GREEK AS INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE. 239 tion, should be undertaken by no one until he is well on his course, and, it may well be, by the majority of men never at all. The study of the classics is an effective means of mental dis- cipline, but theoretical grammar does not fur- nish the best field for its exercise." Study, like almost everything else in our times, and especially in this country, must be done at high pressure; and no time is to be lost, since many things have to be learned. It is true the Boston Latin School does not do what it did forty years ago — teach boys for a whole year the forms, rules, and exceptions of Latin grammar without even a single sentence of illustration; the "Method of Classical Study," by Dr. Taylor, of Andover, in which he asks seventy-six questions upon the first three lines of Xenophon's "Anabasis," and one hundred and twenty-seven upon the first three verses of "^neid," I suppose is not in use any more; yet radical change of instruction in the classical lan- guages, especially in Greek, is needed, whether we consider either of these languages as an in- ternational medium or simply as a means of mental discipline. The higher aim in language study is to know the language colloquially and idiomatically.
