whom 4,395 were boys; possibly nearly as many more were enrolled in Greek classes in college preparatory departments. On the most favorable showing we can hardly suppose that more than twelve or thirteen thousand boys of secondary rank are studying Greek in the United States at the present time. Seven students out of eight in secondary schools are now in public high schools. The percentage of graduates who make the high-school course preparatory to college has increased in the past decade.1 Recruits for theology should come chiefly from the colleges and the literary departments of the universities. The best men of college rank who are attracted to the ministry and have not had Greek in the preparatory school, having looked over the course of special training leading to the profession, generally conclude that they cannot meet the requirements of preparation in a reasonable time, and turn aside to other callings. Those who, without a classical training in earlier years, resolve in college to devote their lives to religious work, find themselves handicapped not only by lack of knowledge but by limitations in their vocabulary and in the ability to express themselves effectively. The secularizing of American education has put a greater handicap on preparation for theology than upon that for any other calling. To secure recruits of the right quality and sufficient number from the ranks of college men who have not had Greek is manifestly impracticable; and this aspect of the problem is complicated still further by the enrolment of so large a proportion of the college students of the country in state institutions. On the part of theological seminaries there has lately 1 The percentage of high-school graduates prepared for college was 30.28 in 1900, 35.55 in 1905, and 33.95 in 1910. been manifested a tendency to meet the situation by relaxing the requirements in Greek, if not also in Hebrew, for their students. With how great danger this alternative is fraught, not alone for the future of theological study but for the influence of the ministry, has been made clear by the papers already presented in this discussion. It is no less impracticable to think of restoring the conditions of study prevalent in the last century, and of offsetting by competition of private institutions the trend of the public high school away from the studies leading to theology. The only adequate remedy is that suggested by the situation. Greek must be restored to our public high schools; then the number of young men having Greek will be large enough to furnish a full quota to theological study. It is not necessary that a decision to study theology be reached in the period of secondary study. Let Greek be offered in our public schools by suitable teachers under such conditions that the pursuit of it will not be a handicap in completing a course for graduation, and enough students will take it to make a college constituency from which abundant recruits for theology can be chosen. The justification of the support of secondary as of other schools by taxation lies in the service that will be rendered to society by those who have received the benefits which they confer. If our secularized education fails to provide society with adequate leadership on the religious side, does not the remedy lie with the taxpayers? Do we not need a ministry, educated in the best sense of the word, as much as we need trained lawyers, physicians, and engineers? Surely no one would maintain that the moral and religious interests are less to be safeguarded than the material interests of society; else why is it agreed among reasonable men that church property should be exempt from taxation? If the situation is once understood, it will be righted. Teachers and school administrators as a class are religious men, and American communities are at heart not indifferent to the claims of religion. Let us suppose that in a given city the clergy and the teachers should unite in requesting that provision be made for Greek in the high school, even if the number pursuing the study should be below that fixed for the forming of classes in "practical" subjects; can we believe that the average board of education would resist the appeal? The amount of Greek that candidates for theology acquire after entering college or the theological school can never be made adequate without the sacrifice of other work of fundamental importance. The service which our institutions of secondary and collegiate education are rendering in return for their support will not be complete until there is such a readjustment as shall put the study of theology on as favorable a footing as other professional study. The first step in such a readjustment must be the introduction of the study of Greek more generally into the public high schools, a step which does not lack justification also on other grounds. V. CONCLUDING REMARKS PRESIDENT JAMES B. ANGELL, Chairman I have myself been inclined to attribute the decline in the number of candidates for the ministry primarily to the transition which our theology and our biblical criticism are now going through. Many a student who means to live a religious life is not sufficiently settled in his views of certain questions to dogmatize upon them as a preacher might be expected to do. I think, nevertheless, that there is ground for the thesis that the lack of training in Greek in so many schools prevents some men from inclining to study theology. I wish I felt more certain that the knowledge of that fact will lead school boards and private schools to reinstate instruction in Greek where it has been dropped. I am hoping that, when our churches have passed through the period of transition and have become fairly settled on some common ground, young men will not in so many cases as now hesitate about becoming preachers and pastors. They will then demand instruction in Greek as a matter of course. SYMPOSIUM V THE VALUE OF HUMANISTIC, PARTICULARLY CLASSICAL, STUDIES AS A TRAINING FOR MEN OF AFFAIRS I. LETTERS 1. FROM THE HONORABLE JAMES BRYCE It is matter of great regret to me that I cannot attend your Conference, for the longer I watch the currents that are now affecting the higher education, the more I lament the diminished attention that is today given to classical studies. Most people seem to think that a language no longer used by a nation as its daily speech is a dead language and has no value for the modern world. But the truth is that no language which enshrines a great literature and through which the thought of the past speaks to the thinkers of the present can ever die. Such a language is far more alive than those spoken languages which contain little worth reading. Now in the Greek and Roman writers we find much that is not only equal in intrinsic excellence to anything produced since, but much that is quickening and stimulating us just because it is ancient, because it carries us into regions of thought and belief which differ profoundly from those of modern times. I do not say that the classics will make a dull man bright, nor that a man ignorant of them may not display the highest literary or the highest practical gifts, as indeed many have done. Natural genius can overleap all deficiencies of training. But a mastery of the literature and history of the ancient world makes every one fitter to excel than he would have been without it, for it widens the horizon, it sets standards unlike our |