This is the case against Greek put as powerfully as one can state
it. On the other side, we may say, though the remark may seem
absurd at first sight, that to have mastered Greek, even if you
forget it, is not to have wasted time. It really is an educational
and mental discipline. The study is so severe that it needs the
earnest application of the mind. The study is averse to indolent
intellectual ways; it will not put up with a "there or thereabouts,"
any more than mathematical ideas admit of being made to seem
"extremely plausible." He who writes, and who may venture to offer
himself as an example, is naturally of a most slovenly and
slatternly mental habit. It is his constant temptation to "scamp"
every kind of work, and to say "it will do well enough." He hates
taking trouble and verifying references. And he can honestly
confess that nothing in his experience has so helped, in a certain
degree, to counteract those tendencies--as the labour of thoroughly
learning certain Greek texts--the dramatists, Thucydides, some of
the books of Aristotle. Experience has satisfied him that Greek is
of real educational value, and, apart from the acknowledged and
unsurpassed merit of its literature, is a severe and logical
training of the mind. The mental constitution is strengthened and
braced by the labour, even if the language is forgotten in later
life.
It is manifest, however, that this part of education is not for
everybody.
Pages:
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103