The Study of Latin in the Preparatory Course (Classic Reprint)

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Excerpt from The Study of Latin in the Preparatory Course E'rst, those who desire to see the classics retaining their place must face the fact that the literary spirit of fifty years ago has passed out of sight, and that the scientific spirit has taken its place. I disclaim, therefore, at the out set, any share in an attempt to reconstitute the college curriculum upon the basis of a mainly literary training, an attempt which would result, in my opinion, simply in a prolonged struggle, disastrous to our higher scholarship, and certain to end in defeat. But, savand, a denial of the prevalence of the scientific spirit is no more mistaken than is the tendency to suppose that this spirit is confined to the physical sciences. On the contrary, there is hardly a department of thought and work which is not touched by it. Mommsen's Rome is as thoroughly scientific as any of Darwin's work, and whether one follows the criminal record of the Jukes family or Opens the latest book on Greek sculpture, whether he marches with the Russians to 'the gates of India or con sults an English dictionary, - whatever be the subject, he seems to be following a chapter in the evolution of some thing, a race or a family or a language. The meaning of this is plain, namely, that all thought at present tends toward the scientific form, and that the intellectual revolution of the century is a revolution in the manner of thinking, not in the subject-matter. That the physical sciences should have been so far instrumental in producing such a change is at once their glory and the unanswerable proof of their lasting educational value, but it is, on the face of it, absurd to suppose that men have turned their thoughts finally away from the great prob lems of ethics, of art, and of philosophy. A scientific spirit, but a scientific spirit which is no longer confined to the physical sciences, is the primary characteristic of the culture toward which a liberal education seeks to lead us. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.