GREEK AS INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE. 237 were in their works way behind the Greek authors. Indeed, the best among them are in- debted to their Greek antecedents for their education. The school of Athens formed the background of all learned activity. Our own Western civilization has adopted from the Greek literature the really moving thoughts and the facile forms. Homer, Aristotle, and Plato have continued to be, up to our time, the teachers of mankind. "Since the Greek authors have again been read in the original, the active interest in the Latin language has been reduced. Still, the Latin remained the principal object of informa- tion. But it steadily accomplished less. As the use of the language as such became gradually less, rhetoric was omitted, restricting the study more and more to the grammar. Indeed, in- struction in grammar gradually so overpowered everything that even the Latin essay became a pium desiderium." The Latin, as an international and scientific language, loses every day more of its impor- tance. Indeed, it might almost be said that it is kept alive only in purely philological and theo- logical literature. Latin is a dead and restricted language, insufficient for the present time.
