DEAD LANGUAGES?

A few years past the American educator could say of the classics, as President Coolidge did of the League, that they were a "dead issue". But significantly enough Latin and Greek have refused to accept this dictum. It is not, therefore, without a keen analysis of the trend of education that Viscont Finlay, former Lord Chancellor of England, upon assuming the Presidency of the Classical Association of Scotland, ventured the opinion that the tide of interest had turned in favor of the classics. That this phenonenon is not purely European is indicated by the increased enrolment in classical courses in American universities.

But the new interest in the literature of Rome and Athens differs fundamentally from the enforced interest of an earlier generation. The general abomination of prescribed Latin and Greek produced in part, at least, that revolt against the rigid college course from which emerged the elective system. Under President Eliot the principle was adopted that personal interest should determine the direction of undergraduate study. And the renaissance of Latin and Greek which appears imminent must result from the free play of this principle. There is certainly as much to induce a study of Latin in Cicero's orations, as there is to induce a study of German in "Die Geschichte Einer Geige."

Those who heard Professor Moore speak on Horace yesterday, in one of the series of lectures on the "Five Great Authors," will assuredly recognize in the Roman a human and lovable poet. To them the classics can hardly be "as dry as the remainder biscuit." With greater freedom of study for upperclassmen an interest aroused by such a series of lectures could easily be followed without detriment to concentration. Indeed, any revival of interest in classics when based upon their direct appeal to the undergraduate, is a happy solution of the dilemma which haunted educators of the last decade: knowledge of Latin and Greek is too valuable a heritage of civilization to be lost, but an enforced study destroys the "sweetness and light" of this ancient learning. It might prove Cassandra-like to herald a revival of the Viscount's assertion that "the case for making Latin the normal groundwork of a liberal education is overwhelming" is no longer resented as an unwarranted bit of pedagogy.