Page:Christian Greece and Living Greek.djvu/275

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GREEK AS INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE. 253 while they learn in a much shorter time to read German fluently." In order to obviate this evil, he recommends, among other means, that the pupils should study no higher Greek or Latin grammar until they are enabled to read these languages with a cer- tain ease, and also have read a good deal. His claims are rather modest. He says: "The study of grammar should be rendered more practical, especially during the first years. The pupil, after having studied both the Greek and Latin languages for three or four years, should be able to read the Greek writings of Xenophon, Lysias, and Herodotus, and the Latin of Caesar and Cicero, without either previous preparation or the use of a dictionary." Professor White, in his suggestions regarding reformation of the instruction in Greek, has not gone far enough, because he, like other college professors, ignores modern Greek. The literary Greek of to-day is identical with the Attic dialect in orthography, almost also in form ; the syntax is here and there circumscribed and sim- plified. There is more difference between the Greek of Herodotus and the Greek of Xenophon than there is between the Greek of the latter and the Greek of to-day. There is more difference