CLASSICS IN ENGLISH.

The philological teaching of the classics is subjected to an arraignment by a writer in The New Republic. He proposes as "the classical compromise" the frank acknowledgment that the scientific and other interests of most men today preclude their spending the time to "master" the classics in the old way of English education, and he suggests the substitution of good English translations. He adduces the fact that most reading in the classics is done by means of miserable literal translations. Why not substitute the best ones and encourage the reading of them by students?

It is easy to exaggerate the amount of "gerund-grinding" done in college courses. Professors usually enjoy this work no more than students; and those who have taken courses in the University beyond the necessarily irksome one dealing with Xenophon's daily progress know that the human and literary side of the classics form the greatest part of the interest of the instructor. It is, however, true that most men have not the time, or think they have not the time, to study the classics in the original language. There is a course on Greek tragedy for upper-classmen conducted in English. The classical field is briefly treated, as necessitated by the scope of the course, in Comparative Literature 1. Why cannot an entire course be devoted to the classics in translation, emphasizing their value for modern life, and covering the field on the scale that English 41 does in English literature? Many men who go to their graves ignorant of some of the greatest thought and expression of men might be lured to dispel the ignorance which darkens their souls.

To quote from the article in The New Republic:

"The new classical compromise . . . will train up for the philosophy lecture-room students who have read Plato with delight. It will prepare for the courses in history students who have lived with the Romans elsewhere than in the Forum and on the battlefields of Gaul, who have known other Greeks than Homer's heroes. It will be the gift of a new literature to cherish while life lasts. And it will mean the true socialization of the classics. After all, there is no reason why it should not be as natural for an engineering student to read Sophocles as to read the Bible. To give engineering students Latin and Greek under present conditions would be to waste time needed for technical studies. But to give them a short course in the classics, studied in translation, would be to provide them with a perennial spiritual corrective."