Simultaneously with a discussion in the Yale Corporation of the desirability of retaining
Latin and Greek as requirements for the B. A. degree, arrives in the
United States, and in New Haven, Sir Frederick Kenyon, noted classical
scholar and director of the British Museum. Sir Frederick is imported by the American Classical League as a
mobile expeditionary force with objectives in New York, Boston,
Montreal, Chicago, Cincinnati, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, as
well as New Haven. And so far he has met little resistance. Newspaper
comment is, curiously enough, rather favorable to the classics than
otherwise, though the basis of favor is not always classical. One
editorial writer insists, for instance, that Latin and Greek cannot be
considered defunct so long as botanists use Latin names for plants and
physicians rely upon the ancient tongues for titles for their drugs. But compulsion is another matter. Sir Frederick himself has doubts as to
compulsion. In his Boston address he alluded to the neat revenge which
the sciences have suffered in England at the hands of Latin and Greek.
Since the war the classics, everywhere compulsory before that time,
have been relieved of their penal character, and the sciences, the new
wisdom of humanity, have taken their place. The result has been a
renewed interest in Latin and Greek and a somewhat diminished
eagerness for scientific corners. But here is another angle to the question, as several editorials have
hastened to aver. Compulsion, in and of itself, may be desirable. It
cannot be true that the entire adult population of the globe which,
in so far as it was educated at all, was educated by compulsion,
suffered needlessly. A long line of Little-Red-Schoolhouse-taught
Senators and Generals and Presidents answers, No. Discipline is
necessary to the human soul, and compulsion is necessary to discipline.
It follows that Latin and Greek should be required for the B. A.
degree. It is to be presumed that neither this, nor any other of the similar
arguments which the discussion has inspired, will be considered by the
Corporation of Yale University except as evidence of the general lack
of agreement as to educational problems. There is, however, an
argument for the retention of the classics as compulsory subjects of
education which cannot be ignored. It is the argument that the classics
have now been taught so long that they cannot be dropped. It does not
rest upon the respective glories and grandeurs of Athens and Rome. It
rests merely upon the fact that Greek and Roman thinking is the core of
our culture; that without the literatures of these two tongues we are
without an understanding of our traditions; that cut off from our
traditions, we are novices where we should be adepts. If the great universities, with their manifold departments and courses
and degrees retain no common courses in any way related to the history
of the race they will graduate men and women who will have nothing in
common but their clothes. They will not even talk the same tongue,
though they may all speak a dialect of one language. They will be free
and unrestrained individuals. And they will have no ancestors
whatever.
