GREEK FOR THE DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS. 131 
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s, and ardently as many of us have labored to have it made an aim in all preparatory 
und college work, the aim was not inherited by us from the generation before us, in 
whose time the significance of the degree of Bachelor of Arts was undisputed ; nor has 
the possession of the power been announced in college catalogues of this generation as 
» condition for the granting of the degree. There have been no claims, and there is 
a0 fraud. Mr. Adams’ phrase, ¢ generally understood,” is a commentary upon his 
argument, 
©) In the second place, it should be said that the picture which Mr. Adams has 
Jrawn of the actual state of things is much too dark. In a respectable and constantly 
nereasing number of our universities, translation at sight forms a part of the test 
applied at entrance, while at Harvard and Chicago the admission examinations in the 
anguages are wholly at sight. Much is also accomplished after admission. It is my 
opinion that a considerably larger proportion than one to three of the Bachelors of Arts 
of the colleges whose standards of admission and graduation Mr. Adams would select as 
worth founding an argument upon, are competent, on the day of graduation, not merely 
to “read at sight one line of ordinary Greek or a paragraph of simple Latin,” but to 
take such a book as ‘ Xenophon’s Hellenica,” or an essay or oration of Cicero, and make 
a good deal out of continuous pages. 
(8) Let us, however, suppose that our colleges did have the requirement that their 
3achelors of Arts should be able to read Greek and Latin of mederate difficulty at sight, 
und that not more than one man in four were, in fact, competent to do it. What then ? 
The conclusion which I should myself draw would be, ** We must endeavor to correct 
sur failure to reach an ideal commensurate with our degree.” Mr. Adams’ conclusion, 
«« Therefore we will confiscate your degree,” seems to me a somewhat less reasonable one. 
[f there existed a degree of Bachelor of Natural Science and Mathematics, or something 
which had been understood to have this meaning, and three-quarters of the graduates 
»f the better colleges fell short of an avowed ideal, it would not seem to me right that a 
new course, founded principally upon modern languages, should demand to have the 
legree of Bachelor of Natural Science and Mathematics, or its synonyme, conferred 
upon its graduates, even if they were able to read French and German at sight very 
apidly indeed. 
But a definite test of the validity of Mr. Adams’ argument may easily be had. If all 
:he new-fledged A. B.’s of our better universities were to be set in June next to write 
she entrance examination papers in mathematics one day, and in Latin the next, there 
is no question that they would do better on the second day. But does it follow that 
mathematics, which, though not the more characteristic, is yet an essential part of the 
work associated with the degree of Bachelor of Arts, should be dropped from the require- 
ments for that degree ? 
The fact is simply that Mr. Adams has turned against one group of subjects an argu- 
ment from the imperfect results of education which could equally well be turned against 
any other study. 
His letter, nevertheless, seems to me in several ways to be of great value : 
First, as showing in the phrase, ¢ the false and injurious training which it involves,” 
a misconception of what is actually accomplished by classical training in the better col- 
leges, and a somewhat non-judicial attitude of mind toward the whole problem. The 
siew more commonly urged is, not that classical training is injurious, but that there are 
sther trainings which are equally good, and at the same time more practical. 
Second, as marking the discovery of a new “college fetich.” The Greek one has been 
axposed and broken up. Now Latin has been found out, and must go. But the old 
degree, which, though founded on associations with this “injurious training,” is very 
zood, must stay. Harvard, for example, evidently ought to give the degree of Bachelor 
of Arts with neither Greek nor Latin. I have never been able to take the “ Stanford