Excerpt from Conference on Classical Studies in Liberal Education, Held at Princeton University, Saturday, June 2, 1917: Six Opinions; Some Questions and Answers; Misleading Statistics

A cultural education must include the classics. It must not be based only on the classics. The Greek literature is one of the two noblest literatures in the world, the other being the English. Latin literature as such does not stand in the same rank with Greek; but it possesses an immense actual importance because the Latin civilization is the di rect ancestor of modern occidental civilization, and because the Latin tongue was for fifteen centuries the cultural tongue of Europe. With one or the other, and if possible with both of these two classic languages and literatures, every liberally educated man should be familiar. He should also be familiar with at least one of the great mod ern culture-languages, such as French, Italian, German, Spanish or Portugese, each of which has a noble literature. Every liberal course should also include a wide sweep of general history and pre-history also, for a liberal scholar should certam have vividly in mind the tremendous drama of man's progress through the ages. A competent knowledge of science must also be part of any really liberal education; but this does not mean the science taught in order to turn out a commercial chemist, an engineer or an electrician. It means that the man of liberal educationshould be a man who in addition to a broad classical train ing also possesses as broad a scientific training, that the primary facts of the universe in which we live are vivid in his mind and form an integral portion of his stock of knowledge. The man with such broad liberal training is perhaps not apt to be a technical expert in any special vo cation; for his training stands outside the most direct line to pecuniary reward. Yet he has a great place to fill, for he has been fitted to become a leader in public thought, and a true interpreter to the people of the development and meaning of our civilization in its most important aspects.

Of course all this does not mean failure to recognize the prime importance of vocational or trade training for the great majority. Technical education is essential to the work of the world. The vast development of education along technical lines meets an urgent public need. But there are other needs also. Man shall not live by bread alone. Certain institutions of higher learning ought to devote their attention to satisfying these other needs. It will be for the general welfare. In no other country is it so necessary as in ours to provide fully, for those who have the chance and desire to take it, broad and high liberal education, in which one essential element shall be classical training.

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