Forward Practicality

The decision of Yale University to drop Latin and Greek from the list of subjects required for an undergraduate degree is neither surprising nor a new departure in modern education. It merely points to the trend which university education is taking; it is another step in the direction of education--of the most practical and "worth-while" sort--for everybody. The modern young business man, we are told, who has taken four extra years out of his life to get himself educated desires to study subjects that will be useful to him in the cement business, in the manufacture of washing machines, in personnel management or building subways. Latin and Greek, either by a knowledge of the languages themselves or a complete familiarity with classical culture, are of no more use to him as working tools in the pursuit of any of these occupations than are Sanskrit, the differential calculus, or a good course in rentgenology.

For centuries school children have struggled with Caesar's account of his campaign in Gaul without either being able to tell a coherent story of what was Lappening or being in the least aware that what they read was one of the finest and most stirring reports of a soldier on his military activities that has ever been written.

It has been said in defense of the Yale action that now the classics will "stand on their own feet." It might have been added that first they must find foot to stand on. There was indeed a glory in Greece and a grandeur in Rome. But this glory and this grandeur have been hidden under a dead weight of Greek and Latin grammar. If we may suppose that some day a method will be found of imparting an agility in the use of these languages, with at the same time a just and unsentimental appreciation of the cultures they represent, there will be rejoicing among a certain small class of university students. --The Nation.