present hotchpotch. But I earnestly hope myself that the pressure of
the demand for modern subjects is too strong to be resisted.

It seems to me that, when the whole world is expanding and thrilling
with new life all around us, it is an intolerable mistake not to bring
the minds of boys in touch with the modern spirit. The history of
Greece and Rome may well form a part of modern education; but we want
rather to bring the minds of those who are being educated into contact
with the Greek and Roman spirit, as part of the spirit of the world,
than to make them acquainted with the philological and syntactical
peculiarities of the two languages. It may be said that we cannot come
into contact with the Greek and the Roman spirit except through reading
their respective literatures; but if that is the case, how can a system
of teaching classics be defended which never brings the vast majority
of the boys, who endure it, in contact with the literature or the
national spirit of the Greeks and Romans at all? I do not think that
classical teachers can sincerely maintain that the average product of a
classical school has any real insight into, or familiarity with, either
the language or the spirit of these two great nations.

And if that is true of average boys educated on this system, what is it
that classical teachers profess to have given them? They will say grip,
vigour, the fortified mind. But where is the proof of it? If I saw
classically educated boys flinging themselves afterwards with energy
and ardour into modern literature, history, philosophy, science, I
should be the first to concur in the value of the system. But I see,
instead, intellectual cynicism, intellectual apathy, an absorbing love
of physical exercise, an appetite for material pleasures, a distaste
for books and thought. I do not say that these tendencies would at once
yield to a simpler and more enlightened system of education; but the
results of the present system seem to me so negative, so
unsatisfactory, as to justify, and indeed necessitate, the trying of
educational experiments. It is terrible to see the patient
acquiescence, the humble conscientiousness with which the present
system is administered. It is pathetic to see so much labour expended
upon an impossible task. There is something, of course, morally
impressive about the courage and loyalty of those who stick to a
sinking ship, and attempt to bale out with teacups the inrush of the
overwhelmi