scientific studies are introduced, as their results are not measurable by these old standards, it is inferred that they are not measurable at all, and are therefore unfitted to form the staple of systematic education.
But, although much is made of this difficulty, it is not serious. Science will create its own standards when it has had time and experience, and meantime its demands are for opportunity—room—facilities. An edifice can not be constructed until space is first granted for it to occupy; scientific education can not be organized until time and materials are yielded for the purpose. Old studies must be put out of the way, that new studies may take their place and the new education have a free course.
From this point of view we note and record with interest all indications that the old subjects which are now holding their place by the right of prescription and any pretexts that are available are yet compelled, by the tendencies of the times, to abandon their claims and surrender their ground. The advocates of the dead languages fight desperately to maintain their ancient precedence, but they are losing the battle. Even in England, where the whole framework of society is braced and bound by endowments which conserve the old and resist the new, and where the universities and public schools, rich and independent, combine against all modern encroachments, there are increasing indications that the old classical claims are regarded by their partisans as now untenable and must be given up. It is virtually if not avowedly conceded in high quarters that one or other of the dead languages must go, and in fact the classicists are already themselves at loggerheads as to which it shall be.
A step in the liberal direction was taken a few year ago, when the grammar-schools were remodeled by the Public Schools Commission by ceasing to make Greek an ordinary subject of instruction, and allowing the substitution for it of French or German. But now a still more significant step has been taken by several bead-masters and other gentlemen interested in education, who have united to petition the authorities of Cambridge so to revise the scheme of university studies that Greek may be omitted if the student does not choose to learn it. At present it is a compulsory study, so that, though men entering the university "maybe the equals of Airy and Adams in pure mathematics, of Tyndall and Huxley in natural science, of a Whewell and a Hamilton in moral science, they must be able to read a play of Euripidis and the Greek Testament, or Cambridge will not have them among its graduates."
The appearance of this memorial, signed by various weighty names, as might have been expected, has raised a controversial storm which has been chiefly vented through the columns of the London "Times." Mr. Oscar Browning led off with a letter full of sad forebodings, remarking, "To those who believe that national intelligence is the final cause of national greatness and prosperity, the proposal to surrender Greek will sound like the knell of disaster." The quiet way in which such a smattering of Greek as the students get at the universities is here taken as the equivalent of that national intelligence which leads to national greatness, shows us at all events that Mr. Browning believes in his Greek. He is, however, aware that there is another kind of knowledge with strong claims to attention, and thus refers to it: "There are many who look forward with satisfaction to the decay of classical education. In their eyes modern science, modern literature, modern interests, are fitted to give a wider and better education than was ever given by the contemplation of antiquity. The new learning which clamors on all sides for recognition, calls out their enthusiasm and zeal; the old learning
