PROPER PRONUNCIATION OF GREEK. 57 practical life, so that the students could make practical use of the language. Unfortunately, schoolmasters are opposed to this view, their argument being: non vitce, sed scholcs discimus! Engel says : " The corner-stone of the Eras- mian pronunciation is the idea 'it exists,' that is, state and city pay us to teach it. Some day when a minister of instruction orders it, we shall teach another pronunciation, and shall, when ordered to do so, prove that this new one and no other is correct." Such state of things is not creditable to the philologists. There can be no doubt that, as it is practicable and as soon as the professors have familiarized themselves with living Greek, Erasmian pronunciation will no longer be taught in any school. When Greeks hear the Erasmian pronuncia- tion of their language they cannot help laugh- ing. Doctor Engel, while travelling in Greece, one day visited a school, and was delighted to observe with how much facility the boys read Demosthenes and Homer. He himself was asked to read before the class some Greek verses with the pronunciation as employed in German col- leges. The Greek boys, while he was reading from the Iliad, did not know what to say at first, as they were under the impression he was read-
