only warrant of permanence in literature." By this term is not meant the mere artful use or arrangement of words and sentences, or any devices or conceits of expression. Greek literary art is moral in its qualities. It consists in the simple honest adaptation of language to its proper uses and ends. We hear often such phrases as "classic tinsel," "classic formalism." No one who knows Greek literature has failed to see that Greek literary art, Greek literary taste proscribed, in theory and practice, all mere ornaments of language, all verbal tricks or expedients, and sought to present thought in natural, simple, noble forms alone. To speak or write classically is, in truth, to speak or write, above all things, with the most direct reference to the simple setting forth of thought; of tinsel, of formalism, Homer, Eschylus, Thucydides, Demosthenes, Plato, give us absolutely nothing. But the Greek literary spirit went deeper than this. It imposed and developed a moderation of tone, a justness of judgment, a measure and repose of feeling, a proportion of treatment on all subjects, for which there is no other present term of description than classical. Here, then, are the studies and examples which are fit to train the youth of all times and nations in the noblest forms and uses of language, to teach and enforce true literary art and taste, which ever consists in using language for the natural, direct, attractive, and powerful expression of ideas. I state these results of an examination of the Greek language and literature, and the most ample proofs might be given by examples if time sufficed. But perhaps I may be allowed to illustrate the genuine simplicity and directness of Greek thought, even in poetry, in contrast with modern, by a single example. The passage near the close of the 18th Book of the Iliad, which describes the newly-forged armor of Achilles, the workmanship of Vulcan, and the gift of Thetis to the ideal martial hero of the Greeks, has long been reckoned one of the finest in classical literature. In closing his famous 7th of March speech, Mr. Webster, alluding to the vast extent of our territory, said: "We realize on a mighty scale, the beautiful description of the ornamental border of the buckler of Achilles : "Now, the broad shield complete, the artist crowned With his last hand, and poured the ocean round; In living silver seemed the waves to roll, And beat the buckler's verge, and bound the whole."" This is Pope's paraphrase, I will not say translation, of two lines of Homer's description of the shield of Achilles, and it is a striking illustration of what Mr. Arnold calls Pope's artificial, intellectualized, literary manner and language. Now in contrast with this, let one read the original lines of Homer: Εν δ ̓ ἐτίθει ποταμοιο μέγα σθένος Ωκεανοῖο, and he will know what is meant when it is said that simplicity and plainness of expression are found in the highest degree in Homer, and how by the simplest means the Greek genius reached the highest and noblest results in poetry. Mr. Adams gives us a list of English authors whom he holds up as worthy to supersede the Greek authors, who now represent for us the Greek language and literature, but there are not more than two or three among them all, who did not owe the training which gave them their mastery of the English language to studies of the classical lan guages and literatures. This is true, equally true, of any similar list of great writers in German and French. Goethe was a German-Greek. Voltaire was a FrenchGreek. I do not mean to say that in later times great writers have not appeared who, out of the existing materials of modern languages, have wrought the most valuable results, without any direct knowledge of the classical languages. But I lay it down as a truth which cannot be shaken, that no man ignorant of Greek can read any great English, or German, or French author-for example, Shakespeare or Milton, Pascal or Voltaire, Goethe or even Schiller with the same pleasure and full appreciation as if he had been once trained to a fair knowledge of the Greek language. To confine our studies to modern tongues, is to cut ourselves off from an acquaintance with the sources of a great part of the richness, the power and the beauty of all that is great in modern literature. I trust I am not, more than Mr. Adams, pleased with literary formalism and tinsel, or the poor imitations of Demosthenes and Cicero which he satirizes. I think, plain, direct, honest English is the highest need of our times in language and literature. The words of St. Paul are applicable here: "I had rather speak five words with my understanding than ten thousand words in a tongue." Better the plainest, most untaught English than all formal imitations of the highest models. But to follow Homer, to know and be influenced by Homer, is to speak with a directness and simplicity which scarcely any modern writer would dare to observe. To write as Thucydides wrote, to speak as Demosthenes spoke, is to reject ornament, to spurn verbal cunning and contrivances, and to hold the whole mind intent only on the clearest, directest expression of thought. A true revival of the classic spirit, a true renaissance, would give us back some part of the austere beauty, the severe simplicity, and the majestic power which modern literature generally lacks. - And Greek discipline and taste were not confined among the Greeks -- in their nature they could not be confined to letters alone; they displayed themselves not less notably in architecture, painting and sculpture. The only great sculpture which the world possesses today, I think it correct to say, is Greek - the product either of ancient Greek hands, or of those of later days who caught their whole spirit and power from studies of Greek art. Michael Angelo was as true a Greek in spirit as Phidias or Ictinus; and his sculptures which one sees now in Italy are simply the works of a great ItalianGreek of the fifteenth century. When, therefore, Mr. Adams declares that he prefers the German tongue and its literature to the Greek, "whether viewed as a thing of use, as an accomplishment, or as a source of pleasure," I can only reply that as a matter of fact, the German tongue and its literature, like all the cultivated modern tongues and literatures, is widely and deeply pervaded by the influence of Greek and classical studies. Goethe, its greatest literary name, whom Mr. Adams declares "the equal, at least, of Sophocles," was as true a Greek as Michael Angelo; and it is Goethe, too, who has said, "I wish all success to those who are for preserving to the literature of Greece and Rome, its predominant place in education." Mr. Adams, throughout his address, proclaims his own ignorance of Greek. The weight of his charge against Harvard is that it "compelled him directly and indirectly to devote the best part of his school life to acquiring a confessedly superficial knowledge of two dead languages." He declares that at Harvard College thirty years ago, “a limp superficiality was all-pervasive"; and as the result, he says: "I have now forgotten the Greek alphabet, and I cannot read all the Greek characters if I open my Homer." I am bound, I suppose, to accept these statements as to Mr. Adams's attainments in Greek, though I find it difficult to understand how one who, as he himself states, "studied Greek with patient fidelity," and who declares that "there are not many modern graduates who can say as I can, that they have, not without enjoyment, read the Iliad through in the original, from its first line to its last," can also say, "I have now forgotten the Greek alphabet." But if the time given by Mr. Adams to Greek had been given to German, if his study of German had been characterized by a "limp superficiality," and if now he had forgotten the German alphabet and could not read all the German characters if he opened his Goethe, does Mr. Adams think he would have been better prepared for the work of modern life? Mr. Adams's positions here seem strangely and carelessly inconsistent. He declares that he never had more than " a confessedly superficial knowledge" of Greek, and that even that has faded out till he has now forgotten the Greek characters, and from that premise he proceeds to the conclusion, so far as his individual experience goes, that the compulsory study of Greek should be abandoned by our schools and colleges, and some modern language be allowed to take its place, at the option of the student. But if the failure of Greek to prepare him for modern life was due to the "limp superficiality" of the instruction and requirements of the Harvard of his day, does he think a similar method in |
