VERGIL IN WALL STREET

Questions as to the value of purely cultural college courses are being raised more often than ever of late; for in these times when technically-trained specialists are finding but few positions and men from liberal-arts colleges are driven to selling bath-brushes from door to door, reassuring words regarding the practical value of the classics are apt to be welcome. The last "Transcript" carries the story of Professor Julian Taylor, who has taught Latin at Colby continuously for sixty-three years. A scholar of the old sort who has been to a remarkable degree a friend of four thousand alumni now living, he reiterates the encouraging arguments that most men hear when they first begin to struggle with Latin in preparatory school. In his catchphrase, "If you would succeed in the stock market, study Latin," Professor Taylor expresses his belief that "knowledge is not power; judgment is power . . . Latin helps you in guessing."

However true this may be, the attempt to relate the study of Latin so definitely to success in the stock market seems ill-advised when he says, "I use the same methods in selecting stocks that I do in translating Latin." It is true that luck has been with the kindly professor in the investment of his slender salaries of many years, and that now he is a millionaire; but perhaps the credit should go as much to a shrewd head as to Latin. For when dog-eared copies of "The Magazine of Wall Street" and "The Classical Journal" fraternize on the professor's library table, who can say which should rest on top?