SMALL LATIN AND LESS GREEK

The increasing value of a practical education has changed the scope of foreign colleges as well as American. Cambridge University intends to make its instruction more accessible by eliminating the knowledge of Greek as a prerequisite to admission. Some modern tongue will doubtless be substituted for the ancient. By revising its standards for entrance, this English institution sacrifices a precedent which has marked a long existence. For several centuries both Greek and Latin have been the very basis of a higher education, but now, because of changing conditions, either one is sufficient. Men who made England the power she is, and those who established her reputation as a land of cultured people, have been trained by the Classics. A university career has depended for generations on the ability to use the ancient languages, for they have been a foundation rather than an end. As liberal movements have spread over the civilized world, and as the great mass of people has become more interested in the problems of the day, education is not reserved for scholars alone. While mental training becomes more identical with the acquisition of practical knowledge, the demand for instruction in Greek and Latin grows less. The closer the co-operation between universities and the commercial, industrial universe of today, the greater becomes the call for college graduates. To meet this call, and to meet it with men specially trained in a specific phase of modern business, the older institutions of learning must eliminate what seems needless. So Cambridge has broken a time-honored standard to accommodate the needs of today. Nothing could show more strikingly the present demand for men of practical liberal education, and the duty of universities to develop them.

As a result of this changed policy, many Americans are given an opportunity to study abroad. In recent years the practicability characteristic of education in the United States has hindered all but the most scholarly from enjoying this privilege. Now, however, almost anyone who has sufficient knowledge of Latin and some other language is eligible. Students who desire to carry their work beyond their undergraduate life will benefit most, for they can now secure much easier than formerly a degree from a foreign university. Research scholars and those seeking the honors that can be won in a world-famed institution will welcome the change.

Although Cambridge's newest move emphasizes the practical and immediately useful studies, yet it does not detract from the value of a classical training. What has developed for generations the minds of Englishmen is not now discarded. That the greatest stronghold of Greek and Latin should not adjust its requirements until 1918 gives convincing proof of their durability. The demand for men whose training has been devoted entirely to success in business has caused an addition to the college curriculum, not a substitution. Mental training and the need of it remain the same however much the world changes. That which has developed great minds in the past will develop them in the future. The worth of classics in this respect has been proved; nothing can lessen it. By the new policy they will not be supplemented, but rather added to.