CLASSICS IN SCHOOLS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3024, 10 March 1917, Page 10

CLASSICS IN SCHOOLS

LORD BRYCE ON THE TRIE AIM OF EDUCATION WHERE GERMANY FAILS In his address as president of the Classical Association at Leeds recently, Lord Bryco spoke on the worth of ancient literature for the- modern world. That tho study of Greek and Latin languages should be disparaged, he said, need cause no surprise. The most striking feature in the economic changes of the last seventy or eighty years had been the immense development of industrial production by the application, of scientific discovery. That had been accompanied by a great deal more employment, and by the growth of gigantic fortunes. Thus there had been created an association which had taken deep root between the knowledge of applied science and material prosperity. This association had led the average man to beliove that the knowledge of letters was of littlo value,. because it . did not givo increased employment or wealth, but that a knowledge of such, subjects as chemistry and electricity did promise an increase of wealth to tho community and to the individual. "Lot us frankly admit that a reactiou against the old despotism of a purely grammatical study of the ancient languages and authors was long overdue. He thought the time had come when we should effect a strategic retirement, arid entrench in a position which could not bo stormed." ' (Laughter and' cheers.) No Conflict With Science. "The conflict," said Lord Bryco, "is not between letters and- science, but between a large and philosophic conception of the aims of education, and the material, even vulgar, view which looks only to immediate practical results and confounds pecuniary with educational values. "There ie at least one other-, nation which surpasses us in tho knowledge which it has accumulated and in tho industry with which it adds to the etock of its knowledge; but that nation, has shown, however, both in literature and in action, that it does not always know how to uslvifj knowledge. (Hear, hoar.) It thinks harder, perhaps, than wo do, but its thought lacks imagina- , tion, insight, and sympathy, and, therefore, it has sometimes seen falsely and erred fatally. It is in worse plight than we are, for these faults lie deep down, whereas ours are nearer tho surface, and can be more easily corrected." ■; Tho real problem to-day for the Universities -was to find some method by which classical study, while dropped for those who would never make much of it, might be retained for that portion, perhaps from 20 to 30 per cent., of.the students who would .draw sufficient mental stimulus and nourishment from it to make it a real factor in their intellectual growth and a spring of enjoyment through the rest of life. The influences of the epio in tho Homeric age, the lyric in the great days that began from Archilochus, the drama from Aeschylus onwards, these were still living influences, this was a fountain that still flowed for those who drew near to quaff its crystal waters.