SHALL WE CONTINUE LATIN AND
/ a GREEK IN OUR SCHOOLS 2
º (!_ BY JOHN jºr
, 7 Aſ / United States Commissioner of Education
June 30, 1923
DURING the past decade we have witnessed a decline in
the study of the classics both in our secondary schools and
in our institutions of higher learning. There has been a
growing indifference to these studies once regarded as a
Jāne qua non for any course that pretended to have cul-
tural value. There has developed open antagonism to the
classics. There are those who maintain that other sub-
jects may be injected into a liberal course of study which
have as much cultural value as Latin and Greek and
which have a practical value which these subjects do not
possess. Are these contentions correct? Will the classics
continue to diminish in the future? We have already gone
a long way toward eliminating these studies. Shall we
continue to have “little Latin and less Greek?”
In discussing this query, may I have the privilege of
answering largely in the light of my own experience? I
spent four years in a secondary School in which the major
emphasis throughout was placed upon classical education.
I passed into a college and acquired in due time a bachelor’s
degree for which both Latin and Greek were required. By
some circumstance, I secured a Rhodes Scholarship and
then followed three years at Oxford. There, as is general-
ly known, every course of study, whether devoted pri-
marily to history, law, language, theology, or what not,
is to a large extent classical. In Oxford all “schools” or
courses of study are overshadowed by “Literae Human-
ãores,” as evidenced by the vernacular “Greats.” The Ox-
ford “Literae Humanãores,” involves a complete mastery
of the Latin and Greek authors and a good grasp of phil-
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osophy and general history. A “First” in this classical
school has always been the most coveted mark of the Eng-
lish scholar. I doubt, further, if there is an institution in
the world where knowledge is inculcated more for the sake
of knowledge and less for the sake of practical value. Ox-
ford is an institution of classical learning par excellence.
Returning from England, I found that the reaction
against classical education was quite evident in America.
In the years that have intervened college after college has
dropped the classics from the list of requirements for the
arts and science degrees. Enthusiasm has developed rapid-
ly for courses that are termed practical, technical or vo-
cational. Shall classical education be swept away and re-
placed by education that can be converted into dollars
and cents? Has respect for mere culture as culture waned?
One might ask if some have not actually come to enter-
tain contempt for Latin and Greek.
Let me say, first, that I think there was and still is a
need for the emphasis upon vocational education in Amer-
ica. Regardless of the value of the classics, I feel that vo-
cational education has been sadly neglected. We had a
warped educational system which did not properly eval-
uate vocational training. The realization of this factstimu-
lated the Congress of the United States in 1917 to make
provision for the subsidizing of vocational education
through Federal appropriations to the States. The voca-
tional act has naturally accelerated vocational education
at a tremendous rate during the past five or six years. As a
member of the Federal Board for Vocational Education, I
am intimately in contact with this development. I am one
of the enthusiastic advocates of the vocational movement.
There is a need for even greater emphasis in this direc-
tion. The “sinews of war” must be provided. The econom-
ic structure of America cannot be maintained, much less
advanced, without men skilled in the trades and indus-
tries. The rapid impoverishment of our lands demands
scientific farming. Commerce has become a complex science
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and we are realizing more and more the need of trained
home makers. Of course, mere cultural education will not
meet these demands and the realization of this fact has
caused the demand for technical and vocational educa-
tion. No amount of Latin and Greek can Supply this de-
mand.
Fully conscious of these truths, can we then say that
the classics have outlived their usefulness? Because we
are discovering the value of vocational education, shall
we then revolt entirely against classical education? Was
the classical curriculum devised merely for the benefit of
the rich, leisure or learned classes?
I have often been asked if I do not regret the years
spent at Oxford. Some have been inclined to be quite
sympathetic with me because of time lost there. I can ans-
wer the question raised in a categorical affirmative. My
classical education and particularly my years at Oxford
have been of more value than any other elements of edu-
cation or experience. The more perspective I get upon it
the more I am convinced of the fact. This would still
have been true if I had gone into some other field than
education, even into business. Of course, in the field of
education the value has been largely enhanced, but still
I know it is my most precious heritage regardless of call-
ing or walk of life. Accepting the fact that the poor girl
or boy should and must have means of earning a liveli-
hood and having the greatest faith in the vocational move-
ment, yet we cannot reiterate too often the lesson of the
great Teacher, “Man does not live by bread alone.”
Every young American should learn a trade and be able
to make a living by it if necessary. He should acquire a
knowledge of the sciences and technical knowledge with
skill in some direction, but this does not exclude the ne-
cessity of the classics for acquiring that acquaintance with
man and the history of the race which is the requisite of a
really educated man, giving him at once the completest
enjoyment in living and a vision of human affairs suffic-
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'ient for an intelligent comprehension of his duties in
Organized Society.
One of the great values of the classics is the facility of
expression they give to the student not only in the art of
writing but in speaking. The shipshod style of our modern
literature in all domains of thought, particularly in the
up-to-date novel, is apparent to all Scholars. A thorough
grounding in the classics makes for elegance of expression,
for literary style and diction. To those who engage in
Scientific research, a study of the classics, particularly
Greek, is of the utmost value. The man of science above
all others needs clarity of diction, an extensive vocabu-
lary, and logical methods of thought. To be without the
mental discipline of the humanities is for the man of
science to be greatly handicapped. A French Minister of
Education has deplored the fact that more emphasis is
not being put on the classics. When one is versed in
the humanities he obtains a more comprehensive view
of life; and scientific dogmatism becomes impossible. Ma-
terialism yields to a world of vision.
It would be a very narrow appreciation of our civili-
zation which did not recognize the debt we owe to Science,
discovery and technical achievement. These have made
the past few decades more wondrous than thousands of
preceding years and have enabled the modern nations,
particularly the United States, through a bewildering
application of machinery and new devices to natural re-
sources, to so transform the world in its material aspects
that no Greek or Roman would recognize it as the earth
upon which he lived.
Let us not overlook, at the same moment, that these
accomplishments are not and can never be the finality of
man’s existence. Man does not live that we may have
steam engines, automobiles, dynamos and aeroplanes, but
man has devised these marvelous things that they may
administer to his living. The world in which we live is
still anthropocentric, though man may seem to have dwarf-
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ed himself by comparison with some of his own creations.
Creations can never transend their creator. Wonderful as
are all these technical appliances and interesting as are
the laws of the natural world, man will ever remain the
most significant element in the universe, barring the ad-
vent of God himself, and the story of man can never be
eclipsed in any proper educational scheme by an unfold-
ing of material processes, however great and miraculous
these may appear.
It has now become quite a serious question whether or
not our progress in the technical mastery of natural and
material forces has not so far outstripped our progress in
the humanities as really to jeopardize our civilization.
If we continue as we have been tending, will not man be
destroyed by his own machines? Have we not raised up
some Frankenstein monster which will overwhelm civili-
zation? I think it is evident on every hand that our ethical
thought, our understanding of government, in short our
whole matrix of problems dealing with human relation-
ships, have not kept pace with our conquest of mechanical
and material forces.
Consider, for example, the effect of the automobile on
Society. No one can doubt the mechanical, commercial
and recreational aspects in which we have benefitted by
the invention of the automobile. The convenience, the
speed, the comfort of the automobile is inmeasurably be-
yond that of the horse-drawn vehicle. Yet we have shown
an amazing inaptitude to foresee and scope with the social,
moral and human problems which the rapid introduction
of the automobile has created. The increasing toll of lives
taken by reckless drivers, the possibility of crime and im-
morality engendered by rapid and easy transportation,
the violent disturbance of the fundamental institutions
of Society such as the church and the home and other ef-
fects of the automobile combine to suggest that the human
element has suffered tremendously for the sake of the me-
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chanical. Will humanity be overwhelmed by one of its
greatest possible boons?
The ingenuity of man, his application of Science to
machines of destruction, his progress in physics and chem-
istry have made possible the suicide of the human race
in the absence of some corresponding progress in Social,
moral, racial and political relationships which will serve
to check war, greed, and man’s inhumanity to man.
We have made relatively little progress in politics since
the time of Aristotle. His treatise on that subject remains
unsurpassed to this day. The greatest moralist of the day
would suffer in comparison with Socrates. No Plato has
appeared since the time of Christ. Our civilization is
grounded in that of the Greek and Roman. Our culture,
our laws, our political system, our art, our intellectual
ideals are all adopted from these ancient peoples. Whether
we speak their language or not we are imitating still their
statesmen, their law-givers, their dramatists, their moral-
ists, their philosophers, their sculptors, their orators, their
architects, and their poets.
If we are to restore the equilibrium of the mental, moral,
Social and political Sciences with that of the natural, me-
chanical and physical branches, we must revert again to
the ancient Hellenic and Roman authors. If Socrates and
Cicero were to visit the world today, they would no doubt
be appalled at the mechanical transformation, but I be-
lieve they would be no less appalled at the status of our
Social and moral conditions. Our lack of progress here
would be as startling to them as our progress in invention
and machinery. Socrates would find an even greater neces-
sity for the doctrine “Know thyself.” I can even imagine
him, after being shown all our wonderful machines, ask-
ing “What are they good for?”
The time is ripe for a revival of the classics. We need
a revaluation of the human element. It is the age-long
proclivity toward material and sensuous living against
which we must renew the battle. There is no gainsaying
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the fact that we have been living in a commercial, mater-
ialistic period. The coming generation must have a back-
ground in the humanities which will enable it to relate
man properly to his machines and commerce. To neglect
this phase of education will be to invite disaster. The
world is weary of war, crass materialism and gross in-
justice.
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