1848.] Need of a new Defence of the Classics. 39 The one The ancients themselves had no language of the learned. so long borrowed from them is become so useless that we should like to return it to the owners, and see them take it back. But we should be obliged to return it as quietly as possible and in the dark; by daylight they would not recognize their language, as it has been written by most moderns. The great stress that has been laid since Wolf's time on the discipline of the intellect, which the study of the classics, and writing and speaking the languages are said to afford, the perpetual hue and cry about mental discipline, shows plainly how distressed the poor philologists are. And it is really lamentable that they should think to lay hold on this anchor of need, and to cling to it at the last, now that the others are torn away and lost. Again and again has the emptiness of their final hope been shown them; still they stand by it, cast a mournful glance at the shifting sands on which it rests, and strike up unisono the old song. All is of no avail. We may point to the numerous scholars who became such without the assistance of classical schools. We may demonstrate to a certainty that like means of culture are to be found in mathematics, in the natural sciences, in English and modern literature. We see that the deaf, who will not hear, are the worst persons in the world to deal with; and that nothing is left but the charitable hope that Time, the great adjuster, may effect in them what example and precept never have done nor can do. We can see without difficulty, as was remarked above, the justice of all or the most of these attacks on classical studies, and the impossibility of warding them off one by one, without regard to the sum total of modern life in all its parts and ramifications. The arms commonly taken up against them are become mouldy and rusty. Time greedily devours his grown up children, to gather strength for the birth of new But the philologists need not tremble for a moment, nor fear for the stability of their sway. The instant that destroyed it would give a mortal stab to all true culture; the world would inevitably sink back into that night of barbarism from which it has come forth with such stern labor and at such bitter cost. ones. The whole dispute between the philologists and the advocates of practical studies springs from an indistinct idea of education itself; that is of its nature, its ends and its means. The contest is therefore about elementary principles, and without a mastery of these principles, nothing can come but obstinate tenacity in asserting them. No end to the quarrel could else be hoped for but by the exhaustion of both parties, an end lamentable and unworthy this age of undeniable improvement, and the importance of the subject of dispute. It will not be necessary for us to follow out in its details the idea of the word education in its most general sense, nor to enumerate the various forms in learning, social life, morals and aesthetics. We would only premise that there are two main groups of culture, if we may so express ourselves; which do not necessarily exclude each other, but can exist together, and do often coëxist, yet without the one's intruding upon the domain of the other. Both have in their external form much that is common, so that a cursory observer would easily be led to confound them. man. We begin with the education of the practical man. He needs in his capacity of merchant, manufacturer, mechanic, and the like, dexterity in the use of his mental faculties, as memory, understanding, judgment and taste; he must be able to speak and write correctly and fluently his native language, and other modern languages besides, according to the nature of his particular sphere; he must be expert at figures, and have such an acquaintance with geography and history as can be drawn from common text-books. He must study for general discipline, the outlines of all the natural sciences, though some particular one may subsequently become a study for him in detail. If we add to this a certain amount of social and conventional culture, a little music or so, a more intimate acquaintance with our great English classics, and drawing as a preparation for special departments, we have nearly all that can reasonably be demanded of the practical These are the foundations of his future profession; this profession he may pursue with honor and profit, if he has mastered it, and the improvements which are successively made in it, and leaves nothing to be learned. He is emphatically a man of the present, in its strictest sense, and of the future, so far as it rests on this present alone. It is enough for him then to have the culture of his time, as it now is a settled and an existing result. For as he has enough to do with what actually is, he has no time and he is under no obligations to inquire how it became so. This, of course, is said of a practical man in general without regard to his individual personal situation. He, therefore, is not at all benefited by the classics; and we can make no satisfactory answer to parents in Germany who complain of the defects of the gymnasia to which they are nevertheless obliged to send their sons. Of what use, say they, are the Latin and Greek in my case? Furthermore, they are perfectly right in demanding instruction in French as given at the gymnasia. A polished and well 1848.] Need of studying the History of a Science. 41 educated lady once told us in conversation, that her son, who was to be a sailor, needed to know how to swear, but not how to read Greek and Latin. The case is quite different with scientific1 culture which we frequently call learning; but incorrectly, for the difference between learning and science is immeasurably great. Learning is the knowledge of what others have done in any branch of study; the more data of this sort one has stored up, pertaining to any department or to several departments at once, the more learned he is. The man of science, on the other hand, is he who can unite by the power of thought these scattered elements into an organic whole, under some higher and guiding fundamental truth. Learning is a lifeless body, unless quickened by science. The usual German appellation is the reverse of the French. While the Germans call all men of science, without distinction, learned, the French call all learned men savans. In former times few men of learning were men of science; in our day many who call themselves scientific men, look with a proud contempt upon learning; and yet it is the sole condition of science. It would be superfluous for us to inform our readers that no branch of learning can be properly comprehended, even for practical purposes, without a study of its gradual development; for no branch can assume a fixed place with a relative completeness and perfection, like some of the practical departments. In ceaseless advancement, these studies have been cultivated at different times by different persons, and their form has been perpetually modified by times and men, so that contemporaneous views by scholars of the same nation, have hardly any point of similarity; if we look to other nations the difference is far more striking. For this reason a knowledge of the laborers in each department, and of their respective services, is absolutely necessary. This knowledge furnishes the materials viewed as a matter of learning, and to this part systems belong, which, as an organic whole, are produced only by operations of the intellect, but which become for the independent thinker and inquirer, mere materials of thought furnished by others. If many yield their assent and spontaneously attach themselves to given systems, then what we call schools are formed. We hear of the school of Kant, of Hegel, of philosophical schools, of a historical school of jurisprudence, an abstract school, and so forth. The man of business then, belonging only to the present time, has to strive only for general culture and for a knowledge of his calling in 1 For want of a better word we use science and scientific in this connection, not in their common restricted sense, but with the broader acceptation of the German Wissenschaft and wissenschaftlich. keeping with the age. For this purpose the high-schools and the schools for the practical arts are adapted, and in his riper years he visits the professional and polytechnic schools, which are specially and exclusively devoted to men of his class. The man of science, however, as opposed to the merely practical man, resting on the past, needs very different schools from the practical man, both as a general preparative, and as an introduction to the particular branch of study he proposes to pursue. These schools are the Latin schools and gymnasia, and after these have been visited, the universities. Their pupils are to be led to the present by a gradual historical path-by the study of the past, while those of the high-schools and the practical schools are to be immediately introduced to it, without any such study. We refer here particularly to the gymnasia, and those schools which make ancient literature their main study; for at the universities, which in Germany are for the most part professional schools, few attend philological lectures, except those who propose to become teachers. In former times the case was necessarily different. Taking then a general view of the whole subject, it is at once evident that the science and literature of the present day has descended to us from Rome; she at least has furnished the most of the material. She also gave the form, which all the branches of knowledge assumed through the spirit that lives in her language, till the rise of modern literature, when men began to use their own language and to be more independent. The world lay a slave of those mighty Romans for more than a thousand years after their bodies had mouldered in the dust. Who can gaze without reverence and awe at this gigantic spirit, sweeping like a hurricane, the world with its breath, long after the body had perished and gone! It will be enough for our purpose to consider the two great institutions of public life, the State and the Church; in the former we see her historical existence, in the latter her spirit and energies. The State depends on right, and right is defined by the law. Now the Roman right or jus is the foundation of our present jurisprudence, notwithstanding the number of our new law-books, (which would be quite unintelligible by themselves,) and notwithstanding all efforts for the restoration of old national jurisprudence. At the German universities, therefore, it is the main study, and must always be so; and many gymnasia tried to introduce the institutes and history of jurisprudence into their course, though only for those who intended to be law-students; on the same principle that Hebrew is taught only to those who are preparing for the ministry. In Roman life, which was only a life in the State, we see only the 1848.] Roman Life merely outward and objective. 43 outward, objective and concrete. appears like the link of a severed chain. His heroic courage forsook him, and though at Rome he would have looked death fearlessly in the face, in banishment he cried and mourned with the pusillanimity of a child. But no sooner was he recalled, than he was quickened with new life, and was again transformed, as with the stroke of a magic wand, into a valiant hero, whom no danger could appall, and no menaces could daunt. The example of Cicero, often as it has been adduced, will serve as an illustration. While still young, he defended amid the minions and satellites of Sulla, Roscius of Ameria, who had been brought into peril of his life by the favorites of the dictator. While consul, he hesitated not a moment to save his republic, at imminent hazard from the abyss into which the conspiracy of Catiline was about to plunge it. But no sooner had Clodius carried the sentence of banishment, so well known, but so indefinite, so vague, so strangely expressed; no sooner did Cicero see a prospect of exile from his beloved Rome, than he puts on mourning, weeps and supplicates, and at last grows utterly dispirited amid tears and lamentations. He will hearken to no consolation; he will not see his brother, and it is painful to read the letters he wrote at this period, as they all breathe the same spirit. This lasted more than a year. Called back to Rome, he is himself again; but he accepts the honorable post of proconsul of Cilicia only with repugnance because it keeps him from Rome. He employs every means after the expiration of the year, to be recalled to Rome. Though given to literary occupations in the retirement of the country, he appears again on the battle-ground, for Antony must be attacked. At the hazard of his life he wrote or delivered his farfamed Philippics, and shortly after looked forth from his litter with such calm composure into the face of Popilius Laenas and his officers, that the stern murderer quailed, and shuddered at executing his bloody work. At last the grey-haired Cicero cried: "Come, veteran! durst thou not strike off an old man's head?" He held his head still and died boldly on the soil of Italy, though he might have saved his life, if he had consented to flee. Like the monster of the old myth, which was invincible as long as it stood on the earth, but raised from it was strangled and died, so was the Roman when his foot rested not in the eternal city, or when he knew himself at variance with her. This type of objectiveness Rome impressed upon the Christian church, as soon as its temple was erected there. Many customs and ceremonies were transferred to it, though under different names, and the Roman language, which represents the national character she embodies, still continues to be the language of that church which bears the name of The individual torn from the State, |