Conventionalism.
Inconsistency.
Learning and Ignorance.
The intensely conventional nature of these beliefs, both in France and England, may be proved by their inconsistency. It was laid down as a principle that a knowledge of ancient books through translations was not knowledge, yet at the same time the clergy, with very few exceptions, were dependent on translations for all they knew of the Old Testament, and few French laymen had Greek enough even to read the Gospels. In either country you may pass for a learned man though destitute of any critical or historical knowledge of the literature of your native tongue. One may be a learned Englishman without knowing Anglo-Saxon, or a learned Frenchman though ignorant of the langue d’oil.
Modern Tendencies.
Thoroughness of Modern Study.
Proposed Abandonment of the Classics. M. Raoul Frary.
Professor Seeley’s Proposal.
The close of the nineteenth century is marked by two tendencies that seem opposed yet are strictly consistent, being both the consequence of an increased desire for reality in education. One is a tendency to much greater thoroughness in classical studies themselves, and the other a tendency, every day more marked, to abandon those studies when true success is either not desired, or in the nature of things unattainable. The greater thoroughness of modern study is sufficiently proved by the better quality of the books which help the learner, and the most remarkable point in the apparently contradictory condition of the modern mind is that the age which has perfected all the instruments for classical study is the first age since the Renaissance to propose seriously its general, though not universal, abandonment. M. Raoul Frary, himself a scholar, has been so impressed by the present imperfection and incompleteness of classical studies that he has seriously proposed the abolition of Latin as a compulsory study for boys. “Only one thing,” he says, “could justify the crushing labour of beginning Latin, that would be the full possession and entire enjoyment of the ancient masterpieces, and that is precisely what is wanting to the crowd of students. They leave school too soon, and the later years are too much crowded with work to allow any time for reading.” For the same reason, the uselessness of partly learned Latin as an instrument of culture, Professor Seeley wisely proposes to defer the commencement of that study to the age of fourteen,[6] and spend the time so gained on English. Greek, I conclude, he would defer for two or three years longer. Not only M. Frary, but some other Frenchmen who appreciate Greek for themselves, would exclude it entirely from the lycées. “Amongst the young men,” he says, “who come out of our colleges, not one in ten is able to read even an easy Greek author, not one in a hundred will take the trouble. We will not discuss the question whether our youth ought to cease to learn Greek. They do not learn it, the question is settled by the fact.”
Opinion of Masters in French Lycées.