CHAPTER XXXII.
GREECE—THE WORLD'S TEACHER.
Nothing so impresses the visitor to Greece—not the waters of the Ægean sea, with their myriad hues; not the Acropolis, eloquent with ruins; not even the lovely site of Athens itself—as the part which little Greece has played in the instruction of the world. With an area of less than twenty-five thousand square miles, not half of which is productive, and with a population of less than two and a half millions, this diminutive nation has a history without a parallel.
There is scarcely a department of thought in which Greece has not been the pioneer, and in many things she has set an example which subsequent generations have but imperfectly followed. If in Egypt one is awed by the evidences of antiquity; if in Palestine he is made reverent by the spiritual association connected with Judea, Galilee and Samaria; in Greece he bows with profound respect to the mighty influence exerted by this single people upon civilization.
The signs along the streets recall the alphabet with which the student of the classics struggles when he takes up the dead languages—and yet, the Greek language can hardly be called dead, for while it is the spoken tongue of but a comparatively small number, it has found a glorious resurrection in nearly all the languages of Europe. In fact, it has so many merits that we are constantly complimenting it by returning to it for the nomenclature of philosophy, science and art.
Of those who still speak the language of Herodotus, Homer, Socrates and Demosthenes, a majority live outside of Greece, for the Greek colonies planted around the eastern end of the Mediterranean form a considerable, as well as an influential, portion of the population. Greek colonization, by the way, was of an enduring kind. Those who went out into distant fields did not go as individual bees (official or commercial) to gather honey and return with it to the parent hive; they went out rather in swarms to found cities, develop countries and establish new centers for the spread of Greek influence. They identified themselves with the land to which they went; they became an integral part of the population, and, by virtue of their inherent superiority, they gradually substituted the language, the ideas, and the customs of their native land for those which they found. So securely did they build that neither the Roman nor the Turk was able to obliterate their work. The people bowed before the storm, but continued Greek, and to-day in Alexandria, Asia Minor and Constantinople, Hellenic influence is still felt.
