We are apt, in the firft place, to remember the immenfe benefits which the ftudy of the claffics once conferred on mankind; and to feel for thofe models on which the tafte of Europe has been formed, fomething like fentiments of gratitude and obligation. This is all well enough, fo long as it continues to be a mere feeling; but, as foon as it interferes with action, it nourifhes dangerous prejudices about education. Nothing will do in the purfuit of knowledge, but the blackeft ingratitude;-the mo ment we have got up the ladder, we muft kick it down ;-as foou as we have piffed over the bridge, we must let it rot;-when we have got upon the fhoulders of the antients, we must look over their heads. The man who forgets the friends of his childhood in real life, is bafe; but he who clings to the props of his childhood in literature, must be content to remain as ignorant as he wa when a child. His bufinefs is to forget, difown and deny-to think himself above every thing which has been of ufe to him in time paft -and to cultivate that exclufively from which he expects future advantage in fhort, to do every thing for the advancement of his knowledge, which it would be infamous to do for the advancement of his fortune. If mankind ftill derive advantage from claffical literature proportionate to the labour they beftow upon it, let their labour and their ftudy proceed; but the moment we ceafe to read Latin and Greek for the folid utility we derive from them, it would be a very romantic application of human talents to do fo from any feeling of gratitude, and recollection of paft fervice. was To almost every Englishman up to the age of three or four-andtwenty, claffical learning has been the great object of existence; and no man is very apt to fufpect, or very much pleased to hear, that what he has done for fo long a time was not worth doing. His claffical literature, too, reminds every man of the fcenes of his childhood, and brings to his fancy feveral of the most pleafing affociations which we are capable of forming. A certain fort of vanity, alfo, very naturally grows among men occupied in a common purfuit. Claffical quotations are the watchwords of scholars, by which they diftinguish each other from the ignorant and illiterate; and Greek and Latin are infenfibly become almoft the only teft of a cultivated mind. Some men through indolence, others through ignorance, and moft through neceflity, fubmit to the eftablifhed education of the times; and feek for their children that fpecies of diftinction which happens, at the period in which they live, to be stamped with the approbation of mankind. This mere quellion of convenience, every parent mult determine for himfelf. A poor man, who has his fortune to gain, must be a quibbling theologian, or a claffical pedant, as fashion dictates; and he must vary his error with the error error of the times. But it would be much more fortunate for mankind, if the public opinion, which regulates the purfuits of individuals, were more wife and enlightened than it at present is. All these confiderations make it extremely difficult to procure a candid hearing on this question; and to refer this branch of education to the only proper criterion of every branch of educationits utility in future life. There are two questions which grow out of this fubject; ift, How far is any fort of claffical education useful? 2d, How far is that particular claffical education, adopted in this country, ufeful? Latin and Greek are, in the first place, ufeful, as they inure children to intellectual difficulties, and make the life of a young student what it ought to be, a life of confiderable labour. We do not, of course, mean to confine this praife exclufively to the study of Latin and Greek; or to fuppofe that other difficulties might not be found which it would be useful to overcome: but though Latin and Greek have this merit in common with many arts and sciences, ftill they have it; and, if they do nothing elfe, they at least fecure a folid and vigorous application at a period of life which materially influences all other periods. To go through the grammar of one language thoroughly, is of great ufe for the mastery of every other grammar; because there obtains, through all languages, a certain analogy to each other in their grammatical conftruction. Latin and Greek have now mixed themselves etymologically with all the languages of modern Europe-and with none more than our own; fo that it is neceffary to read thefe two tongues for other objects than themselves. The two antient languages are as mere inventions-as pieces of mechanifm incomparably more beautiful than any of the modern languages of Europe: their mode of fignifying time and cafe by terminations, inftead of auxiliary verbs and particles, would of itfelf ftamp their fuperiority. Add to this, the copiousness of the Greek language, with the fancy, majefty and harmony of its compounds; and there are quite fufficient reafons why the claffics hould be ftudied for the beauties of language. Compared to them, merely as vehicles of thought and paffion, all modern languages are dull, ill contrived, and barbarous. That a great part of the Scriptures have come down to us in the Greek language, is of itself a reason, if all others were want-. ing, why education fhould be planned fo as to produce a fupply of Greek fcholars. The cultivation of style is very justly made a part of education. Every thing which is written is meant either to please or to inAruct. The fecond object it is difficult to effect, without attend ing to the first; and the cultivation of ftyle is the acquifition of thofe rules and literary habits which fagacity anticipates, or experience fhows to be the most effectual means of pleafing. Thofe works are the best which have longest stood the test of time, and pleafed the greateft number of exercised minds. Whatever, therefore, our conjectures may be, we cannot be fo fure that the best modern writers can afford us as good models as the antients;we cannot be certain that they will live through the revolutions of the world, and continue to please in every climate-under every fpecies of government-through every stage of civilization. The moderns have been well taught by their mafters; but the time is hardly yet come when the neceffity for fuch instruction no longer exifts. We may still borrow defcriptive power from Tacitus; dignified perfpicuity from Livy; fimplicity from Cæfar; and from Homer fome portion of that light and heat which, difperfed into ten thousand channels, has filled the world with bright images and illuftrious thoughts. Let the cultivator of modern literature addict himself to the purest models of tafte which France, Italy and England could fupply, he might ftill learn from Virgil to be majeftic, and from Tibullus to be tender: he might not yet look upon the face of nature as Theocritus faw it; nor might he reach thofe fprings of pathos with which Euripides foftened the hearts of his audience. In fhort, it appears to us, that there are fo many excellent reasons why a certain number of scholars should be kept up in this and in every civilized country, that we fhould confider every fyftem of education from which claffical education was exeluded, as radically erroneous, and completely abfurd. That vaft advantages, then, may be derived from claffical learning, there can be no doubt. The advantages which are derived from claffical learning by the English manner of teaching, involve another and a very different question; and we will venture to say, that there never was a more complete inftance in any country of fuch extravagant and overacted attachment to any branch of knowledge, as that which obtains in this country with regard to claffical knowledge. A young Englishman goes to school at fix or seven years old; and he remains in a courfe of education till twenty-three or twenty-four years of age. In all that time, his fole and exclufive occupation is learning Latin and Greek * he has scarcely a notion that there is any other kind of excellence; and the great fyftem of facts with which he is the most perfectly acquainted, are the intrigues of the Heathen Gods: with whom Pan flept ?-with whom * Unless he goes to the University of Cambridge; and then classics occupy him entirely for about ten years; and divide him with mathematics for four or five more. whom Jupiter?-whom Apollo ravifhed? Thefe facts the Englifh youth get by heart the moment they quit the nursery; and are moft feduloufly and induftrioufly inftructed in them till the best and most active part of life is paffed away. Now, this long career of claffical learning, we may, if we please, denominate a foundation; but it is a foundation fo far above ground, that there is abfolutely no room to put any thing upon it. If you occupy a man with one thing till he is twenty-four years of age, you have exhausted all his leifure time: he is called into the world, and compelled to act; or is furrounded with pleafures, and thinks and reads no more. If you have neglected to put other things in him, they will never get in afterwards;-if you have fed him only with words, he will remain a narrow and limited being to the end of his existence. The bias given to men's minds is fo ftrong, that it is no uncommon thing to meet with Englishmen, whom, but for their grey hairs and wrinkles, we might eafily mistake for schoolboys. Their talk is of Latin verfes; and it is quite clear, if men's ages are to be dated from the ftate of their mental progrefs, that fuch men are eighteen years of age, and not a day older. Their minds have been fo completely poffeffed by exaggerated notions of claffical learning, that they have not been able, in the great fchool of the world, to form any other notion of real greatnefs. Attend, too, to the public feelings-look to all the terms of applaufe. A learned man!-a fcholar!-a man of erudition! Up on whom are these epithets of approbation bestowed? Are they given to men acquainted with the fcience of government? thoroughly mafters of the geographical and commercial relations of Europe? to men who know the properties of bodies, and their action upon each other? No: this is not learning; it is chemistry, or political economy-not learning. The diftinguishing abftract term, the epithet of Scholar, is reserved for him who writes on the Colic reduplication, and is familiar with Sylburgius his method of arranging defectives in a and . The picture which a young Englishman, addicted to the pursuit of knowledge, draws-his beau ideal of human nature-his top and confummation of man's powers-is a knowledge of the Greek language. His object is not to reafon, to imagine, or to invent; but to conjugate, decline and derive. The fituations of imaginary glory which he draws for himfelf, are the detection of an anapælt in the wrong place, or the restoration of a dative cafe which Cranzius had paffed over, and the never dying Ernefti failed to obferve. If a young claffic of this kind were to meet the greatest chemist, or the greatest mechanician, or the moft profound political economift of his time, in company with the greatest Greek fcholar, would the flightest comparifen between them ever come acrofs his mind ?-would he ever dream dream that fuch men as Adam Smith and Lavoifier were equal in dignity of understanding to, or of the fame utility as, Bentley and Heyné? We are inclined to think, that the feeling excited would be a good deal like that which was expreffed by Dr George' about the praises of the great King of Pruffia, who entertained confiderable doubts whether the King, with all his victories, knew how to conjugate a Greek verb in . Another misfortune of classical learning, as taught in England, is, that scholars have come, in process of time, and from the effects of association, to love the instrument better than the end;— not the luxury which the difficulty encloses, but the difficulty; not the filbert, but the shell;-not what may be read in Greek, but Greek itself. It is not so much the man who has mastered the wisdom of the antients, that is valued, as he who displays his knowledge of the vehicle in which that wisdom is conveyed. The glory is to show I am a scholar. The good sense and ingenuity I may gain by my acquaintance with antient authors, is matter of opinion; but if I bestow an immensity of pains upon a point of accent or quantity, this is something positive: I establish my pretensions to the name of Scholar, and gain the credit of learning, while I sacrifice all its utility. be Another evil in the present system of classical education, is the extraordinary perfection which is aimed at in teaching those languages; a needless perfection; an accuracy which is sought for in nothing else. There are few boys who remain to the age of eighteen or nineteen at a public school, without making above. ten thousand Latin verses;-a greater number than is contained in the Æneid: and after he has made this quantity of verses in a dead language, unless the poet should happen to be a very weak. man indeed, he never makes another as long as he lives. It may urged, and it is urged, that this is of use in teaching the delicacies of the language. No doubt it is of use for this purpose, if we put out of view the immense time and trouble sacrificed in gaining these little delicacies. It would be of use that we should go on till fifty years of age making Latin verses, if the price of a whole life were not too much to pay for it. We effect our object; but we do it at the price of something greater than our object. And whence comes it, that the expenditure of life and labour is totally put out of the calculation, when Latin and Greek are to be attained? În every other occupation, the question is fairly stated between the attainment, and the time employed in the pursuit ;-but, in classical learning, it seems to be sufficient if the least possible good is gained by the greatest possible exertion; if the end is any thing, and the means every thing. It is of some importance to speak and write French; and innumerable delicacies would be gained by writing |