out new shoots or to carry vigorous grafts, instead of being rooted up. The amount of work in physical science that has been going on in Oxford and Cambridge is, perhaps, not generally known; but the work is real, and the general feeling on this subject tells on the public schools, of which I will subjoin to this paper some evidence, in a sample of the questions on Chemistry which Eton boys have been encouraged to answer, making all the more progress in Latin verse, I hope and believe, in consequence.[1]
Whilst this development of the older institutions in the direction of modern knowledge has been going on, the value of their original training in all that is really essential has become more widely appreciated.
I have taken great pains to inquire into the opinions of intelligent men in the middle ranks, and into the experience of practical teachers on this subject, and I come to the conclusion, that while on the one hand, an exclusively classical education would not be tolerated, on the other, the sense of the importance of some knowledge of the elements of our language is on the increase, the only question being, whether this is best attained by learning French or Latin.
The strongest argument I have heard against Latin is that of a high classical scholar, to the effect that unless enough Latin is learned to make the ancient authors a source of real pleasure in after life nothing will be gained; and that for the purpose of understanding English, French is equally useful.
However true it may be that French does to a certain extent illustrate our own tongue, I must demur to its being a means of mental drill at all to be compared with the elements of the Latin grammar; and as to the question of pleasure in after life, I believe nothing is more thoroughly odious to boys than the remembrance of lessons in English grammar, for the reason given above, that they do not see what it comes to. Moreover, to a boy of any intelligence the derivation of English words from Latin, especially if illustrated by French, is a fertile source of interest long before the beauties of a Latin author can be perceived. At any rate, I am satisfied that the consensus of practical men is strongly in favour of the value of even two or three years' drill in the Latin accidence and in the most elementary rules of syntax; and this mainly on the ground of habits of attention and clearness of mind gained thereby, which they have never been able to give by any other means; so that I have heard it observed by a thoroughly practical man that he could draw a line in his Euclid class between the Latin boys and the others. At the same time the
- ↑ See Note, p. 53. I am informed that the Winchester boys have had the advantage of chemical instruction from Mr. Odling.
