The private boarding schools for the most part retain what is known as the "classical course." This does not mean that the classics take up the greater part of a student's time, but simply that they are a regular part of the education that the school supplies. Latin is included in all the classes. Greek is begun later and, while not compulsory, is recommended to all who have shown aptitude for language and literature.

It is on this question of the study of the classics that the private schools have generally taken a positive stand. They are free, these schools, to disregard, in some measure at least, what is known as a "practical education."

The theory of secondary education which they advocate has been thus expressed: "The purpose of education is not so much to prepare children for their occupations as to prepare them against their occupations. It must develop in them the powers and interests that will make them in later life the masters and not slaves of their work." Towards the attainment of this purpose the study of the classics makes an important contribution.

The objection is often raised to the classics that they do not interest the pupil, and on the theory that interest shall be the deciding factor and that subjects not attractive "per se" to the individual youth shall be largely abolished, the classics might consistently be dropped out.

To the plea that there is no evident use for the "average man" derived from the study of the classics, Senator Lodge replied in an address delivered at a conference on Classical Studies in Liberal Education: "Repeatedly have I been told that there was no use in teaching the classics to boys in school or college because the 'average man' never used them or recurred to them in after life. One feels inclined to say, 'All the worse for the average man,' and to feel sorry for his loss of so much that is elevating and delightful. But admitting the truth of the objection, how much real force is there in it when one applies the comparative test? How large a part do mathematics and science in various forms play in the daily life and current interests of the 'average man'? How many 'average men' amuse their leisure by solving algebraic problems, or by trying to conceive the fourth dimension; how many can explain to you-I take an obvious illustration-the Mendelian theory of the dominant and recessive qualities, or the Linnæan system or tell you of the movements and appearances of the fauna of Europe during the glacial periods and intervals, or even name to you all the great constellations of stars which look down upon them nightly in silent splendor? My occupations have brought me into contact with very many 'average' men and also with men above and below the average, and far more have referred to the history and literature of Greece and Rome than to any of the well-known scientific subjects to which I have at random alluded. The fact is that not to know who Mendel was or what the fossils show as to animal life is not necessarily esteemed a mark of ignorance, but never to have heard of Socrates or Pericles, of Hannibal or Cæsar, or Cicero is held to indicate a very defective education to say the least. And yet no one would think of arguing that boys should not be made acquainted with the simpler forms of mathematics and geometry because in after years the 'average man' as a rule finds little use and less pleasure from them in daily life."

Or, as another puts it, "What we can remember is worth much, but what we had to nourish our mind in school and college counts for far more. It is like food. Who, unless he was on a fixed diet, remembers what he ate a week ago? Yet the effects continue. And it is the nature of our diet in youth, as all know, which does much to determine our health in manhood."

Dr. Andrew F. West, Dean of the Graduate School of Princeton University, has collected in a volume entitled "Value of the Classics" the opinions of a multitude of men of all professions and callings upon the subject of the study of the Humanities. He has thereby rendered a great service to the cause of education in the United States. It is from this book that the author has selected certain quotations in order to spread further the views of thoughtful men of various professions who have had large experience in the world. They are an indication of the real "use" of the classics in after life-not so much from the

point of view of money making as of quality of service which a well trained man should offer.

"It is not merely the obvious need of study of Latin," writes Dean Roscoe Pound, of the Harvard Law School, "in order to understand law Latin, and the Latin maxims and phrases of which the books are full, that leads teachers of law to insist upon the importance of classical training. It is the lawyer's everyday business not only to reason soundly but to express his ideas clearly and accurately; to make what he has put on paper so clear and so definite as to convey his precise meaning to disputants 'fired with zeal to pervert' and thus to forestall controversy. There is no better way for the student to train himself in the choice of the very word that will fit his thought than by translation from Latin and Greek. Thus he develops habits of analysis, habits of discriminating choice of words, habits of accurate apprehension of the meaning which another has sought to convey by written words, which lead to power of expression and to power of clear thinking. Such habits are worth more to the lawyer than all