the civilized world to seek his fortune, if he does not find it at home. The instruction in these languages, which, being living languages, must be treated accordingly, can properly aim only to teach the pupils to speak, read, and write them. Without neglecting the practical considerations, the pupils may be exercised in logical thinking by means of the grammars of these languages, and in the upper classes their lingual facility may be increased by free translation into German. Surveys of the literatures of the two peoples, with specimens, will incite talented pupils to devote themselves to the thorough study of these literatures at the university."
Americans who had given adequate attention to modern languages would be able to read such valuable documents as the "Berlin report" and Dr, Hofmann's address, without understanding the word "wissenschaftlich" in a much-quoted passage to mean "scientific," relating to natural science, when it really means relating to knowledge, scholarly. Die schoenen Wissenschaften are not a class of natural sciences, but polite literature. The complaint that modern languages are too easy to afford valuable mental discipline should not be urged by writers who make such slips in German.
The postponing of Latin grammar until the pupil's mind approaches maturity is thus emphatically indorsed by Jean Paul Richter: "It pleased me to hear you state that you would have French come before Latin, speaking before grammatical rules (i. e., the go-cart before the theories of muscular action), and have the ancient languages taken up later, because they are taken in more by the reason than by the memory. Latin is so hard partly because it is brought on so early; in his fifteenth year, a boy accomplishes in it with one finger what he would take the whole hand for earlier." In full agreement with Richter's view is the following passage from Paul Pfizer: "Or is it maintained by the majority of our philological and humanistic instructors that va. them antiquity is alive? And what is not the case among the teachers, will that be among the pupils? It is maintained that there is nothing more alive than the writings of the ancients. But in order to enter into this life, to become at home in a strange world, and to awaken the past again in one's self, a fullness of creative power is required, and a maturity of spirit and insight, such as are never to be found in youth."
I have known young men who did not decide to go to college until they were eighteen or twenty years old, and then accomplished in two years or less the preparation in Greek and Latin which drags over four to six years in the ordinary preparatory school. Students at Harvard learn enough German during the freshman year to be able to translate three pages at a lesson from such a book as Schiller's "Thirty Years' War." When students elect Hebrew or Sanskrit they make proportionate progress, hence it must be admitted that the knowledge of Greek and Latin required by the man of general culture, not the spe-
