in vain to Egypt, Syria, or India for more than a few of the seeds that burst into such marvellous growth on the soil of Attica.”
He belittles human nature who thinks the practical value of commercial arithmetic to be greater than such a mastery of language as shall enable one to express himself correctly in his own tongue. To study an instrument for the expression of thought, so wonderfully flexible, so admirably exact, so widely comprehensive, so astonishingly strong, is to the student of his native tongue what training in a great international exposition of machinery, like that exhibited in Philadelphia in our centennial year, would be to a bright young mechanic, a schooling of incalculable worth. What an insight it gives into the subtle changes in the forms of words; what a comprehension of the root meanings of words, what an idea of the power of arrangement in words, what a conception of the music and beauty in the sounds of words.
Coleridge has admirably characterized the excellence of this queen of languages: “Greek—the shrine of the genius of the old world, as universal as our race; as individual as ourselves; of infinite flexibility; of indefatigable strength; with the complication and distinctness of Nature herself; with words like pictures; with words like the gossamer film of summer, at once the variety and picturesqueness of Homer; the gloom and intensity of Æschylus; not compressed to the closest by Thucydides, nor fathomed to the bottom by Plato; not sounding with all its thunders nor lit up with all its ardors under the Promethean touch of Demosthenes.” The thorough drill of a competent teacher in introducing the student to the Greek tongue, is a most valuable discipline to the memory; the acquisition of multitudes of roots and affixes is of high importance to a full comprehension of the meaning of words in our own language, the exercise of the judgment in distinguishing words of like or of opposite meanings, the fine force of the particles of the language, and the delicate shades of thought given by variation in mode or tense, has far higher value as a broad training of that faculty than the most thorough mathematical discipline.
The improved methods of instruction have removed the old objection that it takes a lifetime to acquire the language. The objection applies as much to music, or even to a single kind of music: it takes a lifetime to become perfect master of the violin.
[THE UGLY MAN.]
I was the youngest but one of a large family, of whom the daughters were remarkable for their personal beauty, while the sons, of whom I was the last, graduated in plainness that was all but repulsive. This peculiarity, by which the beauty was given to the girls and the plainness to the boys, had been in the family for generations; and, both in uncles and aunts and cousins of either sex, is still discernible at the time I write.
But that which, in my own case, made this personal deformity an additional misfortune, was the fact, that, along with my ugliness, I had inherited a most sensitive disposition. And as there are never wanting persons to speak of a child’s deficiencies even in its very presence, I soon became aware of my defects. Not being precocious, I was looked upon as more stupid than I was in fact; while the real ability I possessed was altogether unsuspected. Often indeed the gibes and jeers of my beautiful sisters, and the rough remarks of my less ugly brothers, cut my childish soul to the quick. My small, flat, squab nose was in everybody’s mouth. I was told of it twenty times a day. Whoever wanted something to do, found instant employment in twitting me on the subject of this unlucky feature. I was never allowed to forget it; and often have I stood in the midst of a circle roaring with laughter at my expense. The natural result followed: from being naturally over-sensitive, I became only too keenly alive to the supposed opinions of others. In church I sat with my head rigidly fixed on my shoulders, turning myself neither to the right hand nor to the left, lest the persons behind me should catch a glimpse of my unlovely profile. I looked straight before me like an arrow; and on leaving my seat, as I went down the aisle and had to face my enemies and critics, I would hold my cap up to my eyes, and endeavor to pass demurely by, with nose unobserved.
Nor was my poor little nose my only cause of annoyance, for my face was large and splay, my complexion was muddy and pale, and the color of my eyes was a washed-out green. The space too between my nose and upper lip was long and protuberant, and my lips themselves were in full bloom like those of a negro. Indeed, the only thing in my favor, as regards personal appearance, was my hair, which was of a glossy auburn, and curled naturally in profusion. But this, my only redeeming feature, I was unacquainted with at the time. In my ignorance (for though often told of my faults, I never, as a child, heard myself praised), I even looked upon this propensity in my hair to curl as a positive misfortune, inasmuch as my friends informed me that it always appeared unkempt and wild, and therefore I naturally thought it an addition to my defects. Oh, how I envied the oiled and trim locks of my companions, which showed no such erratic tendency as mine; and in the agony of my mind I often had recourse to the hairdresser, who, at my directions, cut off close each offending curl, and sent me home shorn. But, alas! my triumph was but short. Sisters and brothers crowded round me soon, and proclaimed that my large inanimate face only looked larger and more inanimate still; while aunts and mother dismissed me from their presence with the observation that I was now a perfect fright.