by results; and one of the reasons of the profound disbelief which is rapidly spreading in the country with regard to our public schools, is that we send out so many boys, not only without intellectual life, but not even capable of humble usefulness.  These theorists continue to talk of classics as a splendid gymnastic, but in their hands it becomes a rack; instead of leaving the limbs supple and well knit, they are strained, disjointed, and feeble.  Even the flower of our classical system are too often left without any original power of expression; critical, fastidious minds, admiring erudition, preferring the elucidation of second-rate authors to the study of the best.  A man who reads Virgil for pleasure is a better result of a system of education than one who re-edits Tibullus.  Instead of having original thoughts, and a style of their own to express them in, these high classicists are left with a profound knowledge of the style and usage of ancient authors, a thing not to be undervalued as a step in a progress, but still essentially an anteroom of the mind.

The further task that lies before us educators, when we have trained a mind to be useful, consists in the awakening, in whatever regions may be possible, of the soul.  By this I do not mean the ethical soul, but the spirit of fine perception of beauty, of generous admiration for what is noble and true and high.  And here I am sure that we fail, and fail miserably.  For one thing, these great classicists make the mistake of thinking that only through literature, and, what is more, the austere literature of Greece and Rome, can this sense be developed.  I myself have a deep admiration for Greek literature.  I think it one of the brightest flowers of the human spirit, and I think it well that any boy with a real literary sense should be brought into contact with it.  I do not think highly of Latin literature.  There are very few writers of the first rank.  Virgil is, of course, one; and Horace is a splendid craftsman, but not a high master of literature.  There is hardly any prose in Latin fit for boys to read.  Cicero is diffuse, and often affords little more than small-talk on abstract topics; Tacitus a brilliant but affected prosateur, Caesar a dull and uninspiring author.  But to many boys the path to literary appreciation cannot lie through Latin, or even Greek, because the old language hangs like a veil between them and the thought within.  To some boys the enkindling of the intellectual soul comes through English literature, to some through history, to some through a knowledge of other lands, which can be approached by geography.  To some through art and music; and of these two things we trifle with the latter and hardly touch upon the former.  I cannot see that a knowledge of the lives, the motives, the performances of artists is in itself a less valuable instrument of education than a knowledge of the lives, motives, and performances of writers, even though they be Greek.