Page:Essays and Addresses.djvu/632

observations by the greater simplicity of manners and life, consigned to their writings, and most of which retains all its value." Secondly, there is the fact that, either directly or indirectly, they have moulded, or at least helped to inspire, almost all the best writing of the modern world. Modern literature can be appreciated and enjoyed without their help. But the light which they can give adds zest to the enjoyment, and depth to the appreciation; and they alone can explain the process of development. On the third claim of the classics, the linguistic, it must suffice barely to touch. It is not necessary to dwell on the cardinal importance of Greek and Latin for the study of Comparative Philology and of general grammar. As instruments of mental training, again, they have the advantage of a structure organically distinct from the modern. The very freedom with which the order of words can be varied in a Greek or Latin sentence—a freedom unparalleled in any modern language—increases the value of the exercise in analysis. And when the classical languages are rhetorically, though not quite accurately, described as "dead," that very epithet suggests one of their chief recommendations. In a modern language, living authority can decide questions of usage or idiom; Greek and Latin, in which there is no such resource, make a more exacting demand on the learner's nicety of judgment. And this consideration applies not only in the province of language, but in the whole domain of classical study. It is good to have in our literary education at least one