[38] Bennett and Bristol, “The Teaching of Latin and Greek,” pp. 11–32, Longmans, Green & Co., New York, 1900.
[39] Russell, “German Higher Schools,” Longmans, Green & Co., New York, 1899.
[40] Hinsdale, “Studies in Education,” pp. 46–61, Werner School Book Co., Chicago, 1896.
[280.] Pedagogically considered, every difference in the degree of vivid realization of antiquity, in the degree of its correlation with other main departments of knowledge, and in the extent to which a disagreeable aftertaste of school-day drudgery is prevented, determines the greater or smaller value to be ascribed to the knowledge acquired. If the same realization could be secured without the ancient languages and without the potency of early impressions, then the studies mentioned in preceding chapters, which outline the work of burgher schools, would leave nothing further to be desired; and the study of the ancient languages in gymnasia would be a necessary evil, highly as their incidental advantages are usually extolled.
[281.] But languages alone give to a boy a picture neither of bygone ages nor of men of the past; to him they are solely troublesome tasks imposed by the teacher. Nor can golden maxims, fables, and short narratives change his attitude. For even if these are well suited to the youthful mind, they do not materially offset the aversion to the work on stems, which have to be memorized; inflections, which must be practised; and conjunctions, which are required for guidance in the study of periods.
Ancient history ([243], [246]) is the only possible groundwork for the pedagogical treatment of the ancient languages.
[282.] Now it is true that if Latin is begun first, Eutropius and Cornelius Nepos suggest themselves as suitable authors for study, as soon as the merest rudiments of Latin have been learned in connection with instruction in the mother-tongue ([277]). And their use is not to be entirely condemned, provided the teacher takes it upon himself to make the past present through narration. But, as is well known, these authors are after all very meagre, and, besides, where to look for a path beyond them still remains an open question.
[283.] The reasons which accord to Homer’s “Odyssey” the preference for early use are familiar.[41] They are patent to every one who attentively reads the “Odyssey” with constant reference to the various main classes of interest which teaching is to awaken ([83]–[94]). But the question involved is not merely one of immediate effect, but also of finding points of departure for the later stages of instruction. There can be no better preparation for ancient history than to establish an interest in ancient Greece by means of the Homeric story. At the same time, the soil is being made ready for the cultivation of taste, and for language study.
To reasons of this kind, derived directly from the chief aim of all teaching and opposed only by tradition (the conventional doing of the classics), the philologists will have to listen some time, if they are not willing that, with the growing importance of history and of the natural sciences, and with the increasing pressure of material interests, the study of Greek in schools should be pushed into a corner and suffer a reduction similar to that which has already taken place in the case of Hebrew. (A few decades ago Greek came very near being remitted for all but those intending to study theology.)
Of course, the “Odyssey” possesses no miraculous power to inspire those who have no talent whatever for language studies or do not take them seriously; nevertheless, as many years of experience have shown, it surpasses every other work of antiquity that might be selected in definite pedagogical effect. Moreover, its study does not preclude an early commencement of Latin (nor even of Greek, where that seems necessary); only Latin cannot be pushed with the customary rapidity at the same time; for the “Odyssey” requires an hour daily, and grammatical and lexicological work besides.