"The first is, that neither the discipline nor the subject matter
of classical education is of such direct value to the student of
physical science as to justify the expenditure of valuable time
on either; and the second is, that for the purpose of attaining
real culture, an exclusively scientific education is at least as
effectual as an exclusively literary education."

He quoted from Matthew Arnold, then in the zenith of his fame as a
chief apostle of culture, and shewed that there were two propositions
involved in the "literary" view of culture. The first was that a
"criticism of life" was the essence of culture; the second, that
literature contained the materials which sufficed for the construction
of such a criticism. With the first proposition he had no dispute,
taking the view that culture was something quite different from
learning or technical skill. "It implies the possession of an ideal,
and the habit of critically estimating the value of things by
comparison with a theoretic standard. Perfect culture should supply a
complete theory of life, based upon a clear knowledge alike of its
possibilities and its limitations." Against the second proposition he
urged in the first place that it was self-evident that after having
learned all that Greek, Roman, and Eastern antiquity have thought and
said, and all that modern literature has to tell us, it was still
necessary to have a deeper foundation for criticism of life. An
acquaintance with what physical science had done, particularly in
later years, was as necessary to criticism of life as any of the
literary materials. Next, following the biological habit of examining
anything by studying its development, he shewed how the connection
between "culture" and study of classical literature had come into
existence. For many centuries Latin grammar, with logic and rhetoric,
studied through Latin, were the fundamentals of education. A liberal
education was possible only through study of the language in which all
or nearly all the materials for it were written. With the changes
produced by the Renascence there came a battle between Latin and
Greek, and Greek came to be part of a liberal education. Later on,
there came a similar battle between the classical and modern
languages, and now the modern languages have included and absorbed
all the necessary material for knowledge and criticism. Those who
cling to classics as the basis of culture and e