A CLASSICAL OPTION

The Faculty, in making the new changes in the modern language, requirements, have acted wisely and well. By permitting the substitution of a reading knowledge of Latin for an elementary knowledge of either French or German, they have given the student a choice of two out of three languages.

The undergraduate is no longer obliged to take up the study of both French and German. Similarly a continued study of Latin in the preparatory schools will be encouraged, whereas the Latin requirement for the Bachelor of Arts degree has often been the only inducement. The present innovation restores Latin to a par with French and German. The student is free to select the two languages which he feels will be of most use to him; at the same time he is not necessarily forced to acquire a hasty and impermanent acquaintance with a language in which he has little interest.

To great cultures, languages are the best means of approach. They are valuable tools, and the knowledge of their proper use is not acquired by slipshod translation and hastily prepared exercises which so often characterize the work of the student who takes French A or German A against his will. The old ruling tended to make a man contented with a reading knowledge of one and a merely elementary knowledge of the other. He is now free to substitute Latin; and if he does, he has gained a serviceable knowledge of two languages a real improvement upon the old requirement.