of that of Democritus and of Archimedes;
it was long before modern biological science outgrew the knowledge
bequeathed to us by Aristotle, by Theophrastus, and by Galen.

We cannot know all the best thoughts and sayings of the Greeks unless
we know what they thought about natural phenomena. We cannot fully
apprehend their criticism of life unless we understand the extent to
which that criticism was affected by scientific conceptions. We
falsely pretend to be the inheritors of their culture, unless we are
penetrated, as the best minds among them were, with an unhesitating
faith that the free employment of reason, in accordance with scientific
method, is the sole method of reaching truth.

Thus I venture to think that the pretensions of our modern humanists to
the possession of the monopoly of culture and to the exclusive
inheritance of the spirit of antiquity must be abated, if not
abandoned. But I should be very sorry that anything I have said should
be taken to imply a desire on my part to depreciate the value of
classical education, as it might be and as it sometimes is. The native
capacities of mankind vary no less than their opportunities; and while
culture is one, the road by which one man may best reach it is widely
different from that which is most advantageous to another. Again,
while scientific education is yet inchoate and tentative, classical
education is thoroughly well organized upon the practical experience of
generations of teachers. So that, given ample time for learning and
destination for ordinary life, or for a literary career, I do not think
that a young Englishman in search of culture can do better than follow
the course usually marked out for him, supplementing its deficiencies
by his own efforts.

But for those who mean to make science their serious occupation; or who
intend to follow the profession of medicine; or who have to enter early
upon the business of life; for all these, in my opinion, classical
education is a mistake; and it is for this reason that I am glad to see
"mere literary education and instruction" shut out from the curriculum
of Sir Josiah Mason's college, seeing that its inclusion would probably
lead to the introduction of the ordinary smattering of Latin and Greek.

Nevertheless, I am the last person to question the importance of
genuine literary education, or to suppose that intellectual culture can
be complete without it. An exclusively scientific training will br