Excerpt from The Worth of Ancient Literature to the Modern World

Hat the study Of the Greek and Latin languages should be now disparaged need cause no surprise, for a' reaction against the undue predominance they enjoyed in education a century ago was long overdue. What is remarkable is that the disposition to disparage them and exalt another Class of subjects has laid hold of certain sections of the population which were not wont to interest themselves in educational matters, but used to take submissively whatever instruction was given them. It is a remarkable fact; but_ though remarkable, it is not hard to explain. The most striking feature in the economic Changes of the last eighty years has been the immense development Of industrial production by the application thereto Of discoveries in the sphere Of natural science. Employment has been provided for an enormous mimber Of workers, and enormous fortunes have been accumulated by those employers who had the foresight or the luck to embark capital in the new forms of manufacture. Thus there has been created in the popular mind an association, now pretty deeply rooted, between the knowledge Of applied science and material prosperity. It is this association of ideas, rather than any pride in the achievements of the human intellect by the unveiling Of the secrets of Nature and the setting of her forces at work in the ser vice of man, that has made a knowledge of physical science seem so supremely important to large Classes that never before thought about education or tried to estimate the respective value of the various studies needed to train the intelligence and form the Character. TO put the point in the crudest way, the average man sees, This paper originally appeared in the Fortnightly Review, April, 1917, and is reprinted with the courteous permission of its author and of the editor of the Fortnightly Review. Or thinks he sees, that the difiusion of a knowledge of languages, literature, and history does not seem to promise an increase Of riches either to the nation or to the persons who possess that knowl edge, while he does see, or thinks he sees, that from a knowledge of mechanics or chemistry or electricity such an increase may be expected both to the community and to the persons engaged in the industries dependent on those sciences. This average man ac cordingly concludes that the former or the literary kinds of knowl edge have, both for the individual and for the community, far less value than have the latter, i.e., the scientific.

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