hear it often said: Of what use are these studies? Men in after life mostly throw aside Latin and Greek; there are exceedingly few who after leaving school take a classical author into their hands. Let us grant it. But does it not follow, then, that the study of mathematics and natural sciences is equally useless except for those who become engineers or chemists? Or who, except a professional mathematician, ever in after life looks at logarithms, equations and the like? But there are many instances on record of men in prominent positions who with pleasure returned to the classics, which they had learned to cherish in college. We may quote one instance of a Jesuit pupil, whose name is indelibly engraved in the annals of American history, we refer to Charles Carroll, of Carrollton. Bishop England says of him: "I have known men who, during protracted lives, found in the cultivation of the classical literature that relaxation which improved, whilst it relieved the mind. The last survivor of those who pledged their lives and fortunes, and nobly redeemed their sacred honor in the achievement of our glorious inheritance of liberty, was a striking instance of this. When nearly fourscore years had passed away from the period of his closing the usual course of his classical education – after the perils of a revolution, after the vicissitudes of party strife, when the decay of his faculties warned him of the near approach of that hour when he should render an account of his deeds to that Judge who was to decide his fate for eternity, from his more serious occupations of prayer and self-examination, and from the important concern of managing and dividing his property, would Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, turn
