t to
this there are the following exceptions: 1. That feminine adjectives and
participles in [Greek: -os, -e, -on] are accented like the genitive
masculine, but other feminine adjectives and participles are perispomena
in the genitive plural; 2. That the substantives _chrestes_, _aphue_,
_etesiai_, and _chlounes_ in the genitive plural remain paroxytones,
(Kuehner's _Elementary Greek Grammar_, page 22,)--I say, when a boy has
learned this and twenty other things just like it, his mind has not been
one whit more disciplined than if he had learned the list of the old
thirteen States, the number and names of the newly adopted ones, the
times of their adoption, and the population, commerce, mineral and
agricultural wealth of each. These, too, are merely exercises of memory,
but they are exercises in what is of some interest and some use.

The particulars above cited are of so little use in understanding the
Greek classics that I will venture to say that there are intelligent
English scholars, who have never read anything but Bohn's translations,
who have more genuine knowledge of the spirit of the Greek mind, and the
peculiar idioms of the language, and more enthusiasm for it, than many a
poor fellow who has stumbled blindly through the originals with the
bayonet of the tutor at his heels, and his eyes and ears full of the
Scotch snuff of the Greek Grammar.

What then? Shall we not learn these ancient tongues? By all means. "So
many times as I learn a language, so many times I become a man," said
Charles V.; and he said rightly. Latin and Greek are foully belied by
the prejudices created by this technical, pedantic mode of teaching
them, which makes one ragged, prickly bundle of all the dry facts of the
language, and insists upon it that the boy shall not see one glimpse of
its beauty, glory, or interest, till he has swallowed and digested the
whole mass. Many die in this wilderness with their shoes worn out before
reaching the Promised Land of Plato and the Tragedians.

"But," say our college authorities, "look at England. An English
schoolboy learns three times the Latin and Greek that our boys learn,
and has them well drubbed in."

And English boys have three times more beef and pudding in their
constitution than American boys have, and three times less of nerves.
The difference of nature must be considered here; and the constant
influence flowing from English schools and universities must be tempered
by considering