Three Phi Beta Kappa Addresses; A College Fetich, 1883 Shall Cromwell Have a Statue? 1902 Some Modern College Tendencies, 1906 (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: man; he who has not done so is only a self-taught man. Not to have studied Latin, irrespective of any present ability to read it, is accounted a thing to be ashamed of; to be unable to speak French is merely an inconvenience. I submit that it is high time this superstition should come to an end. I do not profess to speak with authority, but I have certainly mixed somewhat with the world, its labors and its literatures, through a third of a century, and in many lands; and I am free to say, that, whether viewed as a thing of use, as an accomplishment, as a source of pleasure, or as a mental training, I would rather myself be familiar with the German tongue and its literature than be equally familiar with the Greek. I would unhesitatingly make the same choice for my child. What I have said of German as compared with Greek, I will also say of French as compared with Latin. On this last point I have no question. Authority and superstition apart, I am indeed unable to see how an intelligent man, having any considerable acquaintance with the two literatures, can, as respects either richness or beauty, compare the Latin with the French; while as a worldly accomplishment, were it not for fetich-worship, in these days of universal travel the man would be properly regarded as out of his mind who preferred to be able to read the odes of Horace, rather than to feel at home in the accepted neutral language of all refined society. This view of the case is not yet taken by the colleges. The slaves of custom and established mode, With pack-horse constancy we keep the road, Crooked or straight, through quags or thorny dells, True to the jingling of our leader's bells. And yet I am practical and of this world enough tobelieve, that in a utilitarian and scientific age the living will not ...