DISCUSSION. 137 
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Jducation so much criticised as the German gymnasium. In this country it has been 
rue that the great majority of scientific men were outside of the colleges altogether. 
[t is not true now, by any means, but it was once true, that the men who had done 
work and made a name for American science were men outside of colleges, who reached 
their knowledge through other means, because they were strained out of colleges which 
‘orced them to do what they did not want to do. 
[Here Professor Shorey, of the University of Chicago, asked whether President Jordan 
sould name some of the American men of science who had received their training out- 
side of the colleges. | 
President Jordan said that he could mention in general almost all those who are 
great in zodlogy, such as Audubon, Wilson, and Lawrence. He could think of only two 
sarly scientific men who were college graduates. However, all that class of men was 
outside of colleges ; not that a classical education would have hurt them, but that a 
slassical education stood between them and what they wanted to do. 
Most of the scientific men whose letters were read by Professor Hale appealed to the 
value of Greek from the utilitarian side, referring to its etymological advantages. But 
we know that the knowledge of Greek for etymological purposes is not the kind usually 
taught in college, nor is the value of Greek to scientific men in giving them the meaning 
of scientific words of very great importance. In another letter read there was a refer- 
ance to the fact that the intellectual tilths of this generation were largely on classical 
delds. As a matter of fact, they were largely in biological and psychological fields, 
matters wholly outside of the classics. The intellectual tilths of this generation have 
been about the works and name of Darwin. They have dominated everything else, and 
if we are to apply the weight of evidence as to the value of Greek and Latin, we might 
appeal to Darwin, who says his time in the university was absolutelv wasted, because it 
was spent on subjects he had no use for. 
But unfriendly criticism of Greck, as Greek, is not legitimate, because Greek and what 
Greek stands for will always have its importance. The question here is simply whether 
we will take the name B.A. for a narrow field, or spread it over a wider one. In the 
statement made in one of the letters, that modern languages are mere gruel beside Latin 
and Greek, the person simply gives himself away. A man who has read Goethe, Lessing, 
and other masters would never say that. Nothing is gruel if it is done in a worthy 
spirit. Advanced work in any subject will lead to strength. There is no conceivable 
subject in which it will not. In closing, President Jordan asked when Greek became a 
dead language and ceased to be a means of human intercourse. He had supposed that 
quite a number of persons, who said they were Greeks and came from Greece, were still 
actually using Greek as a means of human intercourse. Greek is not a dead language, 
and even if it was it would not deserve any special consideration on account of its death. 
Dr. IMELMANN, of the Joachimsthal Gymnasium, Berlin, Germany, in reply to Presi- 
Jent Jordan said that the Greek question, which in America and England is in the first 
olace a university question, is in Germany primarily a college or gymnasial question. 
As an old gymnasial teacher, he took the highest interest in this question and had studied 
the literature on the subject—an immense literature, indeed—with an unprejudiced 
mind. He was under the impression that the general bearings of the question in Amer- 
ica and in Germany were quite analogous, and that the arguments pro and con were the 
same. The problem itself appears to be an endless problem. This Greek question will 
never be solved. Still, to occupy one’s self with it, to study the question of Greek, is in 
itself of the highest value. Even those who oppose the classical system, whenever they 
study this question are studying Greek, too. It is, after all, more a question of personal 
axperience, and, so to say, of personal faith,—for a scientific final determination of this 
sroblem is not possible. Those who have once lived, and, more so, those who are so