It is almost thirty years since Professor D'Ooge gave me my entrance examination in Latin and Greek. I liked classical study, and for that reason, and for no other, I have continued to read the classics ever since; without pursuing any systematic course, I have, I think, in every year since I left college, and in most of the months of every year, read more or less Greek and some Latin.

In this connection I wish to record a doubt as to the advisability of casting aside classical studies at so early a stage in the college course as seemed to be suggested by Dean Hutchins. You can get the discipline by the end of the Freshman year; but unless you have much better preparation in Latin and Greek than it was my lot to have, no man who has finished his Freshman year has gotten or is able to get the cream of what is to be had from the study of these languages. You must be able to read at sight-you must be independent of Liddell and Scott; and such a command, of Greek at least, cannot be acquired without a longer preparation. The ability to read Greek and Latin at sight has, in my estimation, a value aside from the disciplinary for professional purposes: in that way, and in that way only, can one get the close and intimate knowledge of literature, which after all is most essential. I dismiss consideration of the disciplinary effect, for that is common to all studies involving hard intellectual labor.

Fundamental in the work of the lawyer is the investigation of truth. This investigation he carries on under great disadvantages, because his material is the infinite multitude of facts of human life continually shifting and changing, imperfectly understood at the best, being subject to continual modifications. He can carry on no exact experimentation in his work, and the instrument of his

investigation is language considered as a vehicle for the exact expression of thought. I know that it is commonly thought that the lawyer is not primarily concerned with the investigation of truth, but rather with the success of a particular cause or interest; I had that opinion myself when I began practicing, but any professional man who is worth his salt, if he ever held that opinion, changes it before he achieves substantial success. Primarily the interest of the lawyer is the interest of his client, but every lawyer who attains any great measure of success comes to realize that he best fulfils his professional duty who serves his client with full recognition of his higher allegiance to the truth.

For the purposes of this investigation he must learn to pick out from the mass of circumstances, relevant and irrelevant, essential and unessential, the controlling facts. He must learn to see them clearly, and to perceive them in all their relations and bearings uninfluenced by imagination or by sympathy, but making due allowance for the effect of imagination and sympathy upon others. A prime characteristic of the classical literature, and particularly the Greek, is an ever-present sense of measure and proportion, clear perception of the idea in mind and adequate expression of it, a perfect command of all the resources of expression and of all the powers of the mind, so that no one either dominates or is dominated by another. The study of such literature to the point which I have suggested, when you can really sense it without looking through the pages of the dictionary, will give, as I think, better than anything else can give, the ability essential for professional success. In this connection it has been suggested that Latin is of more importance than Greek. With that point of view I cannot agree;

for the purposes I have indicated, Greek seems to me to be more valuable than Latin.

As social relations become more complex and the huge accumulation of material resources and of the apparatus of material civilization grows ever greater, so grows the difficulty of attaining real knowledge and mastery, and so grows the need of it. And so also, the importance of the profession of the law increases as an interpreting and co-ordinating power. And so, too, grows the necessity of a sound method of classical training for those who would discharge the full measure of service that the profession owes to society.

VI. CONCLUDING REMARKS

THE CHAIRMAN, HON. LEVI L. BARBOUR Of the Detroit Bar, Regent of the University of Michigan Aside from the point of view of the professions, the value of the humanistic studies as making life worth living ought to be emphasized. These studies are of more value than any others for the character which they give to life.

In this country we have made a very grave mistake in reducing the requirements for the bachelor of arts degree so that almost any study, or a half-dozen miscellaneous studies pursued, as the student may desire, will entitle him to this degree; that is, to a reputation for knowing something which he does not know, and of having earned something that he has not earned. I should like to go back to the old condition of things, when the degree of bachelor of arts meant classical education.

SYMPOSIUM IV

THE VALUE OF HUMANISTIC,

PARTICULARLY CLASSICAL,

STUDIES AS A PREPARATION FOR THE STUDY

OF THEOLOGY

I. THE PLACE OF GREEK AND LATIN IN THE PREP-
ARATION FOR THE MINISTRY

WILLIAM DOUGLAS MACKENZIE, D.D., LL.D.
President of Hartford Theological Seminary

I count it a matter of great importance that this Conference has been invited to discuss the question how the study of Greek and Latin is related to preparation for the Christian ministry. It is true that indeed the classical department in our schools and colleges deeply affects the whole character and level, the tone and quality of the general education of our people; for it is still held by a very large number of men whose opinion we cannot afford to ignore, that ultimately the best culture of any modern nation must rest upon the basis of Greek and Latin history and literature. Apart from that wide topic, it must be confessed that the study of these subjects has a direct relation to the leading professions which is of the utmost importance to the dignity and power of those professions. But, above all, as we shall see, the relation of Greek and Latin to the Christian ministry is so intimate and so organic that it is no exaggeration to assert that the way in which it is measured and handled by the colleges and seminaries will practically settle the future intellectual influence of the Christian pulpit.

We cannot therefore discuss our subject adequately without asking ourselves, first of all, What is the function

of the ministry? There are those who maintain that it is possible to carry on the ministry of the gospel without a classical training, and in proof of this position they are able to name many persons who have occupied and occupy prominent positions as Christian preachers, and who have brought many souls into the Christian experience, who are entirely innocent of Latin and Greek. It must be admitted quite frankly that for the specific work of evangelism such a training cannot be proved to be essential. We must also recognize that many very useful pastorates have been carried on by men without that kind and level of education. But we must be all the more careful, when these facts have been admitted, to realize what relation the ministry sustains to the life of the church as a whole, and, through that, to the general life and culture of the entire nation. For religion is no mere secluded section of human life. It rises and it lives, it fights its battles and wins or loses them in close contact and struggle with all the other forces and institutions of a civilized life. It does not continue its existence and influence by mere spontaneity. It requires and demands the exercise of the highest functions of human nature, of imagination as well as faith, of the disciplined mind as well as the purified heart. As truly as it demands the secret agonies of repentance, it demands also the outward glories of public worship and the concrete burdens of human service. Religion never will come to its own unless it leads all the other interests and forces of civilized man. It is all or nothing, it is supreme or least among the complex conditions of human experience. It carries in its life and heart absolute authority, or its voice is a mockery and its claims a superstition.

The Christian religion maintains its life through the