THE CLASSICS AT HARVARD

It is remarkable that in a college where modern literatures are so eagerly studied, so little attention should be paid to those of Greece and Rome. This neglect is partly due to the worthless utilitarian protest that we should study only things which we can sensibly use in our life, and partly because of the undergraduate belief that in Harvard the study of the classics is not made worth while.

We acknowledge that, in the past; courses in Greek and in Roman literature have been sacrificed to men who intended to teach. Interest has been centred not on thought or method of expression, but on classification of verb forms or irregularities of syntax. A knowledge of the latter is no doubt necessary for appreciation: we must note the peculiar subjunctive or optative to get the peculiar shade of meaning; but we do not gain anything by regarding the peculiar form as a curiosity to be catalogued, as the entomologist catalogues a rare insect. Greek and Latin are not word-puzzles but real languages, and we should think that the teacher could better expound his subject who exemplified this belief.

We think that the Department of the Classics has realized its former shortcomings and is endeavoring, in its courses on literature, to substitute personal, historical, and literary interest for grammar and exegesis. In this effort much depends on the instructors, some of whom make even interesting courses dull, while others are most fortunate in the presentation of their subjects; nothing, for instance, could be more delightful than Professor Rand's exposition of Horace. We hope that men who wish to take the word-puzzle view of the classics will be relegated to courses of their own, and that all the courses in these ancient literatures will become, as many of them now are, an inducement to men to return to the fountains of our own greatest thoughts.