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" Manners makyth Man "

OUR RENAISSANCE

TO CAPTAIN

W. L. PAINE

WHO LIVED FOR OUR RENAISSANCE

Our Renaissance

Essays on the Reform and Revival of Classical Studies

BY

HENRY BROWNE, S.J.

M.A ., New College, Oxford ; Professor of Greek in University

College, Dublin ; Chairman of the Archceological Aids Committee of

the Association for the Reform of Latin Teaching

WITH A PREFACE BY

SIR FREDERIC KENYON, K.C.B.

Director of the British Museum

BROWNE AND NOLAN, LIMITED

DUBLIN BELFAST CORK WATERFORD 1917

PREFACE

PROFESSOR BROWNE has asked me to write a few words of introduction to his volume, and I am very willing to do so, not because I think his essays need any commendation from me, nor yet merely because we are brother Wykehamists of the College of St. Mary Win ton at Oxford, but because I am glad to be associated with him in the educational crusade which he has undertaken.

Professor Browne has long been working in the cause of Classical studies. He has been an active member of the Classical Associations of England and Ireland, and has held the presidency of the latter body. He has been particularly concerned with the re-vitalizing of Classical education in our schools and colleges, and lays special stress, as readers of this volume will see, on impressing young students with a sense of the reality of ancient life, by bringing them into direct contact with the extant remains of Classical civilization, such as coins, pottery, sculpture, architecture, and the various relics of the daily life of Greece and Rome. Now, I am not prepared to admit that Classical education in the past was so lifeless and uninspiring as Professor Browne appears to hold. Probably we all argue very largely from our personal experiences (indeed, many would-be educational reformers seem to have omitted to inform themselves of the de- velopments which have taken place since their own school-days) ; and my own experience is that a

vi Preface

Classical education thirty or forty years ago could be a very inspiring thing, and could include a very substantial grounding in subjects other than the Classics. It could include (in addition to Biblical and religious teaching) an ample allowance of mathematics and of history, ancient and modern, sufficient French and German to enable the student to develop his acquaintance with these languages subsequently without difficulty, and a modicum of natural science ; and it could be taught in a way which left no doubt as to the reality of ancient life and the value of ancient literature.

Nevertheless, I do not dispute the need for fresh stimulus in the Classical teaching of to-day. Each generation has to face its own problems ; and while the born teacher will make his methods interesting by force of his own character, the average teacher may well be grateful for encouragement and for hints as to the employment of new devices. Classical education has to face the competition of many sub- jects, some of which have a more obviously practical appeal. Those who believe in it have to justify it to themselves by the assurance of its superiority as a training for character and intellect, and to others by showing its bearing upon the life and thought of to-day. They must show that it is vital and interesting ; that the life and problems of Greece and Rome have lessons of immediate application to the life and problems of modern Europe, and all the more instructive because they can be studied in detachment from the party cries of our own time ; that their literatures are not only the basis of our own, but are, in many instances, the

Preface vii

supreme expression of thoughts which are as real a ad vital to-day as they were two thousand years ago ; that Greece and Rome at their best are, in fact, more modern, more closely akin to us, than most of the centuries that have intervened. All this can be done by good teaching ; and teachers can help one another by public profession of their common faith, and by reciprocal suggestion of improved methods which they have themselves found useful.

Among these methods is the utilization of the archaeological discoveries of the last century. The eighteenth century, deeply rooted though it was in the Classics, knew them only as literature. To them (with a few exceptions) Greece was Homer and Athens, Rome was Virgil, Horace, and Cicero. The nineteenth century brought us much nearer to the life of the ancient world. It is hard to realize the wealth which the twentieth century has in- herited from the archaeological labours of the nine- teenth. The Elgin Marbles ; the Greek vases ; the excavations of Schliemann and Sir Arthur Evans ; Olympia and Delphi ; Pompeii and Ostia ; the wealth of historical detail derived from inscriptions ; the new literature revealed by papyri from Egypt ; the intensive study of ancient literature, ethnology, and mythology — all this and much more has been added to the literature which has been our inspira- tion since the Renaissance. And all this is now, through improvements in the mechanism of repro- duction and publication, at the disposal of the teacher who is introducing his pupils to the riches of which they are the inheritors.

viii Preface

In this connexion Professor Browne lays much stress on the services which can be rendered by museums and collections of antiquities ; and the report which he has drawn up for the British Asso- ciation, and which is printed as an appendix to the present volume, is a valuable and interesting docu- ment. Perhaps he, like others who are interested in recent developments, is inclined to exalt the work of the last few years at the expense of the work of the previous generation. The popularization of museums is not a wholly new idea, though it has made notable strides of late ; and the latest de- velopment— the institution of well-equipped guides to give oral demonstrations and instruction — is not the only way in which museums reach the public. To speak only of the Museum which I know best, and which led the way in the institution of demon- strator-guides in this country, the real reform dates some twenty or thirty years further back, and is to be found in the arrangement of exhibits with special reference to the interest and instruction of the general public, and in the provision of labels and guide-books suited to the needs of those who are not specialists. This reform, which should be con- nected especially with the names of Sir E. Maunde Thompson and Sir W. Flower, is the source from which the later improvements spring, because it contains the fountain idea, that museums can be centres for the cultivation of educated interest, and not merely the preserves of specialists or places for the gratification of an idle and rather bored curiosity.

In this renaissance of museums I believe it is correct to say that the British Museum, under its

Preface ix

former chiefs, led the way ; but the example has been widely followed, and there are now, all over the country, local museums whose curators are en- thusiastically striving to make the institutions over which they preside real sources of inspiration and intellectual encouragement for their own neigh- bourhoods. The first step is the arrangement of the exhibits in a way which is at once attractive to the eye and based upon a scientific system. Where col- lections are large, the method of selection should be practised, so that the casual visitor may not be wearied, nor his judgment confused, through his inability to discriminate between the better and the worse examples. Nearly all museums would benefit by a much ampler provision of storage space, where a large proportion of the collections could be kept for the use of such students as require them, while the public galleries would be at once more intel- ligible and more restful for the general visitor. Where facilities do not exist for such a division of the collections, it is one of the great uses of the guide- demonstrator that he can perform for the visitor the needful process of selection and discrimination.

The next step is the provision of full descriptive labels and simple but scientific guide-books. Without these there is no education except for the few who are able to educate themselves. A second-rate museum with good labels is a better educational agency than a first-rate museum with labels which are either too meagre or too technical ; while the guide-books of a good museum may be real hand- books to the subjects of which they treat.

A newer development, which has only become

x Preface

possible within the present generation, is the pro- vision of reproductions on a large scale. Photo- graphs, whether large or of the popular postcard size, lantern slides, casts, electrotypes, seal-im- pressions, can be obtained in large numbers and at moderate prices. So far as cheap photographs are concerned, there is not much ground for complaint in this country. Every active museum has them, and the public shows its appreciation by buying them. But lantern slides are not nearly as largely used as they might be. Apart from the collections of the Societies for the Promotion of Hellenic and Roman Studies, no large scientific collection of archaeological slides exists in this country, to my knowledge. The demand for the loan sets, which are available at the British Museum, has not been sufficient to justify their multiplication to the ex- tent which would be easily possible. In this respect the teachers of this country seem to be behind their colleagues in America ; but I believe the museums are ready to respond to the demand when it comes. The provision of guide-demonstrators is the com- plement of these other methods of bringing the educational resources of the museums to bear on the public. The new guide-demonstrator (in the invention of which as a regular institution America led the way, though a good deal of informal work of the same kind had previously been done in this country) is a creature wholly different from the ciceroni who used to infest continental galleries. He is an educated man, well acquainted with the contents of the museum in which he works, able to appreciate the real scientific, artistic, or historic

Preface xi

importance of the collections, but with the gift of explaining them in a way which is interesting and intelligible to visitors.

How far this new development, which had made so promising a start before the war, will go it is impossible to say ; but it has won both popular and official favour, and its possibilities are very great. Education depends on two things : the matter taught, and the power of the teacher. The guide-demon- strator in the museum combines both elements ; the material is around him, and if he has the gift of instruction his opportunity is great. But here, as in the whole question of educational reform, the personal element must not be forgotten. No pro- vision of apparatus, however ample, no accumula- tion of lantern slides or photographs, will command the attention or win the interest of the learner, unless the teacher has a true enthusiasm for his subject and the gift of imparting it. However much we may talk about methods and apparatus, success or failure in education depends upon the teacher.

It is not for me, however, to develop at length the theories dealt with by Professor Browne, nor to try to substitute my expression of them for his. I desire merely to add my testimony to his with regard to certain points, and to express my sympathy with his views and his aspirations.

One thing only I desire to say in conclusion, with reference to the whole tone of Professor Browne's treatment of the subject. This book is not con- troversial. It is not engaged in disparaging other branches of education in order to exalt the Classics. It is positive and not negative. This is a feature

xii Preface

as valuable as it is, unfortunately, rare in educa- tional writings. In the present stage of educational development I believe it is of the first importance that those who believe in education should co-operate and not fight one another. There is no reason why the most ardent believer in the Classics should decry History or English or Natural Science ; and there is every reason why the believers in all these subjects should combine to secure for the youth of the country an adequate introduction to all of them, with facilities for further study of any of them, according to the tastes and aptitudes of the student. All these subjects are good ; all are necessary for a complete liberal education. It is for the repre- sentatives and advocates of each to proclaim the merits of their own subject, to prove its utility by results, to forward its interests by their labour ; but all this may be done without hostility to those who are concerned with other subjects, humanistic or scientific. What we want is constructive educational development, not destructive criticism ; and if the extremists of all parties would devote their driving- power to the reforms of their own methods, I have no doubt that the moderate men could devise a concordat which would give scope to all.

It is because I believe Professor Browne's work to be constructive and stimulating that I would com- mend it, so far as I have any power to do so, to all those who care either for the Classics or for the education of the next generation of our race.

FREDERIC G. KENYON.

SUMMARY OF CONTENTS

PAGE

PREFACE ..... v

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER

Our Renaissance : its meaning, aim, and I

method ..... Our Renaissance contrasted with the Great Revival — Mental discipline supplied by Hel- lenism— Influence not mainly (Esthetic — Draw- backs of City-State — Greek achievement — Struggle between West and East— Prehistoric, Hellenic, Hellenistic, periods — Combination of Greek and Roman study — Deeper side of Greek influence — Religion and war ; Religion and art — Substitution of Scientific training for Humanism — Science a branch of Humanism and founded by it — Mathematics and Medical science — Are Greek studies out of date ? — Hints on Method.

PART THE FIRST

THE VOICE OF HELLAS

CHAPTER II — The Pursuit of Beauty . 35

JEstheticism, a superficial test of Greek genius — How far were the Greeks strenuous? — The second-rate a fallacious test — Homer, fountain- head of Hellenism — Inspiration of great world- epics — Pindaric and Aristophanic art — Thucy- didean style — Plato the best representative of Hellenism — His attitude towards poetry — After Plato, Sophocles.

xiv Summary of Contents

PAGE CHAPTER III — Greece, the Cradle of

Democracy .... 63

Greek philosophy of the State, its sanity — What is Democracy ? — Athens, champion of democracy — In Athens, reaction caused by abuses — Chorus of condemnation — Aristotle, equally with Plato, detests Athenian democracy — Reasons for this failure : industrialism, slavery, and dislike of hard work — Aristotle's fundamental conception of the State more ideal than Plato's — He defines Democracy (of Athens) as Perversion — Seeks harmony of conflicting interests — Praises the middle class of the State — Sympathizes with sane democratic principle.

CHAPTER IV — The Religious Sense . 89

Alleged irreligion of the Greeks — Reverence for their Dead — Difficulty of inquiry — Cautions as to employment of tests — Cults of the City-State essentially non-national — Rational element in religion — Anthropomorphism easily exaggerated — Individual Greeks — Evidence of religious faith — Gaiety of heart not irreligious — Form and spirit of Dionysiac Drama — Influence of Delphi — The Eleusinian Mysteries — Attitude of philo- sophers to popular religion — Darker side of Greek paganism — Our verdict.

Summary of Contents xv

PART THE SECOND THE CLASSICAL REVIVAL

PAGE

CHAPTER V—The Gospel of Work . .117

Education a Labour of Love — Competitive ex- aminations— Drudgery imposed on students — Is the game worth the candle ? — The old Humanists — Real knowledge of antiquity — Teacher's mind saturated with his subject — Our improved posi- tion as regards hand-books — Critical editions — Intensive versus extensive reading — Grammar and composition — Living and dead languages — The Direct Method — Supremacy of Classics.

CHAPTER VI— " New Wine in Old Bottles " 145

Classics formerly aristocratic — Reform comes from below — Literature in connexion with History — Need for enthusiasm — Eye-teaching and the vis inertise —Cicero's experience of visual impressions — Attacks of extreme scientists — Action of Classical Association — Its real sig- nificance— Lessons of the War — Our dependence upon Germany for apparatus — Criteria of Modern Education.

CHAPTER VII — How to Quicken Appre- ciation of Classics . . .184

Principle of Eye-teaching — Why insisted on beyond other matters — Numismatic teaching — Coin-collecting as hobby — Historical aspects of coins — Illustrations from Roman history, and Greek — Direct illustration of texts useless — Ex- periment of circulating museums — Difficulties of this method — Preparation of special cabinets — Supply of lantern slides — Photographs and diagrams — Need of tactual or tri-dimensional exhibits — Experience of Committee of A.R.L.T. — Summary of things to avoid.

xvi Summary of Contents

PAGE

CHAPTER VIII— A New Era for Public

Museums .... 208

Educational value of Museums — Lord Sudeley's propaganda — Committee of British Association (Education Section) — Three classes of visitors to museum — Question of Demonstrator-guides — Views of Dr. Bather (V ice-Chairman of Com- mittee)— Museum movement in America — Report by Miss Connolly — Greek and Roman life at British Museum — Classical material for Public Museums — Why sparsely provided — How to press our claims — Detailed suggestions (sculpture, pottery, metal-objects, reproductions, numismatic specimens, Romano-British exhibits).

APPENDIX No. 1 — Report on Museums

in relation to the Humanities . 243

PART 1 — British Schools and Colleges . 244

Questionnaire — Queries to Curators only — Replies from public museums in London — in the Provinces — Replies from academic museums — Queries addressed to educationists only — Indi- vidual replies — The Universities — The Public Schools — Other Secondary Schools.

PART 2 — American Museums . . . 263

General remarks — University of Pennsylvania — Boston Museum of Fine Arts — Metropolitan Museum of New York — Johns Hopkins Uni- versity— State Universities and others — Classical Schools — Archaeological Institute of America.

APPENDIX No. 2. — Suggested Catalogue of Circulating Exhibits, with estimated cost .... 273

Lantern slides (topographical, ancient art, general antiquities, numismatic, town-planning) — Photographs, wall-pictures, and diagrams — Numismatic cabinets (originals and reproduc- tions)— Cabinets of small antiquities (Minoan replicas, pottery, bronze, various) — Epigra- phical exhibits — Illustrated books — Summary regarding estimated cost.

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER

AN ADDRESS

OUR RENAISSANCE : ITS MEANING, AIM, AND METHOD

The following was the Annual Address given at Chicago in April, 1916, before the Classical Association of the Middle West and South. The speaker explained that as he had come to America in a representative capacity — in order precisely to be able to report to a Committee of the British Association (Education Section) on certain methods of Classical Education in use in America — he had felt some doubt as to the pro- priety of imposing his own views upon the Association, but had found it impossible to decline the honour conferred by their President in inviting him.

Those who are concerned in our Renaissance are in no danger of forgetting not only that the great Revival of Classical Learning a few centuries ago was the commencement of all modern history, but that it has a very particular interest for Americans. Undoubt- edly the discovery of your country was the direct outcome of that wonderful stirring of men's minds and hearts which closed the old era and heralded the new. Nor will you, who are involved in the effort to revivify the Classical learning in the twentieth century,

2 Our Renaissance :

object to my comparing this effort, modest though it may be relatively speaking, with the Renaissance of the fifteenth century. The aim of those great Humanists was no doubt a great one, but we claim to have one identically similar. They called themselves Humanists, just because they wanted to benefit humanity as a whole, and not in any sectional degree. We, too, believe, and we try to convince others, that the restoration of Classical study on rational lines would be a real boon to human education all along the line and a real contribution to the most vital welfare of human society. They were certainly en- thusiasts— we are nothing if not that. They founded academies to promote their cause in the great centres of Italian, and, later, of North European, culture ; we have founded Classical Associations all over the world — in England, ten ; Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, three ; in America, three ; in Australia, three ; in India, one. They aroused opposition, they were decried and sometimes misunderstood ; we ourselves — well, it is the fate of all good people, is it not ? Above all they came to stay ; we are not going to say where we shall be in five hundred years time, but anyhow we are not going to be got rid of very easily, and we hope to give a fairly good account of our stewardship.

There are, however, two points of contrast, which might be indicated, between the posi- tion of the great Humanists and our own.

Its Meaning, Aim, and Method 3

It was very clearly pointed out by the late Sir Richard Jebb, of Cambridge, that the revival of learning owed very little to the Universities : on the contrary, it was viewed with great suspicion by the Universities, which were naturally impregnated with medi- eval ideas. Now, on the whole, even though there may have been some exceptions here and there, the Universities have done very well by our movement and have generally extended a generous sympathy and encour- agement to the work of the Classical Associa- tions. Again, the Renaissance, at least in its earlier stages, was distinctly an aristocratic movement. Our movement, on the contrary, appeals directly to the mass of the people. We are trying to democratize Classical study — we strain our efforts to bring home to the ordinary men and women of to-day that they must by no means allow the ancient learning to be crowded out in the educational struggle for existence, unless they would deprive them- selves and their children of a precious inherit- ance. We tell them that without a knowledge of the earlier phases of history and letters all their mental culture would become sickly and anaemic, that the very soul of humanity would be wounded and enfeebled, and that not merely in their academic life but in their social and civic relationships, men would be poorer and the standards of their loyal service would be lowered through daring to despise the record of the past.

4 Our Renaissance :

In the remarks which I shall offer in illus- tration of this thesis I shall take it for granted that you, as members of an almost national Classical Association, believe with me that no mental discipline can be better than that which aims at producing an understanding of and a reasonable sympathy with Classical life, and more particularly with Hellenism. But let this attitude of ours be clearly understood. We do not by any means contend that the Greeks were free from faults in their char- acter, in their domestic life, or, above all, in their politics. We may learn a great deal from their deficiencies, and it is no part of our thesis that any nation has ever been, or indeed can be, perfect. What we maintain is that from any human standpoint the Greeks were incomparably the greatest people the world has ever known, and that they were so on account of their ideals or rather because they knew how to translate their ideals into reality. What is true of a man is true of a nation. A dreamer is no good. The Greeks were not dreamers, they were practical people. That is my thesis, to put it as short as I can. And now I will try to prove it.

In the domain of art and literature, which has a great deal to say to idealism, nobody doubts that the Greeks were supreme. But I believe the champions of Hellenism do wrong to it by harping so much on one side of the question that they forget to insist on

Its Meaning, Aim, and Method 5

other aspects which are quite as important. It is all very well to insist on the excellence of Greek poetry and Greek drama, and the importance of Greek sculpture in the history of high art — but in saying this let us never forget the greatness of Greece in quite other departments. What I may call the more human and even material side of Greek achievement ought not to be overlooked.

Poetry, of course, is a great thing, but only in so far as it is a genuine index of the human spirit in its finest aspiration. If we are to divorce it from all that it rightly and neces- sarily implies, if we are to regard it as a sort of graceful recreation or exotic bloom of beauty — then I hold it a very doubtful pro- position that this would be the best mental pabulum with which we could possibly pro- vide the generations of our youth. Aristotle classes poets with lunatics — at least they are often dreamers, and dreamers many people hold in abomination. But the great poets of the world, the Homers and the Vergils and the Dantes, were not dreamers — they were very strenuous persons, and they left the world a deal richer and better than they found it. When human nature is raised to its highest power by patriotism, holy ambition, love or religion, then the voice of the poet will make itself heard ; emotions thrive by expression, and hence the true educationist, who is a vital person, knows that poetry has value in promot- ing the vital activities of the human soul.

6 Our Renaissance :

I have said this because I want you to clearly understand that if I take your thoughts away from the more aesthetic side of the Classical revival to-night, it is not because I undervalue Greek art and Greek and Roman poetry. But it is my belief that, as long as we emphasize what is more or less obvious, namely, the supremacy of the Greek mind in the world of art and literature, we may easily lose our bearings. The questions which I shall raise are broader and more vital than any question of mere artistic excellence.*

Let us now turn to the subject of Greek politics. At first sight they appear to have been rather futile. If, for instance, we com- pare the external history of Greece with that of Rome we are at once struck by a strong and painful contrast. By the might of their hands the Romans built up a large and last- ing Empire which, beyond question, civilized Europe and contributed to the progress of the human race. And what picture does Greek history present ? Chiefly a weltering mass of ineffectual and incohesive city-states, without unity of aim or any very important results in the political order. To say that the civiliza- tion spread by Rome was mainly Greek in its character is to enunciate a fact, and, of course, it is an important fact, but one not exactly to the point. The intellect of Greece un- doubtedly conquered Rome, and that just at

* In Chapter II. this question is discussed from the standpoint of Greek literature itself.

Its Meaning, Aim, and Method 7

the time when Rome became the great world- power ; but we are speaking now not of the triumphs of the intellect, but of political effi- ciency. Human progress demands intellect, but it is mainly a matter of strength, of strength practically applied and wisely util- ized for the betterment of human society. Let us, therefore, recall what Greece effected for mankind in the days of her strength, not in the way of the spirit only, but also in the external order of warfare, commerce, and State administration. It must be granted that, owing largely to climatic and temperamental conditions, Greece was never properly unified, nor was her strength fully turned to account by the practical methods which imperial Rome employed. What I have to insist upon is that this very contrast may cause us to forget or to under-estimate the genuine military and political record of the Hellenic people.

Before going into the details of Greek his- tory we might ask why it is so conspicuous for the absence of national unity and of political concentration of energy ? This was evidently due to the existence and nature of the city-state. Every true Hellene was proud to belong to a sovereign city and to have a direct and personal share in its government, a share which might vary indeed in the different constitutions, but was always the one thing that marked off the free citizen from the slave or the metic. This love of freedom and of

8 Our Renaissance :

citizenship was a passion with the Greeks— when they called foreigners Barbaroi they meant first and foremost that they were not free citizens. To trace this idea down through the ages, to show how the democratic prin- ciples which we cherish are a very direct in- heritance from our Hellenic forerunners would be an interesting task, but perhaps a trifle obvious. This tendency of the Greek mind has been so often referred to that we may, I think, take it for granted to-night. I merely wish to repeat that, if the Greeks rendered a service to humanity (and especially I might add to America) by their love of civic freedom, which meant what we call municipal, as dis- tinct from national, politics, it is easy for us to understand how for them imperialism or even nationality, in the fullest sense, was sadly undeveloped. The Athenian Empire was, perhaps, the least galling of the different hegemonies which we know sprang up at various periods of history upon Greek soil. It was also, perhaps, the best effort made towards realizing Greek national unity, and yet we know how it failed. Every city that belonged to it, in its later and more developed form, felt gravely humiliated by the very fact of being included in the Athenian Empire, and every individual owning allegiance to a subject city felt something was wanting to his dignity as a Hellene.

Such was the democratic feeling among the Greeks, a blessed heirloom for ages yet unborn,

Its Meaning, Aim, and Method 9

and a great force, as events proved, even in war — but one that carried with it many drawbacks for the external efficiency of the Hellenic race. If, then, I can prove, as I mean to, that, in spite of such serious draw- backs, Greek policy was by no means as abortive of permanent results as one could easily conclude, I shall consider that their title to our admiration and gratitude becomes clearer to us by reason of the difficulties which they encountered.

I need not speak of Marathon, Thermo- pylae, and Salamis : you will take for granted that at least for a moment the Greeks did put up a splendid fight in their struggle with the Persian invader. But when we look at the final result of those great victories we are undoubtedly disappointed to find that within a century Persia is again exercising a kind of predominant influence over the Greeks, somewhat subtle, perhaps, but, practically, so like her former over lordship as hardly to be worth distinguishing from it. Again, when Alexander invades Persia in return and over- runs the Eastern Empire like a human tornado, we find after less than a generation his dreams have been to a large extent frustrated, and the work he accomplished is undone. You might urge this point and say : Of course the Greeks were brilliant fighters, for they were brilliant at everything, but did they know how to press home their victory, did they achieve any permanent results ? For we have

10 Our Renaissance:

a right to inquire about any national policy what Mrs. Siddons asked the shopman about his fabric, when she struck her stage attitude and shouted to him in tragedy tones, " Young man, but will this wash ? "

I would submit, then, that there is another side to the story of Greek warfare and states- manship. Let us take a broader outlook. What is the greatest outstanding feature in the history of Europe, and indeed of the whole world ? It is what is often called the Eternal Question, the ever-abiding struggle for supremacy between East and West. The Orient was first in the field, it put up a great fight when challenged, it has never been quite defeated, we cannot say to-day that it ever will be. I need not particularize. I prefer not to speak of current events, of the Pacific, of those Semite influences which are so potent in our midst.

But I say this. On the whole we of the West have had the best of the struggle, and for this we have first and foremost to thank the Greeks. No one who fails to see this has read ancient history to any purpose. He has failed to see the forest for the trees. Besides, I am sure that students of Greek history suffer from allowing themselves to be so much dazzled by the moments of extreme brilliancy that they comparatively neglect whole periods, which, though less noteworthy from the standpoint of literature and art, yet demand our serious attention. Vixere fortes

Its Meaning, Aim, and Method 11

ante Agamemnona, and long before the days of Marathon the Greeks had done mighty acts of valour. One advantage accruing to the archaeological discoveries of our times is that the attention of Greek scholars has been riveted on the first beginnings of Hellenism, and we are now, for the first time, able to speak with relative confidence of the earlier periods of Greek social and political life. We are in a position to realize better than formerly the conditions which prevailed in Europe when, after a period of confusion known as the Dark Age, the Greek race first began to rise from obscurity and to have a consciousness of its own nationhood. We know that after the break up of Minoan civilization, in the thir- teenth and twelfth centuries before Christ, the men of Canaan or Phoenicia were for a time supreme in the waterways of the West. With their galleys, built from the pines and cedars of the Lebanon, they swept the seas, carried on their world-wide commerce in tap- estries and dyed-stuffs, glass, ivories, gems and metal-work, spices and perfumes, and all the products of the Near and Far East, spread the use of arithmetic and alphabetic writing among the people of the coast, and thus kept alive the torch of humanism. This was the heyday of the Orient in the West, and it was owing to the activity and enterprise of the Ionic Greeks that these Phoenician mer- chants soon lost the supremacy of the Medi- terranean. We need not deny that Europe

12 Our Renaissance :

was indebted to those Asiatic sea-lords for much that is valuable in its civilization; yet, after all, we are Westerns — you are West- erns, even though you belong only to the Association of the Middle West. You will not, I take it, anyhow, regret that the des- tinies of the human race were not left to the hands of the Phoenicians to be finally disposed of. We have almost no records, monumental or literary, of the period. Homer had passed away — in the Odyssey, no doubt, we get a glimpse of the beginnings of Ionian wander- ings in search of new fields of activity. But, at the dawn of Greek history, at the begin- ning of the eighth century, we find the lonians had already pushed their way into the Euxine, had seized its gates, the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, and had begun to plant in those parts colonies which rapidly rose to import- ance. In the West, Cumae, far up the western coast of Italy, had been already founded, and not later than 700 B.C. (according to the newest chronology fixed on recent examina- tion of pottery) the Greek cities of Sicily, including Syracuse, had begun to flourish. At this date, therefore, clearly the Phoenicians must have been driven away from Greek waters to the West, where they founded the new Empire, which, later on, so valiantly fought with Rome for the hegemony of Europe and the world.

Our knowledge, then, of the struggle which ended in the victory of the Ionian Greeks over

Its Meaning, Aim, and Method 13

the Orient is extremely limited. All we can say of it is that it must have been a bitter struggle extending over many centuries, and that at the period when we count the history of the Greeks as commencing, this wonderful people had already shown their grit and had tasted the delights of hard-won victory.

Next after this period of struggle for the command of the sea and long before what is generally considered the Classical period — I mean, of course, the days of Miltiades and Pericles — came the Age of Tyrants, a period to which justice has not always been done by historians. The reason of this, no doubt, is that the Greeks themselves, after they had reached the full stature of their liberty and democratic power, naturally looked back with disdain upon a period when Greeks, like Orientals, owned allegiance to a master. Despots, in any complete sense of the word, the Tyrants were not ; yet the later Greeks were ashamed of the very name, which prob- ably is not a Hellenic word, and certainly was something uncongenial to Hellenic tem- perament. Yet the age of Tyrants was a great age — it has even been maintained that it was the greatest age of the Greeks. At least Freeman (who was a supreme authority on Classical history, strongly devoted to Hel- lenism, and not particularly partial to para- dox) has gone so far as to maintain that when the Greeks had to defend themselves against foreign invasion, it was a sign that their real

14 Our Renaissance :

power was beginning to wane and that the day of their greatest military glory was? already overpast before the era of the Persian Wars.

I shall not argue this point further, but I will content myself with stating that we are wrong if we regard the success of the Greeks in the Persian Wars in the light of a startling episode of the history of Europe. I would submit that it was nothing of the sort — it was the climax of a long period of conquest ; and it was most assuredly a beginning of new and significant exploits. It is true that the Greeks allowed it to appear in the im- mediate sequel that Persia held the winning hand, though she did not. This was folly if you will, and truly it shows up all the weak- ness of Greek political effort. I am not defending the foreign policy of the Greeks, but only the essential virility of their nature, which is a different thing and quite consistent with bad imperialism.

Something similar has to be asserted of the later periods of Greek history. The success of Alexander may easily be misunderstood. I need not labour the point that, though Alexander was not a pure Greek, his triumphs are the triumphs of Hellenism quite as truly as the victories of Napoleon were French victories. For Napoleon was not a French- man in any full sense, and yet he led French- men to battle and was entirely absorbed in a French enterprise. All serious students of

Its Meaning, Aim, and Method 15

Greek history know what is not quite on the surface, namely, that Alexander's con- quest of the East was the direct result of previous Greek warfare, and in particular of victories gained by Greek troops, led by Cyrus, over the armies of the Orient, about seventy years before Alexander reigned in Macedon. If we study history superficially, we are apt to be struck by isolated events, especially if they are of the nature of a cata- clysm. But the deeper currents of human life, the real causes which lead up to sur- prising results, are not so readily discerned ; and it seems to me that this is very true of the warfare waged by Greek arms against the powers with which, during her career, she came into conflict — whether Phoenicians, Persians, Egyptians, Thracians, or other barbarians by which she was surrounded, including, later on, the Gauls, who were overcome by Macedon and Pergamum. The truth seems to be that this warfare was searching and continuous, and, in spite of Greece's heavy handicap, that her warfare on the whole was badly organized, she came out victorious. In spite of her in- curable disunion, a fault which her enemies knew only too well how to take advantage of, somehow she managed to keep her end up. Through the centuries she was often depressed. Miletus fell. Athens fell twice. Sicily was hard pressed by her own tyrants. Macedon faltered. Pyrrhus was conquered. Corinth was finally wiped out.

16 Our Renaissance :

But in spite of it all Greece did her work, and, all things considered, she did not do it badly. One word more before I leave the question of Greek external policy to consider quite a different aspect of my subject. In speaking about Greek history I have treated it as isolated, and even in a sense as contrasted with Roman history. Now, that is precisely not the way I conceive the subject should be practically dealt with. It is really when we combine the study of Democratic Greece with that of Imperial Rome, and only then, that we provide a perfect historical discipline for our youth. I am not now referring to the spiritual debt of Rome to Greece, to the fact that Roman civilization all along the line was almost pure and undiluted Hellenism. I do not wish to mix matters. I am talking of politics, or civics, if you will, and not of things of the intellect or the spirit. If we consider the history of Greece and Rome side by side, as of course we do in Classical education, the very contrast they present to the student's mind appears to be of extreme utility. We see, on the other hand, the great success of a huge imperial system clouded by many defects, many sins, much suffering, and frequent local failures. The fact that the Greeks also had their sins and failures, though these proceeded from quite distinct and often from opposite causes, is equally illu- minating. We may, at least, learn the lesson of the golden mean, and we may also learn

Its Meaning, Aim, and Method 17

the principle which we can never learn too often, humanum est errare. Human life con- sists of failures as well as successes — and the road to success as often as not is through failure. We " sow in tears to reap in joy." But, once more, the debt that Rome owed to Greece, even in a military sense, was im- mense ; this fact, too, may be easily obscured and forgotten. Except in the extreme West, except in the case of Gaul, Spain, and Britain, the Roman Empire was the direct heir of the great empires carved out of Alexander's conquests — Syria, Egypt, Pergamum, to say nothing of Macedon herself. The Diadochi were really great men ; as imperialists they bear comparison with any of the great Romans except, perhaps, Caesar and Trajan — who alone could be equated with Alexander himself. The Hellenistic period is now slowly coming into its own, its significance is being gradually grasped. We may hold that, comparatively speaking, the period of the struggle between Greece and Rome was also a period of Greek decadence. It certainly was in the political order. But if this is so, what then are we to say of the really great days of the Greeks, before Rome had yet come upon the scene ? I have dealt with this aspect of Greek history, because it can be so easily passed over. I know it is so because of my own experience in regard to mental results acquired from the Greek studies to which I have devoted many years of my life. I feel that it wras at

3

18 Our Renaissance ;

a late period of my progress that I came fully to grasp what I now realize to be the true position of Greece in the external history of Europe.

After this very brief and inadequate out- line of bearings of Greek history, we must now proceed to quite a different aspect of the revival of Hellenic studies. I have referred to my own experience, and I shall now ask you to let me speak of what is even more intimately personal than this reading of Greek history : I refer to the subject of religion. To seriously introduce this topic before a secular association is, I know, to approach a delicate question. Yet I have confidence in an American audience. There is something reassuring in the very atmosphere breathed in this land of liberty. And if I speak to you frankly and fearlessly on the most sacred interests of human life I know you will give me a fair, and perhaps even a sympathetic, hearing. I stand before you, it is true, con- fessed as a member of the clerical profession, but I trust you will find my remarks transcend all danger or suspicion of clerical bias.

Among, then, ordinary thoughtful persons there is, we must sorrowfully admit, a great gulf fixed, by reason of our religious predis- positions and antipathies. But we ought to be conscious that, underlying all our theological differences, many of us own much that is common. Whether Catholics or Protestants, Agnostics, or even some of those who are

Its Meaning, Aim, and Method 19

called Atheists, we hold in common certain fundamental convictions. We all believe, do we not ? in some sort of ideal goodness, in the ultimate triumph of right, in the power that everyone has of doing his bit, be it great or small, to promote the cause of goodness in the world. You will not misunderstand my drift nor apprehend that I am hinting that our theological creeds are unimportant things. I, of course, hold them to be most vitally important : but just because of that, I hold also that those truths which underlie theological belief are the most important of all — because without a strong conviction of fundamental religion, all theology must be formal, perfunctory, and sterile.

And the reason why I wish to put this matter in a personal light is because in regard to religious questions every man has an un- doubted right to speak for himself, but no one can properly speak for another.

My own experience, then, is this. As far as I can tell, any religion that I have been able to attain to, any religion in the deepest sense of the word, is very largely due to my Greek studies. I don't say exclusively. I don't speak of supernatural grace. I don't refer to the most cogent arguments of a meta- physical sort. It is merely a psychological fact that I would describe. In those dark hours which, I take it, all souls, Christian and pagan, have to experience, those hours of wrestling with doubt, with misgiving, with

20 Our Renaissance :

spiritual despondency, I have found no human document which has influenced me so poig- nantly as certain pages of Plato, and in par- ticular the description of the death of his great master which he has left us in the Phwdo. I can only name one Christian book, outside the canon of inspiration, whose human appeal can compete with that of Plato, I mean the Confessions of St. Augustine ; but then the Bishop of Hippo was himself a close student of Plato. I do not say merely that he is tinged with Platonic feeling ; I would rather describe him as a pure exponent of Platonism, of course run into a Christian mould. And in fact he makes it clear that he owed to his study of Platonic Philosophy ,his ultimate conversion to Christianity.

Notice carefully, this is not a question of Plato's philosophy viewed as a speculation of the intellect. It is true that he exhausts all his force and ingenuity to prove the existence of a future life where a just Providence will reward virtue and punish the sinner ; but it is also true that his arguments fail most pal- pably and even miserably. No, it is the potent influence of Plato's personality, human insight, his love of truth, his reverence, his deep religious sense, which gain on the reader, till he succumbs to the almost hypnotic in- fluence of the man himself. People talk about Greek intellectuality, as though that would explain the spell which the Greeks have cast over all the ages of the world. Their intellect

Its Meaning, Aim, and Method 21

was great, because they were great all round, and a man's intellect is no small part of him, but it is not by any means the whole. No man ever ruled his fellow-men by dominating their intellects. Plato can touch the heart : that is the secret of his strange influence. The curious thing is that Plato's mind has ruled the world's thinkers perhaps more than any other philosopher, and yet his philosophy as a system is very far to seek. It is not even quite intelligible. In this he stands in the strongest contrast to Aristotle, the Stagirite, whose thought is as clear, moderate, and sys- tematic as it is wholly untinged by the emotion of his Athenian master.

Taking this pair of Greek philosophers to- gether, what a glorious combination they make. Both of them are giants, both with- out a rival in his own sphere. Aristotle, too, did much for the philosophy of religion, for upon his thoughts is based the philosophy of the Christian Church ; but his intellect was perhaps too cold and undisturbed by emotion to let him produce in the hearts of men the response which Plato has evoked down the ages almost without interruption. Like his followers of his own Academy we are still content to sit beneath Plato's feet, to gaze, to wonder, and to pray.

I say nothing about Greek philosophy as a whole, because mere human philosophy, in its most formal sense, is perhaps the one thing we could best do without. I pass over the

22 Our Renaissance :

fact that undoubtedly the Greeks did create philosophy and that the very word suggests the fact. I prefer to take my stand upon the appeal made by Greek studies to the heart. I maintain that if, indeed, they can do some- thing towards deepening in our hearts the very springs of sane religious feeling, surely this is a strong reason for hesitating to clear them out of the way in modern education. There is not too much real religion in the world, though undoubtedly there is often too much talk about it.

How far we seem to have wandered now from the question we were discussing about Alexander's conquests and the imperialism of the Athenian State. Yet to my mind the question of religion is nearer to war and statesmanship than it is to the aesthetic spirit, or the conscious persistent quest of types of beauty in nature and in art.

Here I am stating what I know is contro- versial. Perhaps many of you think there is or should be a clear connexion between art and religion, between sestheticism and the religious spirit. These are difficult questions, and no one ought to be over-dogmatic in dealing with them. But as this question has arisen in our treatment of Hellenism, I may be allowed to express my own conviction as to relation between religion and art. It is this : There have been undoubtedly some happy moments in the history of art, when it went hand in hand with religion, but taking

Its Meaning, Aim, and Method 23

its history as a whole, and particularly look- ing at the art of the Renaissance and of our own modern life, I should say the interests of art and of religion are by no means generally sympathetic. Religion inclines to symbolism, and symbolism is frequently un- congenial to high art.

I thought it wise to touch on this point, but it is really a side issue. Whether art and literature ordinarily promote religion or not is a debatable and very interesting question, but it is quite certain that they need not neces- sarily do so. My thesis is that one important aspect of Hellenism was its religious spirit.

In an address like the present, concerned with a large and comprehensive subject, it is hardly possible to deal exhaustively with the topics which come crowding into one's mind. My aim to-night has been to suggest lines of thought which might prove fruitful, to point out aspects of the Classical revival which may be obscure and which are in danger of ne- glect. One thing must strike any thinking investigator in the highways and by-ways of Hellenic life and thought, and that is the extraordinary complexity of Greek nature, which, I suppose, may be partly accounted for by its rich endowments.

If, having grasped the significance of Greek

life and Greek achievement in its totality,

you then turn to consider Greek art and

poetry you will be able to estimate it at its

rue value. You will say Greece was bound

24 Our Renaissance :

to produce high art. You will feel no temp- tation to undervalue this, but you will cer- tainly place it in its true perspective. Because Greek nature was glorious, because Greek life was full, varied, and complete, because Greek emotion was stirred to strive for the best, therefore Greek hands could build a Par- thenon, Greek voices could chant sweetly Pindar's songs of victory or Sophocles' Ode to Colonus, or Euripides' Invocation of the God of Love.

But let us be fair even to the Greeks. Do not call them a nation of poets and sculptors and dramatists. Sinners they may have been, but do not brand them as aesthetic. Plutarch says of Pericles that he alone left a sting in their ear when he addressed an Athenian audience. But Pericles did more than make speeches to the mob of Athens.

Before concluding I have still a suggestion to make; and here I will address myself not so much to those who, as members of a Classical Association, are interested in preserving the ancient culture, but rather to those who are eager to drive Greek studies away as some- thing antiquated and useless to the citizens of a modern state.

Now, what is the discipline which the enemies of Classical training propose to offer us as its substitute ? It is generally what is known as scientific education. It is, of course, taken for granted that the advocates of Latin and Greek studies are opposed to the teaching

Its Meaning, Aim, and Method 25

of science. This, however, would be (at least I speak for myself) a most untrue allegation. Our Renaissance, if it means anything, means the revival of Humanism, and Science properly understood is in a high sense a very important part of Humanism.

It is quite true that we do not always ap- prove of modern scientists ; but we by no means disapprove of the teaching of science in its proper way and in its proper place. And this is a point to be greatly insisted upon.

We should be very poor Hellenists if we did not glory in the fact that modern science, quite as much as philosophy, poetry, and art was a gift from Greece to humanity. It is only one of their gifts — many Hellenists con- sider it is the greatest — but it is unnecessary for us to discuss that question. What I want to do is to give you an outline (and it must be very imperfect in the short space that remains at my command) of the debt which the world is under in this respect to the in- tellect, the perseverance, and the practical wisdom of the Greeks. I shall touch upon Mathematics and Astronomy as representing theoretic science, and Medicine as representing practical or applied science in one of its most necessary aspects.

And what is very important for us to observe in this connection is not merely the marvellous degree of scientific knowledge at- tained to by the Greeks ; but the much more important fact that at the time when modern

26 Our Renaissance:

science took its rise at the Revival of Learning it was owing to the recovery of Roman and Greek scientific writings, and the recovery of the threads of ancient research which had been lost sight of during medieval times, that the great pioneers of modern discovery were enabled to do their work. Nay more, we shall not understand the very essence of the humanistic movement if we do not realize that the Revival of Letters was viewed by many of its pro- moters much more as a means than as an end. That is, while many were engaged in the quest of literature for its own sake, many others were seeking above all to disinter the scientific treatises of Roman but much more of Greek authors. Professor John Burnet has written excellently on this subject, and as instances of the demand for scientific books he has pointed out that as early as 1482 Euclid's Geometry was printed in Latin, and in Greek in 1533, whereas the works of Hippocrates on medical science appeared in 1525 in Latin, and in the Greek original in the year following.

In modern astronomical research the epoch- making event was, of course, the announce- ment by Copernicus of the system which bears his name, which regards the sun not the earth as the centre of the planatary orbits. Now Copernicus tells us in his own writing that he derived this idea directly from the Greeks ; it was in fact known to them as the Pythagorean theory, and, though not commonly believed in ancient times, it had

Its Meaning, Aim, and Method 27

been distinctly upheld by several Greek philo- sophers. It is true that the ancients had not strictly proved this theory, but then Copernicus did not either, though no doubt he argued in favour of it. Proctor says it may be greatly doubted whether Copernicus rendered services to astronomy which were commensurate with his great fame. He left it to his successors, and in particular to Kepler and Galileo, to finally dispose of the geocentric theory, which every- one knows had held its ground unquestioned throughout medieval times. What Copernicus himself had done was to bring before the minds of men and to familiarize them with a theory which the Greeks really originated, and for which we ought to give them credit. In like manner the Greeks were great anatomists, though perhaps Aristotle, in spite of his clear insight into many physical as well as philosophical problems, may have set back Greek medical science by his peculiar views regarding the relative importance of the brain and heart. In general, the Greek know- ledge of surgery and medicine long before the day of Aristotle, was really very advanced. Hippocrates, who lived in the Periclean era, was eminently practical and certainly knew something of the circulation of the blood. What Harvey did was merely to make this certain by completing the proof of it. More- over, it is no exaggeration to say that Hippo- crates gave a form and substance to medical science which it has never lost. Many of his

28 Our Renaissance :

views were, of course, wrong and have been since rejected ; but that is the common fate of all human speculation ; and after all the Greeks were but human.*

I cannot pursue this subject in detail, but I would warmly commend the history of Greek scientific discovery to the members of this Association and to all who are desirous of reconstituting modern Greek study on a satisfactory basis, and securing that it shall duly appeal to the practical thought of our own generation.

About mathematical science I will say one word. Its very name tells us a good deal. Mathema means properly learning, and the word reminds us that this was par excellence the Greek study. Plato was quite eminent as a mathematician ; he had written over

his Academy, p^Sels ayea/jLerpijTos elcrirm, and

there can be little doubt that his capacity for this study had been quickened by his intercourse with the Pythagorean philosophers, to whom he owed, in part, also his theory of ideas. Pythagoras had seen in the proportions of beauty and in the arithmetic relations of musical tones reasons to suspect that all things could be explained by numbers ; and Plato found this theory congenial. The ex- traordinary advances made by Greek thinkers in Geometry and Astronomy constitute most

* The scientific spirit of Hippocrates is treated with great insight and eloquence by R. W. Livingstone in his recent work A Defence of Classical Education, an excellent and very telling book. (P. llSff.)

Its Meaning, Aim, and Method 29

interesting history ; besides their mathe- matical science has stood the test of time to a far greater extent than their merely physical theories of the universe. It follows from these few facts, that the Greeks were as great in science as they were in all other departments of human endeavour, including their achievements in art and literature. And how can we account for the desire of modern scientific men to rid themselves and all future generations of what they think are the shackles of Classical, and especially of Greek, educa- tion ? Are we really to believe that they are wholly indifferent to the early history of Science, to its relation to other kinds of human achievement, to the wondrous way in which the human spirit has triumphed over space and time and all the obstacles pre- sented to it by the inert matter of this universe ?

This is what I meant when I drew atten- tion to the humanistic aspect of science. No true educator can be wholly indifferent to anything human ; human science, if not the highest thing in human life, yet certainly cannot be left out of the count as unim- portant. The real truth, perhaps, is that these modern scientists who show such a lofty contempt for the achievements of their Greek forbears, whether in art, literature, philosophy, or science, are under the im- pression that our Classical discipline is unpractical and out of date.

30 Our Renaissance :

It is not for me now to argue this question further. I will even exhort the members of this Association not at all to argue the ques- tion whether Classics are out of date. It is the business of a Classical Association not to argue about our faith, but to see how we can prove it to our pupils, prove it to their parents, prove it to the world at large. I hope you will not think I have wasted a glorious oppor- tunity to-night because I have said little that is directly practical or methodical in regard to Classical education. I have already said that I came to America not to teach so much as to learn from you the best methods of vitalizing our subject and proving to our critics, whether friendly or the reverse, that we are not unpractical and we are not out of date.

If, however, I would say anything on the present occasion as to method, it would be to suggest that we should not be too proud to learn either from the humanists of former days or from the best scientists of to-day. From both we can learn many other things, but especially the lesson of enthusiasm for our studies and enthusiasm for our task of imparting it. We shall use all lawful means to make our subject attractive, practical, popular, and efficient for producing char- acter.

1. We shall not shirk difficulties, and we shall not attempt to hide them. Let it be boldly stated that our discipline consists not

Its Meaning, Aim, and Method 31

in the acquisition of truth merely, but also in the effort to attain to it. When we impart new information with certainty we are edu- cating our class. When we tell them that the information cannot be certainly obtained we are educating them also. The good classic knows what he knows — he also knows what he does not know, what he can never know. This view of education is not peculiar to our faculty — but as far as I can see there is no discipline which produces mental precision combined with mental humility so certainly as a large and true humanism. From this point of view not even the hunt for various readings and textual emendations is to be wholly despised, though, of course, it has to be sanely regulated like everything else.

Socrates, in the end, came to believe that he was the wisest man, not because he was wiser but because he was less foolish than other men. We have our follies and our faults, but at least we shall never presume to emulate those explorers who tell their pupils all about the canals, and something about the inhabitants, of Mars.

2. There is some opposition between the method of research and the method of teach- ing. Research, to be successful, must be limited in its scope ; the more limited it is, the more likely it is to succeed. Hence we see how enormous is the specialization prevailing in modern research — whether in science, his- tory, or archaeology. Division of labour is the

32 Our Renaissance :

very soul of research (though even here there must be a higher co-ordination of many dis- tinct lines of lower investigation). But in education, specialization is at least a danger. We must train our own minds and the minds of our students to regard matters of study in their true and vital relationship to the his- tory of the human spirit. I hope I shall not be misunderstood in calling this spirit a psy- chological attitude of mind. I mean that we must value history, literature, poetry, drama, art, refinement of taste, and all humanism, chiefly as a function of that spiritual totality which we call mankind. Viewed in this light everything is of importance — even grammar and prosody become instinct with vital in- terest— whereas, apart from human psychology, everything becomes tame and insipid, all is bitterness and affliction of spirit.

3. If our aim is to be thus psychological our methods must be equally so. Hence we shall recognize the enormous importance of appeal- ing to the senses of our students. We shall exhaust ourselves in the effort to bring home to them, by the sight of their eyes and by the appeal to their tactile sense, the facts of ancient life. We shall bring them immedi- ately into the atmosphere of reality and we shall make an impression upon their mind by bringing before them real and tangible evidence of the true facts concerning ancient life. This is the appeal to archaeology. I have already been told by an authority in

Its Meaning, Aim, and Method 33

Classical education in this country that there is, if anything, a tendency in America to over-emphasize the use of archaeological aids to teaching. There can be no such over- emphasis if archaeology is utilized in the right way and in the true spirit of enlightened humanism. The use of archaeology in Classical teaching is always subordinate to the psycho- logical aim i.e., it is never regarded as an end in itself but always strictly as a means to that end. Of all the false notions which I have observed in discussions on Classical teach- ing none of them is so ridiculous as the idea that we, the reforming school, desire to sub- stitute a smattering of archaeology for a more solid kind of Classical training. I do not, of course, refer to the vagaries of exceptional individuals, who may chance to be weak- minded and under-instructed enthusiasts. But I speak for the movement toward reform in its saner aspects, as it is promoted by our Classical Associations. We reformers con- sider that it is a crime as well as a blunder on the part of Classical teachers to neglect the opportunities provided by modern arch- aeological research for illuminating our subject and bringing it home to the minds and senses of our students. It is all very well to sneer at the kinematograph as something unspeak- ably degrading to modern society. But I know very well that if I wanted to learn how some action was really carried on I should rather see a kinematograph record than read

34 Our Renaissance

an account of it by the most vivid of chroni- clers. We cannot, I suppose, in our branch of study utilize the kinematograph, though I, for one, should not hesitate to do so were it in any way feasible. But to show our students good photographs of the countries, the build- ings, the art, and the antiquities of the ancients ; to place at their disposal originals or facsimiles of the coins, of the pottery, and the other art-products of the ancients as they are being unearthed by the modern excavator ; to give them a clear vision of the great pre- historic fortresses and palaces of Gnossos, Troy, Tiryns, Mycenae, and Pylos, with the art and architecture of Greece and Rome, as pre- served at Olympia, Delphi, Paestum, Pompeii, and, above all, on the Acropolis of Athens and in the Roman Forum ; in a word, to familiarize them with the realities of ancient life instead of confining their attention to mere ideas or mere names of things — this is not a council of per- fection, but to neglect it is to leave out of our work something of real and vital importance ; it is to be guilty of a sin of omission for which no efforts in other directions could wholly atone, I know we must attend to method, but there is something deeper than method, something more far-reaching. My word to the Classical Association of the Middle West and South is this : Take care of your ideals and the methods will take care of themselves. The Greeks were great because they had great ideals. And we may well leave our critics to themselves.

PART THE FIRST

THE VOICE OF HELLAS

CHAPTER II

THE PURSUIT OF BEAUTY *

That Hellas speaks to us to-day, and speaks with a loud compelling voice, is a proposition which, I think, may well be taken for granted on this occasion. My endeavour will be to interpret that voice, or rather to ask you specially to attend to one of its tones which is not always listened to or clearly appre- hended. Many times indeed do we hear dis- cussions about the influence of Hellas, but too often as though it could be summed up in its attainment of formal beauty.

Precious indeed is the legacy of beauty be- queathed to us by the Greeks. Nor is it less apparent that their nature was finely attuned to the love of beauty in whatever form they found it or created it. In their art and letters they left to the world the choicest examples of pure forms and established for us laws of aesthetic judgment which will endure for ever. But is this only one side of their greatness, or is it a full statement of our indebtedness to them ? I would maintain that Hellas had other ideals than those of art, and that her voice speaks to us other lessons than those of aestheticism.

I shall not attempt to define beauty — no definition can really explain to us its meaning.

* Presidential Address to the Classical Association of Ireland, January, 1913.

35

36 Part I— The Voice of Hellas

When we seek it we are often mocked, and yet it is all around us and in us. It is in the murmur of falling waters as in the in- nocent laugh of childhood. At once complex and simple, it is then perhaps quickest found when least looked for. Hence it is that while the love of beauty in nature or in art is a precious gift, the conscious straining after it is a dubious process fraught with peril to the soul.

The problem we have to consider is this : The great achievement of the Greek genius consisted in stamping itself on the mind and heart of humanity. It has proved itself to be a mighty spiritual force, to which nothing else in human history can be compared, Chris- tianity always being excepted. Now, I do not intend to discuss at length the relations of Hellenism to the faith of Christians — I know that they present strong points of contrast — but I would only remark that since Christianity was cradled in Hellenic lands, since its most active propagandist was trained in a Hellenistic university, since intellectual Christianity has again and again reverted to Greek literature and philosophy as to a fountain-head of power and influence — it is, I say, impossible to treat of these twin streams of human civilization as being fundamentally opposed.

Is it not, I would ask, a very superficial view of Hellenism as a great humanizing force to assume that it consists wholly or even

The Pursuit of Beauty 37

mainly in its artistic triumphs ? Immense as these triumphs were, they simply are unable to account for the world-wide influence of Hellas in the intellectual and moral order. The voice of Hellas speaks truth, and it is quite untrue to say that the bulk of mankind are moved deeply and decisively by aesthetic considerations. Many are the half-truths — we might also call them untruths — which are im- plicitly taken for granted until they are coldly and nakedly stated, when their absurdity at once becomes apparent.

I will ask you to listen to what I would call the deeper tones of the voice of Hellas. For I take it, that the true secret of their achievement and influence in the world lay, for the Greeks, not on the surface of their nature, but in the depths of their souls. They had high ideals, and in the prosecution of those ideals, whether in the world of thought or of action, they were thoroughly in earnest. They did things fitly because they did them whole-heartedly. It is quite true that the Greeks as a nation were not strenuous, in the sense in which Rome and some other empires have been strenuous. In the department of politics, Greece was de- cidedly wanting in that singleness of aim which alone can produce great and lasting results. Hence the Greeks failed in self- organization on a large scale, and neither in military science nor in statecraft did they do anything really big before the days of

38 Part I— The Voice of Hellas

Dionysius and Philip, of Alexander, Pyrrhus, and Demetrius — and these were not their great days.* But if their imperialism was puerile, because they were not in earnest about it, the same cannot be said about their democracy. Here they had high aims and well did they live up to them. Here they were thoroughly in earnest — as they were in regard to everything that really appealed to them. Even when their methods were bad they took them seriously, in their philosophy as well as their poetry, in their athletics as well as their art.

It is impossible that an un virile, sickly love of beauty could account for anything really great in the world. I do not deny to the artistic side of Greek nature that it lent a charm and a relish to Greek influence — but the force and the expansiveness of the Greek mind was due to something different : it was due to its essential truth, sanity, and wisdom.

I would not be guilty of paradox, but I must go further and maintain that so far from her aestheticism being the strength of Hellas it was to her a source of weakness, and in the end became at least a contributory cause of rapid degeneracy and ruin.

Before subjecting this view to detailed analysis there is a preliminary difficulty. By what standard are we to judge of Greek achievement ? Are we to take it at its

*I let this stand as I wrote it, but in the Introductory Chapter, written some years later, the facts are stated somewhat differently, and I hope more accurately.

The Pursuit of Beauty 39

highest, or are we to include in our purview all its mediocrities ? This is a crucial point because, although the Greek nation lasted through long periods of time, I have already hinted that its true " floruit " was remarkably brief. And I find a tendency among writers, and especially very recent writers, to deal with the subject by what appears to me an inverted method. They first decide in their minds what ought to be the true ethos of the Greek mind, and then any man of letters who does not seem to conform to that stand- ard (no matter how eminent the position he held in the Greek world) is promptly ruled out of court as being defective. If I am told that uEschylus, for instance, or Plato, or even Sophocles, was not a true Greek, I do not know exactly where I stand. We could not discuss the character of the Roman Senate with one who denied that Sulla and Julius Caesar were Senators, or Romans ; any more than we should accept the invitation of a lion- tamer who assured us that lions and tigers are not carnivorous animals.

Take, for instance, the view we get of the Greeks in Roman literature. After all, what could Romans know of the real character of a people of whom, during their best periods, the Romans were hardly aware of their very existence ? What sympathy could these imperialist statesmen and warriors have for a conquered race whom they found now to be a decadent crowd of sophists and school-masters,

40 Part I— The Voice of Hellas

second-rate artists and poetasters, slaves and sycophants, and worse ? All this is too obvious almost to be mentioned ; but yet there is a warning for ourselves. We are still in danger of thinking of the Greeks from a wholly modern, and therefore a wrong, standpoint. We are too prone ourselves to that very rhetorical and aesthetic spirit which undoubtedly infected the Greek mind in its later phases and which perhaps we are predis- posed to exaggerate. And so it comes about that Demosthenes and Euripides, or it may be Theocritus, are taken as the truest repre- sentatives of Greek literature, just as the Hermes of Praxiteles is spoken of as the great achievement of Greek plastic art. Now, I am by no means concerned to deny that the later products of Greek genius have a real beauty — though it is a beauty which appeals most strongly to emotional minds. Nor would I call fourth, or even third, century work de- cadent : it was rather a genuine aftermath, a glorious sunset. Its only fault is that it was atrociously modern, and thus makes an unfair appeal to minds which are already steeped in a sort of atmosphere of aestheticism. But if we want realism and emotion why do we go to the Greeks to look for it ? Surely it is at our doors. I assert that it is manifestly unfair to take what is certainly second-rate from a Greek standpoint for judging of the genius and in- tellect of Hellas ; yet, perhaps, this is something to feel rather than to argue about. What

The Pursuit of Beauty 41

is the use of talking about the rainbow or the rose to the colour-blind ? You tell me you love the Hermes — well, I agree it has a handsome and pleasant face. You tell me the Doryphoros of Polycleitus — of which it is true, unfortunately, we do not possess any- thing better than a copy — is stiff marble, not yet fully subdued to the chisel, and that he has hardly a trace of emotion. I agree again, and there is scarcely a trace of a smile on the lips, but what pathos broods over them. I find the very same expression in the Delphic charioteer. He is listening for the music of the spheres, and meanwhile is catch- ing within him the tones of a softly com- plaining voice. When I compare the art of the Hermes, which is indeed a most noble one, with that of these earlier masterpieces, it is not with a view to putting them into competition, nor do I pretend that I could decide between them on the ground of art- istic merit. But, all the same, I know very well which of these two arts is modern and which Hellenic — which is striving after beauty and which is inspired by the love of worth.

In like manner I do not complain of those scholars who find Euripides absorbing and who praise his lyrics for their exceeding beauty. I know, moreover, that J. A. Symmonds warns us not to compare Euripides with the earlier dramatists, but I think few persons who read these authors can avoid so comparing them. Anyhow, I have neither

42 Part I— The Voice of Hellas

time nor inclination to contrast their literary merits in the narrower sense. But I will say this in passing. With one brilliant exception, Euripides never treats his dramas as though he were wholly in earnest about them. It was impossible for him to treat them even seriously, since he made them a vehicle for attacking the myths which it was his duty as a poet to interpret. And in proportion as he fell away from the inspired earnestness of ^Eschylus and Sophocles I believe he ceased to be a true exponent of the Greek spirit con- sidered in its totality. He preferred the way of realism to the way of reality, and so became thoroughly modern.

It is better that we should at once turn our attention to the true fountain-head of Greek poetry and learn from it what was the inwardness of the Hellenic mind. The spell cast by Homer over subsequent Greek litera- ture can be easily realized by our minds, for we know how the authorized version of the Hebrew sacred books has dominated the best English writers. But Homer was regarded by the Greeks as the final authority, not merely in matters of religion, but in all that apper- tained to national lore and the national honour. The best of the poets and even the prose authors of Greece are simply saturated with the thought and often with the language of their great epics.

It therefore appears to me that this branch of my subject is of supreme importance : if

The Pursuit of Beauty 43

we go wrong in our view of Homer it will matter comparatively little what we think about the rest of the Greeks. But, on the other hand, it is not so easy to discuss Homer satisfactorily or to come to definite conclusions about his art. It is accepted, and will be for all time, as the most perfect art — yet it is something much more than mere poetry. It is a live record of real people — I am not going to discuss the actual historicity of the Hom- eric heroes and heroines — but Homeric life is real life, and it shows us, if you like, in an undeveloped, embryonic form, all the great and permanent characteristics of the Greek race.

I am aware that this very point contains a difficulty for my argument, for it may be objected to me, if I deny that we detect sestheticism in the poems, that this also could not be expected in such an early age of culture, and that it is quite enough to find it in the embryonic form, as a promise of what will be found in later types of Hellenic character.

Let me, then, commence by admitting that the Homeric poetry already displays the most acute sensibility to every kind of beauty in nature and in man, that the Homeric poets delighted in their art, and for that very reason they left a perfect standard of epic beauty for all future poets.

But a man is not an aesthete because he enjoys beautiful things any more than he is

44 Part I— The Voice of Hellas

a glutton who enjoys his dinner. To be aesthetic is to acknowledge no other standard of life than the deadly pursuit of the beautiful. To the aesthete his emotions are sacred, or rather he acknowledges nothing as sacred except his emotions. His method of finding aesthetic emotion is to pursue it with avidity — and herein lies his fatal mistake. A man never finds his bodily health by pursuing it relentlessly. Such a man may become an authority on hygiene, he may become a prince of valetudinarians, but he will never become a sound, healthy man. So, a man who is always intent on analysing his own motives may be a good casuist, but he will not be ranked among the efficient forces of human life.

The question we must try to decide is this : Were the Iliad and Odyssey composed by men who aimed at producing poetic emotion, or who were impelled by poetic emotion ? — which is a very different thing.

To be able to throw any light on the secret of the Homeric epos, it will be necessary for us to recall the circumstances under which it was composed. In taking this line I think I may claim at least the merit of courage, for anyone daring to refer to the eternal Homeric question must expect all his critics, whether they be friends or foes of one another, to join hands in falling upon him and rending him to pieces.

Being, then, calmly resigned to my coming fate, I approach the question : Who were the

The Pursuit of Beauty 45

Achaeans to whom these poems in their en- tirety relate ? Let us agree at least that they were a rude and semi-barbarous tribe of Northerners who had somehow cut their way into the heart of a decaying but still magnifi- cent civilization, which they found in Central and Southern Greece. Led by the hand of destiny into this heritage, they had accom- modated themselves to it, making friends of their less warlike neighbours, learning to fuse with them by intermarriage and other modes of alliance. According to the Saga, Aga- memnon, their chief, was a stranger in Mycenae, where he had wedded a native princess, who later proved to be in every sense his match. After this fusion of new blood with old institutions a war of conquest supervened. The eastward movement, of which the Trojan war was an incident, was certainly strengthened by the Dorian con- quest, which was completer than the Achaean, but we have no proof that the early Greek people would not in any case have crossed the uEgean in quest of new conquests or new trade-routes.

Dr. Leaf, in his recent fascinating work on Troy and Homeric Geography, has offered a most attractive explanation of the length of the Trojan War, and its apparent want of success. I do not, however, propose to discuss this, as it would not materially affect my argument. But the importance of this whole eastward migration cannot be overstated,

46 Part I— The Voice of Hellas

inasmuch as it was upon the Asiatic side of the -33gean that the Greeks began really to thrive and to lay the foundation of future national greatness. That the Homeric poems them- selves first came into notice here is also a point worth mentioning, and indeed is one of the deep mysteries connected with their origin.

But what I wish to insist on is this. The first impulse which led to the creation of the poetry was a patriotic one — the desire to glorify the first great achievement of a united people. Note there is no reference to the first descent of the Achaeans upon Greece. Why so ? Because epic poetry can deal very well with fighting, but it must be civilized fighting — and when the Achaeans swooped down from the Balkan Mountains they were relatively barbarian. Not, of course, that they were absolutely devoid of all sort of culture — but it was so rude, in comparison with what they found among the Mycenean people that before long it hardly counted in their eyes as civilization.

Sir Arthur Evans, in a recent address to the Hellenic Society, of which he is President, has suggested that " a considerable element in the Homeric poems represents the materials of an earlier Minoan epic taken over by the Greek." Among other things he argued from the necessity of postulating a somewhat pro- longed bilingual period before the final tri- umph of the Greek over the Mycenean tongue. This will seem to many a strange hypothesis, though it undoubtedly proceeds from a source

The Pursuit of Beauty 47

which will ensure it the most favourable con- sideration. But suppose we do not like to go so far : is there any improbability in assuming that the fighting of the Achaeans, though poetically all localized at Troy, yet reflects also those earlier struggles of the same Achaeans to obtain a foothold on Greek soil itself ? This hypothesis, I submit, would go some way towards explaining Evans' diffi- culty that the poems appear to " describe the incidents and life of the great days at Mycenae and have been handed down instinct with the peculiar genius of Mycenean art," although the epoch of the Trojan war must be a considerably later one.

However difficult we might find the theory of translating and borrowing from the war- saga of a conquered people, I cannot see much difficulty in supposing that the Achaeans began to compose their own epic at a period far prior to the dramatic date of the poems when they reached their final form. If these con- querors had already begun to fuse with the conquered into a single nation it seems a slight and easy process to transfer to the wars which they waged against a common foe ballads which had originally served to commemorate the earlier conquest. I feel less difficulty in making this suggestion because the view has been already accepted by many scholars that the scene of Agamemnon's rule has been transferred in process of time from Northern to Southern Greece.

48 Part I— The Voice of Hellas

To prosecute this subject further would take us too far from our immediate topic, which is the true ethos of the poems. I repeat that what I wish most to insist on is their patriotic character — that they are prim- arily poems of war and of national achieve* ment and national expansion, and not merely artificial products of imagination.

Now, all the great epics of the world have been cradled in movements of great national importance. Vergil, who followed Homer's lead, sang of the glory of Rome that was to come, but in reality Rome's great achievements were already done — she had but to organize, delimit, and perhaps slightly extend an ex- isting empire. Homer commences with the real commencement of the Greek nation, for he sings of the war which laid the foundation of all Greek history.

This, I take it, is the first great impulse of the Greek epic — which certainly is not an aesthetic one — and this was so strong that it dominated the whole corpus of the Homeric poetry, and even of the cycle which is not contained in our canon, since it is lost.

In criticizing the spirit of Homer I cannot get away from my belief that the poetry does not belong wholly to a single epoch, and that accordingly it contains varieties of treatment which are by no means superficial. I could believe it just possible that the bard who wrote the Doloneia was also the author of the Embassy to Achilks, though I should

The Pursuit of Beauty 49

think it extremely improbable that in a primi- tive age poets would have so wide a range of style. But what I cannot conceive as within the bounds of credibility is that the author who depicted the meeting of Odysseus with Nausicaa also wrote that unpleasant piece of reading, the " Lay of Demodocus," as also that the man who makes Achilles say to his

chief otVo/3a/365 KVVOS opfjLar' e^cov KpaSlrjv S'e\a<£oto,

also composed those long-winded and other- wise admirable speeches of the Embassy, one of which, by the way, is put into the mouth of Achilles. I may be told that this subjective criticism is of little worth. Well, I am afraid that much of Homeric criticism does contain a strong subjective element. Anyhow, I do not offer this for more than it is worth ; nor really would I lay very great stress upon it, except as a piece of strong personal conviction. This is not the place to argue out fully complicated lines of argument, but I hope I shall succeed in making my position plain. I would admit that the poems of Homer contain here and there evidence of self-conscious artistic effort, of laboured rhe- torical display, and therefore of tendencies which might be expected to develop into literary aestheticism. As in regard to Greek literature proper I pointed out that there is a genuine creative epoch in which its proper ethos is displayed, and also a later period of brilliant aftermath which is always tend- ing towards aestheticism — so in the Homeric

50 Part I— The Voice of Hellas

literature we must distinguish between the original impulse which gives us strong patriotic and objective poetry, and the aftermath which gives us imitative work, brilliant, rhetorical, and subjective. In passing, I would say that to distinguish between the Iliad and Odyssey is futile. Much of the best work is in the Odyssey ; much of the inferior work in the Iliad. And when we call any of the lays inferior, when we admit that they are invaded by the aesthetic virus, it will be understood that these concessions are merely relative. All Homer is wonderful : all is precious — but one star surpasseth another in glory. Or, to put it otherwise, there are spots even in the sun, but the sun's orb is glorious.

If we take Homer as the truest touchstone of the Hellenic spirit because he was undoubt- edly the true founder of the Hellenic nation, surely Homer himself is to be tried rather by his primitive utterances, when his tones were his own, and not by the voice of later singers, who imitated his voice as best they knew how after the first genuine impulse had abated and when later movements, national and literary, were afoot. That the aesthetic spirit at long last invaded the Homeric epos need not surprise us. That it is congenial to Hellenism cannot be proved from Homer.

Of the poets who come after Homer I need here only speak of two. JSschylus I pass over. He has been already mentioned and his case requires no comment. Those who disagree

The Pursuit of Beauty 51

with the view I am maintaining would never dare to deny intensity to the author of the Prometheus and the Oresteia. They merely fall back on the paradox that JSschylus is no true representative of the genius of Hellas. I must decline to argue this point further than to put a single question : Has JSschylus any title to be considered a true child and dis- ciple of Homer, and if not he what other poet has?

But when we come to regard Pindar and Aristophanes the position is not quite so clear. Pindar's poetry deals mainly with the prowess of victorious athletes, a theme which naturally lends itself to the glorification of human beauty ; while Aristophanes, as a writer of the older Attic comedy, was bound to criticize passing events and to utter satirical comments on the personalities of his day. It is evident that these subjects are not so promising for my doctrine as tragedy, which, dealing as it does with the sadder and more serious aspects of life, lends itself naturally to earnestness. But in criticizing art surely we must look far more to the treatment than to the subject ; and if in fact we find that, in spite of having a less congenial subject, a writer so deals with it as to confirm a given theory, his support will be the more valuable on that very account. Now, I do not expect that my claim to rank Pindar and Aristophanes as earnest poets will cause any surprise to those who are best fitted to judge of their spirit. Pindar's style is

52 Part I— The Voice of Hellas

purposely allusive, often enigmatical, generally changeful, like the surface of the sea. But underneath the artfully woven web of his imagery we can discern the essential aim of the man. His Theban heart pulsated with passionate conviction. His ideals, limited as they were, certainly gripped him — pride in human achievement, hatred of meanness, scorn of inferior natures, sublime, colossal confidence in the strength of his own utterance. Those who accuse Pindar of aestheticism have not read him — or, reading, did not understand.

The art of Aristophanes, on the other hand, required him to make his meaning clear. That sweetest of idylls, the "Birds," and many another tuneful, tender utterance, leave us no doubt that he was a true Athenian, and that his soul was most exquisitely attuned to the love of the beautiful. Moreover, his very versatility, his love of paradox, his boisterous, reckless, shameless spirit, his fun, which we call Aristo- phanic, and can call by no other name, might easily distract us from observing the earnest- ness of purpose which really gives point and substance to his absurdities. I know that he has critics, not wanting in earnestness them- selves, who throw doubt for instance on the sincerity of his politics, and to discuss this question would take us on too long a journey to-day. All I can say is, though nothing should surprise one in regard to literary criticism, I am really bewildered how scholars can feel doubt on this subject. In spite of the exigen-

The Pursuit of Beauty 53

cies of a whimsical art, in every line of his dramas I think the fundamental truth of the man is apparent. We need not like him, and certainly we need not like his opinions, but to see in him only the superficiality of the litterateur is to me a thing utterly incompre- hensible. If aesthetic means Aristophanic then the sooner we give up using adjectives the better.

Leaving for a moment Greek poets and writers of comedy, we may turn our ears to a not less resonant utterance of the voice of Hellas. What of the mighty tones of Thucy- dides and of Plato ?

The fascination which Thucydides has always exercised over his readers is really inconsistent with the too common belief that (apart from the speeches, which certainly are coloured by his sympathies) the history is a cold narrative of facts, embodying no aim beyond that of setting out a true series of external events. The work as a whole produces vital impressions, such as might be called philosophical in the highest sense. To read it attentively, and with the sympathy of the ordinary reader, is to form definite mental conclusions as to Athenian policy and Athenian parties, none the less definite because they may be only half-conscious. Whether the book is a formal drama, in Mr. Cornford's * sense, is another question, but a book that infallibly produces in the reader a feeling of dire tragedy is certainly instinct with the dramatic spirit.

* See Thucydides Mythistoricus. E. Arnold, 1907.

54 Part I— The Voice of Hellas

Now, it might be urged against me, is not this to admit that fundamentally Thucydides was an fond a great artist ? For can any art excel that of the historian who, while apparently maintaining a most judicial attitude, while telling his story with scrupulous exactitude and unruffled calm, with scarce a reference to himself and certainly no allusion to his own views or sympathies, yet carries his readers along with him so that inevitably they will take the mould of his own unexpressed conclusions ? " Summa ars est celare artem." The power of such a writer might be called almost super- human, suggesting as it does the action of Providence, which has a way of not speaking a word to us while its lessons are being enforced upon us by the remorseless logic of facts.

Yes — and in bewilderment I would ask, also, is such an unearthly power in a writer to be termed aesthetic ? Is this forceful logic of Thucydides to be confused with the devices of the literary artist ? This sort of persuasion, does it belong to the rhetorician, whose soul is intent on his own production and the beauty of it, or to one whose soul is intent on an effort outside himself, whose teeth are set in grim determina- tion to do some work, to effect some influence, in human things ? The history when written shall be indeed a K-rr^ia e? ae*, for it shall for ever proclaim to men certain truths which have gnawed their way into the writer's heart. Macaulay, referring to the description of the Battle of the Syracusan harbour, speaks of its

The Pursuit of Beauty 55

author as the most brilliant of all the prose writers of the world. This may be true, but if Macaulay thought to reckon himself and his style as akin to Thucydides, he fell into grievous error. Thucydides is really akin to uEschylus, who is in point of style much nearer to Isaias than Macaulay is to St. Paul.

I shall omit to speak of Herodotus, the Father of history, who has recently been claimed as perhaps the most representative of all Greek writers. I do not wholly accept that view ; but I feel he is an author I could not criticize with great confidence.

At long last I turn to Plato. His name, which is really a nickname, nxaVwi/, signifies the Broad-shouldered, and I verily believe, had I no other supports, his shoulders would be broad enough to bear the weight of my argument. Who was ever more typically a Greek than Plato ? — yet who more intense in pursuit of truth and of holiness, aye, and (if you will) of beauty, too ? He is marked out as thoroughly Greek by all his rich endowments, the play of his fancy, his humour, his sensibility, his deep affectionateness, his stern logic, his roving life, his philosophical subtleties, his ironical power of enforcing them.

Among students of philosophy the difficulty of understanding Plato is a commonplace, but no one can misunderstand him so badly as he misunderstood himself. What on earth would he say of his interpreters if he could only come back to this world and hear what they had said

56 Part I—The Voice of Hellas

of him ! Aristotle called him immoral, St. Augustine treated him as an orthodox Chris- tian, the Hegelians claim him as their true founder. Yet all these misconceptions count as nothing beside Plato himself, who thought he was a teacher of philosophy ! Not quite that. Everything that man can do Plato could have done, barring one thing only, and that was to construct a logical system of philosophy. Mind, I do not say he could not inspire philosophers, for beyond yea or nay he inspired the greatest of all philosophers, who was Aristotle, and the greatest of modern philosophers, who was Hegel.

What, then, was Plato ? He was a voice crying — not in the wilderness. His was the voice of Hellas, the voice of humanity. Plato was a seer of visions and a dreamer of dreams, but he had also a gift which is denied to many dreamers — the supreme gift of utterance. In this he differed from his father, Socrates, who was also a Greek to the marrow of his bones. The master wielded his magnetic influence over an inner circle, but the disciple's voice alone could bring the message to posterity's ear. Who shall describe the fascination of Plato and his message ? His style does not readily lend itself to quotation ; nor can one realize the beauty and the significance of the dialogues till his mind has been saturated with them through and through. Fortunately my scope does not require that I should bring home to you all that Plato is ; I have only to persuade

The Pursuit of Beauty 57

you of one thing he was not — that is, a believer in art for art's sake. That he was sensitive to human beauty almost to a fault is apparent from every second page of his writings. More- over, they literally reek with the imagery of art — not merely because he is professing to expound Socrates, who had begun life as a sculptor, but much more because Plato himself was an Athenian and breathed in his nostrils the atmosphere of Athens. Often does he speak as though he were intoxicated with the sense of physical beauty — but never as though he sought such impressions as the end of his being or the goal of his work. Such a view of life would have been to him monstrously repellent. All the other flights of his eloquence are sur- passed in his effort to interpret the external beauty of the world and of humanity as the symbol of divine beauty and the vehicle of supreme intellectual truth. That this philo- sophy of his could have been mistaken for the vicious sentimentality of modern aesthetics would certainly have caused him aversion and horror amounting almost to physical pain. When he speaks as an Athenian man to Athenian men he does not conceal the natural heat that is in him, but his real theme everywhere and always is precisely the victory of the human spirit as it mounts painfully but surely over those obstacles for which the beauty of earthly things is chiefly responsible. That other Hellene who wrote five centuries later, " I see another law in my members fighting against the

58 Part I— The Voice of Hellas

law of my mind," recalled the very essence of Platonism. If Plato at times uses language which, to a superficial or unsympathetic reader, looks like sestheticism, it is just because he never thought of guarding against a heresy which is especially un-Platonic because it is also un-Greek. These people had their vices. Let us not gloze over the facts — they prosti- tuted many things, including their pagan re- ligion. But one thing they kept pure and sacred — remember I speak of the days of their highest vitality — and that was their intellect. They neither called wrong right, nor aesthetic hedonism the Love of Wisdom.

By a fortunate accident, however, Plato has left us a perfectly clear proof of his attitude towards art. Of all the forms of art there is one that is specially congenial to his tempera- ment, the greatest of all the arts, poetry. Towards this his attitude is simply that of a Puritan. I say it not in praise or blame, but merely as a certain fact, most convenient for our investigation. For all his flamboyant idealism Plato was most practical in his aims, even when his methods were wrong ; and in this also he was a thorough Greek. His teach- ing culminates in his theory of education, and keenly as he loved his Homer, deeply as he felt himself to be indebted to the study of him, he decides without ruth to exclude Homer, along with the tragedians from the ideal school. So rigidly must the scholars be defended from every breath that could tarnish their spirit.

The Pursuit of Beauty 59

Yet Homer and the poets had ever been to Athenian children what the three R's re- present in a more commercial age. It is as though Plato has asked himself what was the surest test he could give of his sincerity, what was the highest price he could pay to preserve society from its most deadly peril, the aesthetic spirit.

As a single exponent of Hellenism, there can be no rival to Plato. He alone is complex enough to sum up within a single personality all the manifold aspects and activities of the Hellenic soul. But we must promptly with- stand the error of the chronologers who have unpardonably placed Plato in the fourth century. By nature he was twin brother of -ZEschylus, the vivid and austere, and he burns with the vital fire of Pindar, and he combines the mockery of Aristophanes with the awful intuitions of Thucydides.

But if, as a Hellene, in the widest sense, Plato has no rival, as a master of the Greek tongue he has one, and one only, the " sweet singer of Colonus and its child."

Sophocles is the only Greek writer (Homer, of course, excepted) for whose person all Greeks expressed a reverence nearly amounting to worship. In his calm, classical spirit they saw something that approached the super- natural, and they recognized that he had been born under the special favour of heaven — whose life had commenced when, as leader of a boy chorus, he had hymned the victory of

60 Part I — The Voice of Hellas

Salamis, and closed before he could witness the death-blow of Athens, dealt her by Ly- sander's hand at JSgispotami. He was there- fore born into and practically lived through that fifth century of which Plato was only the adopted child. Athens loved him as he loved Colonus ; the people who had jeered at Pericles, driven Thucydides into exile, wholly neglected Euripides, and murdered Socrates as a corrupter of boy nature, were awed into silence by the calm reserve, the unearthly dignity, of Sophocles.

Yet was he no cold ascetic — many-tongued rumour gave him not that character — in his poetry too passion lurks, though hidden beneath a marvellously refined, somewhat austere, style. He has, perhaps, beyond all other writers the subtle undefinable quality which we call distinction. Vergil has it too, but — to speak in Baconian fashion — though Sophocles might have written Vergil, Vergil could not have written the lyrical part of Sophocles. There is all the difference between the rhythm of a sounding stream and the rhythm of wavelets kissed by the sunshine. The rhythm of the Sophoclean lyric is ever freshening in the breeze, while, in technical perfection, it scarcely falls below the difficult standard set by Pindar. In style, therefore, Sophocles differs from Plato the Poet, who, strictly speaking, has no style. He merely pours out the cornu- copia of his thoughts, like molten metal from a bucket, till his pages are covered with the

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glowing mass. What modern would dare to construct sentences as Plato often does ? His language, lofty though it be and eloquent from the heart, yet can be not seldom tiresome, then hurried to the point of slovenliness and even obscure. Yet no one who really cared a straw for Plato ever thought of his verbal defects, and it were as cruel to Sophocles as to Plato to try him by any standard that aestheticism can devise.

In Greek drama there is a literary artist, and a consummate one at that, " Euripides the human, with his droppings of warm tears." Yes, the pathos and the charm of Euripides has blinded many readers to the fact that he is really a sophist (of course I use the word in the Greek sense), masquerading as a tragic poet. His ideas may have been excellent, I have no doubt many of them were — nor do I care — my instinct tells me they are out of place in Greek drama. Not so Sophocles — his emotions are not those of an artist in ethical novelties, but those of a sound Greek poet. He, too, has his philosophy of life — what Greek had not ? — although there is something dim and mystical in his enunciation of it, for he has not the certainty of the Rationalist. The main point which differentiates him from his younger rival is that, although his philosophy is the very web and woof of his drama, he never allows it to run counter to the exigencies of his art. An instance will make this clearer. Compare the Antigone, which is not quite his

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masterpiece, with perhaps the finest of Euri- pides' plays, the Hippolytus. Both may be called problem plays in a wide sense — though they would hardly satisfy Mr. Chesterton's definition of a problem play. The themes of both are equally terrifying. Yet I find a difference. The play of Sophocles has the true tragic atmosphere ; it keeps throughout to the grand manner — while it terrifies it also soothes and reassures. The virtue of Hippolytus is not unlike that of Antigone ; it is even more heroic, yet the effect is greatly marred by a controversial element. The crudeness of Aphrodite's mean jealousy is evidently dragged in as an unpleasant morsel of bitter polemic, without any real effect on the tragic situation. Sophocles can move us quite differently, not because he was a worse moralist or a better artist than Euripides. Or rather, we might say, that he was only the better artist in so far as he was the better Greek. The creator of Antigone, the delineator of (Edipus, of Ajax, of Philoctetes, had something in him of higher moment than mere poetry or ethics : he had ideals, and the timely utterance of these gave his heart relief ! Athens never required of him the final test of the cup of hemlock, but I doubt not, like his own heroine, he could have died for the faith that was in him. I know not whether, like Socrates, he would have died with a joke upon his lips.

* CHAPTER III GREECE, THE CRADLE OF DEMOCRACY *

Great was the wisdom of Greece, but not for herself. Her achievements in statecraft were but weak and halting ; yet she bequeathed to unborn generations of men a political philo- sophy which is as remarkable for its sanity as for its subtle thought. And it is also true that, on the practical side, the Greeks, in spite of the little solidarity and permanence of their work, have given great examples to the world.

Greece and Rome severally represent for us two great sides of human nature. If Rome created Empire, Greece undoubtedly created Democracy, and this is perhaps (I do not speak positively) her greatest title to the gratitude of mankind. I propose to consider Greek Democracy as it existed in fact as well as in theory. Indeed, the philosophy of Plato and of Aristotle is of such a concrete substance that we cannot adequately deal with it except through a careful study of the facts upon which it is based and with which it professes to deal. One result we may expect from a study of this subject is that we shall gain thereby a some- what clearer notion of what we mean by Democracy. For is not this one of the many

* Read before the College Classical Society, T.C.D. (members of the Classical Association of Ireland being present by special invitation), November, 1913.

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terms of political or social reference which are used in a vague and misty manner ? To a Greek the import of the word was clear enough. For there is this difference between a living language like Greek and a dead or dying language like our own — that, in the former, words have a proper value, clear and precise, often carrying their meaning stamped upon their face ; whereas, if we so much as pause to ask ourselves the meaning of words which are flying loosely around, as they pass glibly from tongue to tongue, we must needs seek the in- formation from a language which men, in their ignorance of the truth, characterise as a " dead " tongue. To a Greek " Democracy " meant what it said, i.e., a form of the city- state in which its Demos, or mass of citizens, took a direct and personal share in controlling its destinies.

Yet I shall not attempt for myself a defini- tion of Democracy. This may, I fear, sound very illogical, but, then, I do not aspire to be logical. A pedant might try to define electricity, a fool would triumphantly define poetry. Perhaps the greatest things in the world are not defined — they are believed in. I will try to tell you what I believe about the Demos. I believe the Demos is a sound person, or, if you like it better, a healthful animal. It is, therefore, a healthy thing to trust the Demos, and if you trust him you will not be very far from loving him. That is what I would call the " credo " of Democracy. There is

The Cradle of Democracy 65

one other article of the " credo " worth men- tioning, and it is this. The whole is greater than the part. Therefore the true statesman will not allow the wishes or the interests of any class in the community to prevail over the interest of the whole Demos. In other words, true Democracy is opposed to tyranny in any shape or form — even the tyranny of the Mob.

To return to our inquiry. In thinking or speaking about the Greeks it is almost in- evitable that we should focus our attention upon Athens. Not merely because almost all our knowledge about the inner life of Greece, as well as her philosophy, comes to us from Athenian writers. I count Aristotle among these, because, though he dropped from the north, he became practically an Athenian by adoption. But there is a special reason also. Athens was always regarded among the Greeks, and was in fact, the champion of Democracy ; and the history of her State was simply the growth and development of democratic prin- ciples and institutions. These things grew up in Athens, not from any intellectual impulse, but out of the essential grit of her manhood — just as Imperial Rome was a necessary outcome of the sturdy virtue of the Roman Plebs.

Yet, if we want to trace back Greek Demo- cracy to its roots we must go behind the history of the Athenian Demos to the earliest existing records of Greek life. In the Homeric State we can already detect seeds which were bound to bear fruit in due season. There is a spirit

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of fair play as between man and man, and at least among the chieftains in the battle-field and in the council-chamber there is the strongest evidence of individual responsibility. In presence of their over-lord the Homeric heroes were accustomed to use a freedom of speech which certainly did not err on the side of reserve. One great lesson of the Iliad is that the sins of rulers bring trouble on their followers. Achilles, too, was humbled in the end, but not till after he had taught a very salutary lesson to Agamemnon. But when we turn to the later Homeric period we see even stronger indications of the same spirit of independence. When the Odyssey was being composed the Ionian race was already starting on its mission. It was beginning to spread itself in the Mediterranean basin westwards as well as eastwards. The enterprising and re- sourceful spirit of Homer's Ionian chieftain only required a quieter opportunity to assert itself in the political order and cultivate that sense which we call democratic. After the Homeric period and the great break-up of civilization caused by the Dorian conquest, democratiza- tion among the Greeks was for a time arrested. Sparta took the lead, and in her city-state, owing chiefly to topographical causes, the strictest military discipline was enforced. Though she was in many ways typical of Greek life Sparta never had any tendency towards the sort of Democracy which flourished at Athens, nor can we doubt that Spartan jealousy

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of Athenian rule added to her dislike of demo- cratic institutions. She was always regarded as the champion of Oligarchy and when her opportunity came she gave the Greek States a taste of her fruit which turned to bitterness in their mouth.

Let us, however, at once turn our attention to the early history of Attica. Almost at the beginning of her career her children began to feel out for that political individualism for which later they became so distinguished ; but the Athenian people went through all the regular stages by which many other city- states reached their final development. After Monarchy came Oligarchy, then Tyranny, so- called, and, lastly, some form of Democracy. The Greek Tyrant was a peculiar institution, though he might be fairly compared in certain respects with the Tribunus Plebis of the Romans. Anyhow he was a champion of popular rights, who owed his power to the revolutionary exercise of physical force ; he came from the people and was used by them as a set-off against the intolerable yoke of an hereditary nobility.

The democratic spirit among the Greeks, and more especially among the Athenians, was undoubtedly quickened by the death-struggle of Greece against the Persian King and by the glorious victories which terminated it. But we must guard against believing that the democratic movement originated solely in the binding-force of a great national crisis. We

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can trace its development for at least the hundred years that elapsed between Solon's legislation and the Battle of Marathon. We are not really contradicting Aristotle, who seems to deny this in the twelfth chapter of his second book. He is there dealing solely with what he considers the perversion of Athenian Democracy in its later stages ; and he points out that in Solon's legislation, which he thought perfectly legitimate, no flaw, from his standpoint, could be detected. But that Solon actually commenced a series of political changes which eventuated in extreme Demo- cracy is an undeniable fact.

In the same passage Aristotle emphasizes the evident truth that the Persian victories assisted the democratic movement, because they were won by the oarsmen of the Piraeus, men who belonged to the lowest class of citizens. But we must look deeper than this. It was in and through the Persian Wars that the Greeks arrived at the full consciousness of their nationhood. They had been separate units — now they were an irresistible world- power. This new conviction need not neces- sarily have implied a new impulse to Demo- cracy ; but as a matter of fact it did — because the war was felt to be a war for freedom. To the eyes of a Greek, the Persians were Bar- barians, but also bond-slaves. The struggle had passed over the JSgean from Ionia to Hellas, and in Ionia no doubt was felt that Persian rule spelt national ruin for the Greeks. What

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was the Persian King but an Oriental despot ? We are inclined, perhaps, to hold that Demo- cracy was the outcome of the city-state : I think it is equally true to state that the city-state was the outcome of Hellenic indi- vidualism.

We need not, then, be surprised to learn from the historians, poets, and orators of Greece in the fifth and early fourth centuries how deeply the Greek mind was infected, not merely with a detestation for the tyrannical rule of Eastern potentates, but with a very active dread of Monarchy as a political institution. One of Headland's greatest contributions to scholarship (which was barely gaining due recognition at the moment of his regretted and premature death) was the way he insisted on the dramatic turning-point in the greatest masterpiece of ^Eschylus — where Agamemnon by consenting to walk, even after baring his feet, upon his wife's oriental carpet showed how the victory over Asiatic Troy had turned the head of -the Homeric champion of free-born Achaeans. Thus his tragic fate falls upon him at the moment he was claiming for himself, just as Alexander the Great claimed, a semi- divine, and therefore un-Hellenic, kingship. Thus is dramatic justice in so far vindicated.

We must take pains to realize the difference between the Greek standpoint and our own. We moderns know full well that the freedom of the subject and a constitutional government is possible under any of the great forms of

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administration. In the eyes of the Greek, as of the Roman, Democracy was always identified with Republican forms of government. To be the subject of a monarch was to have lost something of human grandeur, and even of human happiness. We must never forget that whatever else Hellenism stood for, in the eyes of the Greeks themselves it stood first and fore- most for the Sovereignty of the People.

And now comes the Great Paradox. Athen- ian life was full of paradoxes — the Greeks were not always morbidly logical — but this time it is something uncommon. Although that which I have called the democratic spirit was cradled in Greece and nurtured to maturity in Athens, although the men of Hellas knew that it was their highest and most distinctive glory to be champions of individual and civic free- dom ; yet if there is one thing in which all the greatest and most representative writers of Athens agreed it was in reprobating Democracy as they knew it. As instances of this mental attitude I need only cite, among historians, Thucydides and Xenophon ; among poets, JEschylus and, by implication, Pindar, Aris- tophanes— even Sophocles, though not so zealously ; above all, among philosophers, Plato and Aristotle. In various ways these men have brought home to us the state of their mind, and though we could, no doubt, some- times find explanations of this feeling in regard to individuals, yet we are speaking of a conviction which is too deep-seated as well

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as too widespread to be accounted for by acci- dental causes. Every student of Greek litera- ture must have been struck by the unanimous verdict of all, except, perhaps, one first-class writer, against Democracy.

The fact is, Democracy at Athens had been a failure, just as had Monarchy at Sparta, and Oligarchy at Thebes. We are accustomed to admire the city-state, and rightly. It pro- duced great men, it did great things for humanity. But for the men who constituted it, the city-state had serious drawbacks. The flashes of light which it gave were grand enough, but, flaring up, they soon burned themselves out. The system wanted stability. After a single century of true democratic government Athens was brought low ; and after less than a second century Greece, as a nation, had ceased to exist. She was absorbed first by Macedon (which was never a city-state), then by Rome (which had ceased to be one) ; and until quite recently Greek soil has never since been free from the yoke of the foreigner.

Be it again said, the loss of Hellas was the gain of the world. In her brief span of freedom Greece tried many experiments and taught mankind many priceless lessons. Her thinkers garnered into a rich store of philosophy the heritage of wisdom which they bequeathed to later generations. Plato, a man of pure and spiritual intuition, who felt too keenly to be able to reason calmly, left us that picture of the Ideal State, which for its rare literary

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quality as much as for its startling dogmatism has gripped the finest minds of Europe — even of those who shrank in horror from his weird proposals. Aristotle, on the other hand, makes no appeal to our emotion. Calmly and impersonally he has constructed that wondrous scheme of philosophy which has never had a real competitor, and will last for all time as the loftiest pinnacle of human intellectual achievement. Deeply as his mind had been scored by his master's magnetism, he never hesitates to correct his faults or to lop off the luxuriance of his towering idealism. But in one thing he fell not short of Plato's ardour, and that was in his dislike of Athenian Demo- cracy. In all else cold as a statue of Parian marble, when referring to the political aber- ration of Athens he allows himself the delight of denunciation.

Thus the student of Greek life gains a two- fold lesson. On the one hand, he admires and loves the soul of Democracy, as expressed in the very existence of Greek nationality ; and again he is led to abjure that same spirit when it breaks away from sanity and degenerates into senseless exaggeration. All through Greek life the Golden Mean is inculcated. This is the true secret of a Classical spirit, no less in Greek politics than in Greek art or in Greek letters. But there is a difference also. In the literary and aesthetic world we meet great masterpieces, which have reached us because the sordid and the commonplace, if it ever existed, has fallen

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away into oblivion. The study of History is not like that. If we wish to arrive at the knowledge of what the ancients really were, if we would " see Greek life steadily and see it whole," we must not expect to find in it only what is admirable. These people, after all, were human, and what nation, what period, can claim immunity from human weakness and error ? Nay, rather, the very intensity of Greek life, the enthusiasm, the rapidity, the gaiety of Greek nature, the very spirit of freedom which animated Greek hearts, should prepare us for some defection from their own lofty ideals. They may not have done everything well — but of a truth they did nothing slackly, and when they went wrong they had a natural tendency to go very wrong. We need not wholly regret their wrong-doings ; for us their faults may be as useful as their virtues — we may learn as much from their failures as from their magni- ficent achievements.

Let us, then, consider briefly the actual working of Democracy at Athens. This is, no doubt, a thorny subject and one which, to the regret of the true student, has too com- monly raised mountains of controversy. Grote wrote his great History to extol the Athenian policy, and it has ever been called, not al- together unjustly, a political pamphlet in twelve volumes. In fact, the book represented a reaction against previous English writers who had treated the subject from the standpoint

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of extreme conservatism. If we could only succeed in avoiding the controversial spirit and confine ourselves to a statement of facts, we might formulate a doctrine that would be widely admitted.

I do not see how it can be denied that, at least after the death of Pericles, the rule of the democrats was disastrous to Athens. They got beyond themselves and rode for a fall. To enforce this statement let us take a con- crete example. Alcibiades was the child — Aristophanes hints the spoiled and pampered child — of the Athenian Democracy. During the later part of the great century of its ener- getic life this brilliant young soldier, politician, and orator of Athens represented only too faithfully the rising generation of his city. In beauty, in intellect, in versatility — we might add in restlessness, irresponsibility, and a certain lack of stable principle — he was the very mirror of the Young Athens which frequented the schools of the Sophists and took there the mould of their mental training. And with what result ? No external enemy of Athens, not even Brasidas or Gylippus, con- tributed so effectually as did Alcibiades to the ruin of the imperial city. It was his know- ledge and ability, to say nothing of his wealth and influence, that enabled him to strike the blow which in the event proved fatal. It is useless to discuss now the nature of the provocation which he received, or again to recall the magnificent services which at a later

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date he rendered to his country. My point merely is, that democratic Athens reared Alcibiades, made him what he was, and that it was his restless, reckless individualism which ruined her. He first brought about the Great Expedition, and then worked its destruction. If space permitted we could discuss the case of Cleon, or of Nicias — who, though in every way the direct antithesis of his younger rival, helped him, unwillingly no doubt, in his work of devastation. And Nicias was implicitly trusted in a crisis by the purblind democracy.

The fact is, the Athenian State was organized on the basis of mob-rule. That the mob was comparatively enlightened and even, in a sense, highly cultured, does not matter. However well it might do for carrying on the ordinary business of a city-state which, after all, was but a municipality, at any rate a cultured mob is no fit agent for governing a Federal Empire. The real cause for surprise is not that Athens failed in the end, but that for a time she managed the Confederation of Ionian Greeks with very fair success. Even the Roman Senate could not govern the Roman Empire, and the two cases are not perhaps so dissimilar as they might at first sight appear.

There are two things to bear in mind when discussing Athenian policy. One is that Attica was not a topographical unity ; the other, that she was an industrial State with a large slave population. We need not make out that the preponderance of slaves was as great as used

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to be believed — a recent estimate would make them about forty per cent, of a population of over a quarter of a million. In addition there were numerous Metics, or foreigners domiciled in the city. These had to pay heavy taxation, but lacked the rights of citizenship in a full sense.

The existence of large classes of men in the city who were not citizens will, no doubt, raise a question in the minds of many as to whether we can rightly even apply the name of a Democracy to Athens. Here, it seems, we must make a careful distinction. If we are going to consider the question purely from the standpoint of present-day politics — I mean the extreme humanitarian view of Democracy — it is quite evident that no city-state, however democratically governed according to ancient ideas, could be regarded otherwise than in the light of a somewhat inflated oligarchy. But, of course, when we are dealing with the institu- tions of the ancient world we have to divest our minds of modern preconceptions, en- deavouring to view questions according to standards of thought and practice prevalent in earlier times. Now, no Greek or Roman (generally speaking) ever thought of questioning either the justice or the necessity of slavery. It was a universally recognized fact, and even Aristotle, with all his power of analysis, took it for granted that it sprang essentially out of the very roots of human nature. So that to contend that because slavery existed at Athens there

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could be no real Democracy there, seems to betray a lamentable confusion of thought. The Greeks did not invent slavery, but they invented Democracy, and when they gave it a name in their own tongue they knew what they were talking about better, perhaps, than many modern dogmatisers.

But, even keeping to the Greek point of view, we must admit that the presence of a large number of slaves in a democratic State really did influence the political situation very pro- foundly ; for it meant that the members of the Demos, who were also members of the govern- ment, were not obliged to labour. They did not eat their bread out of the sweat of their brow, and they could, accordingly, find plenty of leisure to attend to affairs of State, whether legislative or administrative and judicial. Whenever they wanted to interfere they could do so directly, and they did so more than was healthy for themselves or for Athens. It is a very different sort of Democracy where the common people merely reserve to themselves the final say in great questions of State policy, from where they undertake, no matter how unqualified by education or experience, to settle in detail, by the light of nature, all the complicated affairs of an empire. ^

We cannot escape from the fact, to which I have already alluded, that the Athenian Demo- cracy was held in scornful and bitter hatred, not merely by extreme Oligarchs (nothing to surprise us in that), but by moderate

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conservatives, patriotic and thoughtful men, like Thucydides and Plato. It is no answer to say that these men had smarted, Thucydides in his own person and Plato in the person of his beloved master. I can believe that they had suffered — but that they had spiteful minds I refuse to believe, or that a conviction like theirs, so deep, so lasting, that the Athenian Democracy was inherently weak and foolish, was caused by mere personal pique. Plato's views were ex- treme on this subject. If he did not believe in his soul that Athenian policy was rotten to the core, he would never have had recourse to Sparta, as he certainly did, to find a type of pure and ideal government. We may say, of course, omne ignotum pro magnifico, but that will hardly explain the whole phenomenon. I do not, however, wish to discuss the views of Plato further, but would now ask to turn your attention to the attitude of the younger philosopher, as expressed in his immortal treatise on Politics. I would say at once that, in spite of his apparent reprobation of it, there is in Aristotle a deep and reasoned sympathy with many of the higher aspects of Democracy. It is true that he does not yield to Plato in his dislike of the Athenian manifestations of the principle, and among the Greeks the name of Democracy had by this time become thor- oughly identified with Athenian institutions, so that the philosopher always treats it as a Perversion rather than a True Form of government. It shall be our task, however, to

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investigate his doctrines, and we shall find, as I have said, that they connote a very sound belief in many essential principles of Democracy apart from a dislike of the name.

But not wholly. Of course Aristotle defends slavery, but he goes much farther. He clings to the pagan view that manual labour, as such, has a degrading effect, or at least unfits a man for taking his share in public life. Accordingly, he excludes the mechanic from citizenship in his ideal city-state. On this score, so far from admitting the democratic position, he finds fault with extreme Democracy because under it the claims of the working-man to citizenship would possibly be recognized. But he is per- fectly impartial, for he includes Oligarchy in the same condemnation. He fears in a State ruled by Oligarchs the manual labourer who had amassed wealth (the very thing that com- monly happened at Athens) would also be very probably admitted to the franchise.

However much we moderns may deplore Aristotle's failure to recognize the dignity of labour, we need not resent it. We must not expect that in virtue of his originality and insight he could entirely divest himself of prejudices which were practically universal in the ancient world. No doubt this high con- tempt for hard work was the result of a flourishing system of slavery, as it also reacted in favour of the maintenance of it.

The doctrine current among us that nothing is more manly or finer than work, that a man

7

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is not less respectable because he works with hand as well as brain, is the direct outcome of Christian faith, and has never been held except among professors of Christianity or such as are strongly influenced by it. It is, of course, the very charter of modern Democracy ; and for my part I certainly resent a fashion that is prevalent among numerous modern thinkers to paint Christianity as the enemy of demo- cratic development. Churchmen, of course, have many sins to their account, and I am sure sins against the principles of human liberty ; but to assert that Christianity on the whole, whether viewed historically or doctrin- ally, has been anti-democratic seems to me nothing short of gross calumny.

So far the negative side of Aristotle's doctrine about Democracy has been chiefly considered. Let us try to give a more positive outline of his philosophy of the State. I must, however, premise that the task is not altogether easy. Both in the Ethics and the Politics we find there is a region where, in spite of his enormous gift of insight and of analysis, the author has to proceed tentatively. Perhaps he is to be more implicitly trusted on this very account. Is there not a point in all sciences, a point where the widest generalizations are aimed at, but where the greatest thinkers find themselves enveloped by a very atmosphere of haze, — a point where dogmatism may be easily mis- taken for science ? When the Philosopher is dealing with details, grouping them, deducing

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from them principles of theory or practice, he is supreme alike in his knowledge of the realities of life and in the marvellous instinctive reason- ing power which he brings to bear on them. But when he formulates schematic principles of statecraft he is not always absolutely clear. His attitude towards essential Democracy is necessarily involved in the very crowning point of his political philosophy, which is the definition of the ideal constitution ; and in this all commentators have, I think, detected an element of uncertainty. As to what he calls by the name of Democracy, I have already said there is practically no room for doubt. He always means the excesses of the Athenian multitude, which he utterly reprobates as perverted. But this is not our inquiry — we want to know what he recommends as perfect government, and how far his Ideal Polity is in the deeper sense Democratic ? Now, it so happens that he can find no name except that of Constitution for his Perfect State ; and as every form of government is in a sense a constitution, there is already an element of confusion which tends to mar his treatment of the subject.

Let us, however, seek to trace, step by step, the principles by which the Ideal Polity is to be animated. In the first place, the science of Politics is regarded as a branch of General Philosophy whose character is consistently teleological. The end of all human life is happiness : the end of the State is TO e£ tfiv,

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which we may paraphrase the Higher Life.* It is one of our paradoxes that whereas Plato, the idealist, laid the foundations of the State upon a material base, Aristotle, the practical man, the rebel aganst his master's idealism, rejects Plato's materialistic view of the State as contemptible. Plato has postulated the existence of a State as a means to supply man^ kind with the necessities of life. Aristotle replies, without rejecting the statement, that this matters not to him. The State exists because man requires the society of his fellow- men to enable him to prosecute the Higher Life. The formula is a very simple one : " Man without his fellows is */ %>tW *? Beos — either a Beast or a God." We need not ask which of these conceptions of the State is the higher one — it appears certain that Aristotle's is more philosophical, if only because it dips down deeper into human nature. In other words, Plato's State at best would be a con- venience ; Aristotle shows that it is essential for human life as such. And to grasp this truth clearly is to have a key to all philosophy of the State, not because the doctrine is in some sense ethical, but because it is universal. And it is almost superfluous to add that in deal- ing generally with political problems Plato is far more ethical than his disciple, in spite of the fact that he hit upon a non-ethical solution of the most fundamental question of statecraft.

* Not, of course, in any religious or narrow sense, but including all that we call Humanism "in the widest meaning of the term.

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There is a second principle, only less funda- mental, and none the less true, than the one described. It is the dividing line between good and bad governments, according to which all possible systems are classed as Normal forms or Perverted. Normal rule exists for the good of the governed — Perverted rule for that of the government. All varieties of form, which may be indefinitely multiplied, are subordinate to this great distinction. Thus Monarchy will be normal if the king seeks the good of his people ; if he does not, you get the Perversion of Monarchy, which is Tyranny. In like manner the State may be governed by a few rulers, and it will then be a real Aristo- cracy if Normal, or an Oligarchy if Perverted. If the many rule, the State may still be ruled normally, i.e., constitutionally (Aristotle can devise no other name). If perverted, such a State will be democratic in the degraded sense, i.e., the Demos will rule to suit their own ends and not for the benefit of the whole community. This parallelism between Oligarchy and Demo- cracy, as understood in the treatise, frequently recurs and seems to throw a strong light on the mind of the author. For Oligarchy had a bad name at Athens. The party had been unfortunate ; they had, indeed, played the game with execrable folly. In reality, after the performances of the four hundred in 411 B.C., and of the thirty in 404-3 B.C., the ordinary Athenian looked upon the Oligarchical party as men who had turned traitors, and

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having tried to do their worst had failed in the attempt. Hence when Aristotle brackets Democracy with Oligarchy (we may take it he is thinking of Athenian history) he implies that one and the other constitute a very cor- rupt and degrading element in politics.

In our effort to discover his real attitude towards the Democratic principle, as we under- stand it, it is very necessary to bear in mind the strength of that prejudice against Democracy as it existed in Athens which he had inherited from Plato, and which his own mature ex- perience had strengthened.

The great practical problem of politics which evidently exercised the mind of the Philosopher was how to discover a method by which different elements in the State can best be harmoniously co-ordinated ; and it is not too much to say that the presence of this question in his mind gives a colour to all his speculations. In a well-known passage of the Sixth Book, after enumerating the more important classes of citizens, as mechanics, farmers, men of busi- ness, labouring men, soldiers, and the class of State-officials, he goes on to say that there is one ineradicable distinction more fundamental than the rest, namely, that between rich and poor men. So strongly does he feel the force of this view that he purposes (in spite of obvious etymology) to revise our use of the common political nomenclature. He dissents from the popular view that Oligarchy properly signifies the rule of the Few and Democracy the rule

The Cradle of Democracy 85

of the Many — declaring that Oligarchy properly is the rule of the Rich (who merely happen to be few) and Democracy of the Poor (who merely happen to be many). And in the im- possible supposition of the Rich being many, and the Poor few, he would still maintain that the rule of the former would be Oligarchs and of the latter Democrats. This distinction is not a mere matter of words, and it seems to throw a good deal of light on Aristotle's theory of the best polity.

Having stated this problem of co-ordination we may now consider his treatment of the Middle Class, that is, the class which is neither rich nor poor, but of moderate substance. His doctrine here is very clear and will undoubtedly commend itself to the minds of most of us. The best polity will be that in which the Middle Class is relatively strong — if possible stronger than both the extremes of rich and poor taken collectively, but anyhow stronger than either of them taken separately. This it is which will impart stability to a State, a view which is defended partly from reason and partly from experience. We are reminded in Book VI. that, according to Aristotelian doctrines, virtue is to be always regarded as a mean lying between two extremes; and, by analogy, that condition which is intermediate in regard to the gifts of fortune is best for the citizens and safest for the State. For such a class obedience to law is relatively easy, whereas the very rich and the very poor are tempted alike, the one

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to insolence, the other to degradation, which may be the result of extreme poverty. The writer then quotes a lyric poet of whom we possess several fragments, Phocylides of Mile- tus, who said, 7ro\\a /jLecroia-iv apiara, fjueaov #eX&> ev

TToXet elvat,. Then, with his usual practical in- sight, Aristotle adds that to this Middle Class belonged many of the most successful states- men of Greece, citing, among others, the case of Solon, who undoubtedly founded democratic rule at Athens.

Here Aristotle has proved not only his deep political insight but his true Hellenic tempera- ment. And this praise of the Middle Class as a stable and conservative, though by no means un-democratic, element in politics suggests again the thought of Athens. If that city had been more in the hands of the cottier- farmers of the uplands of Attica, and less in those of the idlers who used to hang around the quays of Piraeus when they were not wrang- ling in the Agora or voting down better men in the Heliaea and the Ecclesia, historians might have had to tell a different tale from that of Syracuse, ^Egispotami, and Chaeronea.

And, for ourselves, we do not perhaps picture our farmers and shopkeepers as endowed with brilliant talent or with a thirst for heroic self- sacrifice — but what we do look for in them is some supply of that rarest article which is strangely called by the name of Common Sense. This is a precious thing in the eyes of the modern statesman, as in those of Aristotle,

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who might perhaps be best described as the in- carnation of Common Sense. I think we might safely address all the publishers of the world, and defy all their historians, essayists, meta- physicians, and economists to produce in the compass of this short and fragmentary Politics a volume which would contain one tithe of its homely wisdom and sane speculation.

If the problem of the best State could be solved statically, here would be, on paper any- how, an excellent constitution. The power in the State is to be taken out of the hands of extremists, whether Oligarchs or Democrats, and entrusted to men of moderate opinions because they possess moderate means.

But, of course, Aristotle knew better. We know better. The problem is not a statical one. The real statesman must be prepared to deal with the interplay of dynamical and antagonistic forces in the State, or else he must remain content, as Plato did to a large extent, with merely speculative schemes of government. This is the great lesson of the Politics. The author has made it plain that in a community of human beings we must expect to find that element which we call Egoism and which he called Oligarchy and Democracy indifferently. And he scornfully rejects the view that these interests are irreconcilable, or, in other words, that no kind of polity can be devised which is not either frankly Oligarchic or, in his sense, a Democracy.

But when the Philosopher seeks for a formula by which to reconcile the opposing forces of

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extreme wealth and poverty, he knows that he is treading on dangerous ground. What he sees clearly is that a sane or Normal polity must, in some sense, be a fusion of those extremes ; and he suggests, evidently in a tentative spirit, three methods which we need not describe, by which such fusion has been or could be effected ; and naively enough adds that no such fusion is complete unless it can be described indifferently both as an Oligarchy and a Democracy.

I will only cite one passage from the Third Book* which seems to reveal a strong sympathy with democratic principle. He is maintaining the theory that, on the whole, it is good for the Multitude to be supreme rather than the Few, even though the latter may be a superior class of men, and remarks that though the individual wisdom of the Many may be less, yet, taken collectively, they may have a higher degree of merit. "As the multitude has many hands and feet and many senses, so perhaps they may prevail in point of intellect and morals." And he adds, very significantly, "the Many are better judges than the Few of works of music and of poetry."

It is clear that Aristotle was still groping on the way to certainty in matters of State- policy. And I doubt whether we moderns can yet boast that we know all about it.

* Chap. ii.

CHAPTER IV

THE RELIGIOUS SENSE

It is of little moment to describe the Greeks as a serious-minded, strenuous and democratic people, if we have to admit that as a race they were deficient in religious feeling. Yet this opinion is undoubtedly prevalent among many who, being interested in the lighter side of Greek culture, refuse to believe that beneath it were waters running deep.

One thing is quite clear. The Greeks showed great reverence towards their dead. It is not what Antigone does for her brother, but the reason she gives to Creon that brings her so near to this most beloved trait of Christianity. When Creon taunts her for honouring one brother at the expense of the other, whom he had parricidally slain, and that the bad should not receive the same sisterly affection as the good, she makes answer : " Who knows that in the world beneath us these estrangements hold good ? My nature prompts me to join in loving but not to share in hatred." This is woman at her highest, woman inspired by true religious feeling.

Sophocles is not an extreme type of religion among the Greeks — others could be named who are more noted for that character — but it is difficult to think of him as a poet of a non- religious race.

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Anyhow I feel that it will fit in with my plan to offer a few reflections, not perhaps very original or otherwise remarkable, in criticism of a view which is commonly taken for granted among modern writers and which recently found expression, perhaps a little gratuitously, in a widely-read treatise on a phase of Roman art. Frequently modern rationalists write as though they disapprove of all forms of religion, which they regard as another name for de- graded superstition. On the other hand Christians have been frequently vehement in their intolerance of pagan religions, in which they can detect very little that is good. Personally I consider that to brand the Greek nation as irreligious is derogatory to Religion itself as well as to the Greeks. Therefore my arguments will take frankly the form of a defence against what I hold as a false or ex- aggerated allegation, and to this extent will necessarily constitute an ' ex parte ' statement. But being aware that the strongest case may be injured by excessive zeal, I trust that I shall not attempt to heighten my own by adducing dubious or over-strained arguments. And I hope I shall not traverse again the ethical ground already covered. We may, I suppose, take for granted the clear connexion between ethical standards and religious sentiment.

It may also serve to make this essay clearer if I begin by stating what it does not aim at accomplishing. It is not going to attempt a description of Greek religion as a whole, any

'_. JThe Religious Sense 91

more than to discuss its ethical content ; still less will it plunge into that maelstrom of controversy which has been agitating the learned world for more than two decades regarding the origins of Greek religion. Dr. Farnell, than whom no greater authority exists on this subject, in his Hibbert Lectures for 1911,* has warned us that years of study are required for its comprehension as a whole ; and I cannot pretend to be an expert on this branch of Greek studies.

My method will be therefore quite different from that of the anthropologists who investi- gate the multifarious Greek cults and compare them with those of other, generally ruder, nations. We shall merely take Religion in the widest sense as one of the elements of Human- ism, and ask how the Greeks were upon the whole affected towards this principle no matter where they found it or how they came by it. Even so, we shall find our inquiry involving a somewhat vast and complicated problem, one that perhaps will not become easier as we proceed. Religion is a very elastic term, and I would hardly venture to enter on a definition of it. Again, if one starts on such a quest with a prejudiced mind, one will be likely to reach wrong conclusions — and who will dare to assert that he is free from prejudices on this of all subjects ?

Yet I will venture to lay down a few principles for our inquiry which ought to guard it against prejudice and fallacy.

* Lecture 1, p. 2.

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1. We might easily start with too high a note — we might require a standard which is really impossible. A people will not, any more than a man, necessarily live up to the religion which they hold. It is true we have the warranty of an apostle that faith without works is dead, and so it is. But he never said that it is not faith. This is certainly a fallacy to guard against.

2. Again, our standard might be a just one in itself, and yet be wrong relatively. When criticizing pagan peoples it is very easy to forget or obscure the evident fact that any polytheistic system of religion will be essen- tially different in its effects from our own — or even from a non-Christian faith which is monotheistic. In paganism there will be in- consistency at best — and at worst it will tend to become chaotic, as was certainly the case with the religion of the Hellenes. Anyhow, let us not attempt to be logical.

3. Then a good standard may be wrongly applied. For instance, if we are dealing with the commonalty we must not criticize them as we should scientific men and philosophers, and vice versa. Religious faith is no doubt one thing fundamentally, yet it may have very various manifestations. As a nation the Greeks were philosophic, that is, they created the philosophy of the West. Therefore it is not enough to show that they were wanting in religion to state that they took to philosophy. To explain what I mean I will give an instance.

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Suppose it were argued that as a race the English are cultivators of physical science, and therefore they will have an irreligious tendency, I think we should demur. We might agree that scientists are very often rationalists — but, before arriving at any conclusion about English scientists, we might fairly ask are they remarkable for their irreligion as a class ? That is, taking into account the fact that they are scientists, how do they compare with the scientists of other nationalities ? This is what I should call a fair application of a standard. When we come to the Greek philosophers, we must deal with them as such, remembering that philosophy does not of itself induce a religious spirit, though of course it is not wholly incompatible with it.

4. But all these errors are as nothing com- pared to that other source of confusion which I alluded to in a former paper, but which it is absolutely necessary to touch upon here. I mean the common practice, when speaking of the Greek character, of arguing from the periods of its decadence. The flower of Greek genius was specially prone to decay and when it turned rotten the world was filled with its stench. Corruptio optimi pessima. The first thing the Greeks lost was their religion ; when that went mental and spiritual decadence supervened. If, then, our critics restricted their statement, and alleged merely that the Greek mind was ever in danger of irreligion, and that finally it succumbed to the danger, this would be fairly

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near the mark. But it is a very different thing to maintain that through and through the Greeks were nationally deficient in the religious sense.

On the other hand it must be admitted that grounds exist for forming such a view if we consider the matter in its exterior aspects and do not take the trouble to penetrate to the heart of Hellenism. For at first sight there is a very strong contrast between the Greeks and other, even pagan, peoples.

When we consider the greater and more prominent nations in the early history of the world we note that they were usually inspired and moved by ardent, often fanatical, enthu- siasm for their national faith. Among Semitic peoples, the Jews, the Assyrians, the Phoe- nicians, probably the Hittites,* were all fiercely religious. Among other nations, the Persians and the Egyptians were marked and moulded by strong devotion to a fixed belief in the super- natural. It is hardly necessary to add that in later times the wars and national development of Christians and Mohammedans alike were governed by their intensely religious ideals. At the present day, in the Far East, we find faith in Buddha, in Confucius, as also Shinto- ism, giving their special character to forms of Oriental organization. The Romans were, as a nation, intensely religious, although in the long course of their national development

* This is not intended to decide the controversy as to the origin of the Hittite people.

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they, like the Persians, changed their religious standpoint, and at one time were remarkable for importing new objects of national cult. Even where their devotion was centred in the worship of the goddess Roma or the person of the living Emperor, it is commonly claimed that religion both entered into and profoundly modified the national life.

Now what do we find in Greece ? Simply no national faith of any relative importance, but quite a bewildering multiplicity of local cults, especially amongst the poor and ignorant. The educated classes, add the critics, were remarkable for their indifference towards these cults (except in so far as they were officially recognized), for their hilarity at the expense of the official gods, and sometimes for their few and poor attempts to discover a symbolic in- terpretation of them. Their philosophy was ever attempting to explain away the popular religion, or, at most, to substitute for it a cold intellectual faith, which is in the plainest con- trast to the fervid devotion of other pagan races.

Now, it is our business to consider how far these allegations are true. Some of them may be quite true, but in the whole case we have to proceed with caution. First we may, at the very outset, admit that the Greeks can hardly be said to have possessed a definite national belief or even a national god in the strict sense. Zeus was, it is true, always re- garded as the official head of the Hellenic

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hierarchy, such as it was. But then, when he was more than a symbolic name, we shall find that practically he was regarded as a local god, such as were Athena, Apollo, Aphrodite. If there was any national cult in the sixth and fifth centuries in the sense of being universally observed on Greek soil, it was that of Dionysus. And his worship may be best considered as a distinct religion, with only the least possible relation to the Olympianism of the Established Church. On the other hand, popular as were the revels and the legends of the Wine-god, he could never have made a serious claim to dom- inate and inspire the Greek mind, as Rome was at one time inspired by Mavors, and at another by Jupiter or Roma ; the Persian race by Auramazda and by Mithra ; the Carthaginians by Moloch, and the Egyptians by Osiris. It would be useless to pretend that the Greeks recognized any commanding object of their faith and reverence. They had any number of popular gods and national heroes, but no outstanding personality who could inspire a national religion in any true sense. Thus far it is agreed. And the reason is clear. The Greeks never had a national faith because they never could have one. A national faith presupposes national solidarity. The city- state, as the Greeks invented and held to it, was not compatible with political nationality. They had what they did require, local tutelary divinities in whom they, in some sense, put their faith. Their patriotic aspirations were

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abundantly satisfied by the worship of Apollo at Delphi and Miletus and Sparta ; of Athena at Athens ; of Aphrodite at Corinth and Paphos ; of Hera at Argos, and Zeus at Olympia and Cyrene ; even of Arethusa at Syracuse and Taras at Tarentum. And there was more. These special city-cults not merely expressed in each case a special character of the people, but marked them off as something separately sacred, and independent of all external power and influence. These hieratic distinctions are well illustrated in numismatic study. Without inclining to the theory that coin-types origin- ated in religious devotion, we must note the enormous preponderance among them of the representations of divinities and of their easily recognized symbols.

At once, therefore, the conclusion becomes manifest. We are dealing with a special case. The real inwardness of the Hellenic spirit cannot be reached by that method of in- vestigation which suffices for ordinary nations, namely, to inquire into their national faith, as evidenced by their warfare and political record. In the case of Greece, before branding her people as an irreligious crowd we must dig a little deeper— we must weigh in the bal- ance her art, her poetry, her drama, her philosophy and, above all, the daily life that was lived upon her soil and the care and honour she bestowed upon her departed children.

My case depends on one great central prin- ciple. This I shall enunciate at once, with the

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full knowledge that many a reader may sum- marily reject it. Religious faith, I submit, is not merely an emotion, it belongs to the heart, but not exclusively : it implies also an act of the intellect. Faith which consists wholly in feeling is not faith at all : it is a sentiment, but not a conviction. Notice I do not confuse religion with theology, for the latter excludes emotion from its sphere except as a thing to be analysed and argued about ; whereas in religion it is felt — because religious conviction, to be worth the name, is so intense that it implies some feeling of its very nature.

Thus I would submit there is in all religion a double element, the rational and the emo- tional. Either element may be developed at the expense of the other and religion will be in so far injured — but if either element is suppressed, something remains that is not truly religion.

Now I am quite ready to admit that among the Greeks the rational side of religion may sometimes have tended to over-development at the expense of the emotional. The real characteristic quality of the Greeks as a race was not, as is usually stated, their aesthetic sense — but their intelligence. In all depart- ments of life, in their art and eloquence as well as in their science and philosophy, we trace this controlling guidance of reason. This is what we mean by Classical Art or Oratory or Poetry. The name precisely suggests balance, reserve, justness of expression (artistic or liter- ary, things which make Hellenism a supreme

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standard of excellence for all the generations yet born. The intellect is the controlling, though not always the creative, force in Hellenic achievement. Hence, if we are not allowed to include the activity of reasoning power in the orbit of religion, we need not expect to find it a prominent factor in Greek life.

Let us then admit that Greek nature was temperamentally predisposed, not necessarily to be irreligious, but if religious to be so in a one-sided manner. And as to be one-sided is a defect, let us therefore admit that the Greek, as compared with other, even pagan, religions, was defective in this sense. But that is very different from making it out to be non-existent. It may, moreover, be fairly maintained that a deficiency on the emotional side is far less fatal than the opposite modern error which treats religion as being an entirely irrational concern — an error which, as we can see only too clearly, leads to every form of blind credulity, and finally to blank and naked scepticism.

Elsewhere I have referred to the vexed question of the relation of Hellenic art to religion, and there is no temptation to repeat myself, or to discuss the matter at greater length here. The short essay of Prof. E. A. Gardner, entitled Religion and Art in Ancient Greece* is excellent, and, though dealing with the subject on technical lines, might be consulted with advantage by those who are interested in this branch of our subject.

* Harper and Brothers, 1910.

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I must, however, briefly refer to that char- acteristic of Greek religion which was directly connected with art, and that is its anthropo- morphism. There are of course departments of the Greek faith to which this much abused term cannot be applied — in fact, recent in- vestigations have tended to stress the fact that many of the earlier an-iconic cults survived at least in the popular as distinct from the official system of Greek religion. There is, perhaps, a tendency to exaggerate the distinction be- tween these two aspects of Greek religion. To read some treatises one would almost con- clude that there was a sort of constant warfare carried on between them — something like the quarrel between Church and Dissent in English history — for which view there is little enough warrant in Greek literature.

We ought constantly to remember what an imaginative mind was the Hellenic. Much that is commonly attributed to religious belief is merely the imaginative way of expressing beliefs which were often deeper and sounder than their presentation implies. Thus it seems to me the whole question of Greek anthropo* morphism demands a very careful treatment. Are we to assume because the Olympian deities are represented as human both in art and in legend that therefore their creators conceived of their gods as in reality somewhat sub- limated human beings ? Certainly it was the net result of art and poetry to strengthen the anthropomorphic tendency. No sane person

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would deny that ; neither that the process was always going on nor that it went very far. But the view I plead for is that the process did not in fact go quite so far as we are inclined to think and as is generally assumed. At different times and among different classes the conceptions of divinity of course varied. We know that under all conditions the human aspect of divinity was specially prominent. But all the same, even considering ordinary persons as distinct from philosophers, it seems to me we ought to bear in mind that the Greeks (like ourselves in quite another degree) had their famous de parler and their artistic conventions about the Divinity, and that they were conscious that they had.

I do not hold that the Egyptians really believed their divinities were brutish because they chose to depict them under animal forms ; and in spite of all human apparitions and human actions of the Greek gods from the Iliad and Odyssey onwards, I think we are entitled to remember Myth and Art are one thing — they belong to the imagination — Belief is another, it is the act of the reasoning faculty.

We may go more straight into the heart of our subject and begin by asking what the Greeks said about themselves or rather about one another ?

WTien it comes to a question of individuals on this subject the Greek populace was sadly astray. Socrates and Euripides were both

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accused of atheism. So was Anaxagoras, and by implication his friend and patron, Pericles. Could anything be more absurd ? Socrates an atheist ? Humanity's greatest witness (always excepting one) to God's eternal truth ! Euripides is not such a simple case as the son of Sophroniscus. His rationalism can be at times very tiresome ; but this was the foulest of all calumnies levelled by his Athenian contem- poraries at their own poet-philosopher. It is enough to remember that he too was disciple of the Martyr. He wrote of " the All-seeing who is Himself unseen." His views were unorthodox and he obtruded them — voila tout.

One word about Anaxagoras. So far from his doctrine being atheistic he was the first of a long line of Greek thinkers who boldly enunciated the principle which all theists regard as their crucial truth, namely, the origin of the universe from an Intelligent Cause. It is true that Plato, speaking in the mouth of Socrates, complains that Anaxagoras failed in applying this key-stone doctrine of Intellect, but that hardly diminishes the importance of his dis- covery. The bigots of religion have often erred regarding men of science — they rarely made a greater mistake than did the accusers of Anaxagoras.

A more difficult problem faces us if, turning away from the professed philosophers (among whom I count Euripides), we ask what was Pindar's attitude to the religion of his day ? Undoubtedly such faith as he had in the unseen

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world was in great measure merged in his fierce patriotism, his love of the beautiful in nature, his proud adoration of human splendour and dignity. This is to admit that in his mind and heart he was a thorough pagan. Pindar must be read with sympathy, with even humil- ity, before we can fathom his soul. Material things dazzle him it is certain, but does he give us any ground for surmising that he was in the least like certain post-Christian critics of paganism ? Would he have dared to brand all religion as fundamentally one with the crassest superstition ? Or did he not hold that religion was in some sense a veritable human necessity ? His description of the future life in the abode of the Blessed may be compared to the parallel description of the beauty of heaven given by Plato in the latter part of the Phaedo. His treatment of the myths is some- what unusual, for he holds himself free sometimes to explain and sometimes to reject ; but after all there is no trace of irreverence or fundamental irreligion in the extant odes and fragments.

Much of course can be alleged on the opposite side of the count. Plenty of ridicule is poured out on the gods by the Comedians — Euripides fiercely denounces, and (if we read between the lines) despises, those who defend the legendary beliefs. Even Homer was flippant in some of his allusions to the national deities. But we must pause before drawing very sweeping conclusions. Laughter is one thing,

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unbelief is another. We have Chesterton's authority (and he ought to know) for saying that men joke about the things they have most at heart, and treat seriously the things that do not matter.

I have already said we must bear in mind that pagan religion is a complicated affair — we must allow for different periods, shift- ing fashions, many varieties of intelligence or of temperament. In the Greek literature and art which has come down to us we are admitted to a very close view of Greek life. No man is a hero to his valet : it is hardly fair to the actors on the stage of life to turn down the light and bring them into the cold glare of the sun's rays before they get a chance to dis- card their gaudiness and paint.

The trouble with the Greeks (who were in most things exuberant) is they appear to the modern to have had too much of religion — or rather so many religions that they could hardly be religious. So the English Protestant visiting Naples and seeing a Madonna at every street-corner — knowing the Neapolitan is a hard nut to crack, at once concludes that all this is humbug and tawdriness. Perhaps he may be wrong — at least it would do him no harm to inquire a little more closely into the facts. Like the Neapolitans, who are their descendants, the Greeks of Pindar's day were a light-hearted race; like them they owed it to their climate. And if religion consists mainly in pulling a long face, it was not for them.

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But we have other tests. Go to Acragas, see the line of temples along the south side of the city's edge, facing the sea ; even to-day a glorious sign of the faith and fervour of the Sicilian Greeks. One of them — the Concordia — happens to be among the very best-preserved and most beautiful samples of Greek archi- tecture. That of Hera comes next, also an imposing sight ; then the Zeus, telling only in its foundation-stones or a few fragments of its colossal splendour ; and there are others, too — all structures erected at the best period, and serving to illustrate the saying of Thucydides, that while the private houses of the Greeks were humble and unadorned, those of their gods lacked no attraction nor magnificence which wealth and human skill could lavish on them.

The same tale is told, but in heightened terms, by the excavations of the Germans at Olympia and of the French at Delphi and Delos. It is even pathetic to realize how the exiles from Hellas had erected those lines of so-called Treasury Houses (really miniature temples — gems of art) in the enclosures of the gods, in order that on the sacred soil they could regard at least one spot as their very own. If actions speak louder than words, these silent stones, recovered in our days by the labour of the spade, bear eloquent witness to the faith of Hellas. It had its deficiences. Yes, but it was all these men knew, and they loved it well.

It will be fitting here to refer to certain main features in Greek life which bear so

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directly on this discussion that they can hardly be left out of it. Of these I will confine myself to three which strike me as being specially important. They are :

1. The Dionysiac aspect of Greek Drama.

2. The influence of Delphi upon Greek

life.

3. The religious import of the Eleusinian

Mysteries.

The first of these topics, the religious char- acter of the Greek Drama, is a very trite as well as thorny one, and if with hesitation I allude to it, it is not so much because it tells in favour of my view as that I feel it calls for mention. It is of common knowledge that the plays were produced under the aegis of religion and with many marks of the cult of Dionysus. Yet those who are best acquainted with the real conditions of the Greek Theatre and its literature would lay the least stress on the religious character of the performances. If the High Priest of the god presided it was more of a pictorial ceremony, like the presence of a Lord Mayor at a Thanksgiving Service, than a mark of real devotion. The people wanted a good show — they also wanted good literature, — and we know the greater Dionysia was purposely timed to allow of the presence of foreigners who would see within the Great Theatre unmistakable proof of the dazzling genius and imperial grandeur of the

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violet-crowned city. Nor is it only the tragic performances which have to be taken into account. In the winter, when there would be fewer strangers present, the Comedians got their chance and well they used it. Probably nothing has been more responsible for a wide- spread belief that the Athenians were a godless rabble than the reckless pen of Aristophanes.

Yes, at these Dionysiac festivals there was pride and pomp, and boisterous fun galore ; at first sight piety towards the higher powers is rather far to seek. Yet our conclusion might be wide of the mark. First impressions are not in all cases the best, and if we go deeper into the matter we may judge more correctly of the Athenian ethos. We are so accustomed in our modern life to make a distinction be- tween Church and Theatre, between Theatre and School, between School and Public Meet- ing, that it is difficult to understand how these could be all combined together in a single institution. From the certain fact that they were we may indeed conclude that Athenian civilization was not yet fully-fledged in our sense ; but we cannot prove that it was essentially irreligious. Children are funny creatures, but hardly monsters of impiety. And it is one way to take your pleasure sadly (a thing we do understand) and another to take your religion gaily.

But that is not all, or I should have omitted to allude to the Greek Theatre. It may be that in the later fifth century, as far as the

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outward forms of tragedy and comedy are con- cerned, the Dionysiac element was but a pictorial survival of an earlier faith, but — we have the plays themselves to consider. Care- fully weigh the choruses of JSschylus and Sophocles ; read with discernment the pages of Euripides and even Aristophanes — and gradu- ally you will become aware that, whatever is to be decided about the outward forms, in the spirit of the Greek Theatre we can still discern a lingering, brooding sense of the eternal verities — a consciousness that "behind the scenes" of that greater theatre where is played the drama of human existence an unseen Power is making itself felt.

Our second topic was to be the influence of Delphi upon Greek life — and it is scarcely less difficult than the preceding. This was the very seat and centre of official Greek religion — nor was its influence restricted to public affairs. In a sense it may be said to have held in the ancient world a position analogous to that of Rome in medieval Europe. But it has been remarked that the influence of Delphi was always purely in the spiritual order, whereas there were periods when the Roman See leaned upon the arm of secular power.

It is of course easy to sum up the Delphic oracle as an instance of fraud practised on a gigantic scale, and to assume that its success can be accounted for by hypnotism, intrigue, and bribery. But there is something to be said contrariwise. Considering the long history of

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the oracle, the known instances of venality and gross deceit, or even of tortuous ambiguity, in responses given are comparatively few. Some of the commonly quoted instances, even of those found in the pages of Herodotus, can be fairly doubted or disproved. But these questions are of quite secondary importance, for no scholar, however desirous of championing the Delphic priests, would think of denying that as they were human they at least occa- sionally abased their great opportunities for deceit. The fact that chiefly concerns us is that Delphi undoubtedly exercised great power over the Greek world and even beyond it. For we know that foreign peoples frequently con- sulted the oracle. Deputations came from the Roman Senate — there was even a tradition that the last of the Roman kings had sent to consult it. Again, the political influence of Delphi is written large over every page of Greek history, and upon the whole, historians have passed a favourable verdict upon the oracle as a political power. Along with the Great Games, in which of course Delphi had a con- siderable share, the Apolline oracle was the sole tangible link between the isolated and scattered Greek city-states, so that we may truly assert that if it had never existed the weltering confusion of Greek politics would have been worse than we realize it was. It kept up a truly Pan-hellenic attitude, though there were special ties binding it to the Dorian states.

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To assume that such an enlightened and humane statesmanship combined with an appeal to supernatural sanction, was but the outcome of cold and calculating charlatanism would be poor psychology. Self-deception in some degree is of coarse most probable ; we may easily concede that religious enthusiasm is liable to be self -deceived. But before these ministers of Apollo could persuade the world that it belonged to them to manifest to it the will of heaven, is it not at the very least probable that they were themselves convinced, sometimes more and sometimes less certainly, that they had a genuine god and a genuine method of communing with him ?

Undoubtedly the history of priestcraft forms a sad chapter in the annals of humanity, but if we compare the record of Delphi with that of similar spiritual dominations we shall find scant reason there for throwing stones at official Greek religion. Throughout Greek literature there is an astonishing reverence shown for Apollo and his shrine. Even in the age of the Sophists we find Sophocles and Plato manifesting what looks like deep inward awe when referring to Delphi. They were both frank and fearless in their utterances ; some- times we find a distinction between the god and his interpreters. There is an interesting case in the GEdipus Rex, when the chorus appears to be face to face with the utter break-down of an important oracle. " Zeus knows," they sing, "Apollo knows the affairs of mortals —

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but who has any means of proving that their prophet is wiser than I am, although one man may surpass another in subtlety (<ro<Ju'a)?" i.e., the instruments whom the gods use are human and fallible; but let us never doubt that behind the priests a real divinity is hidden.

Lastly, there is the question of the Eleusinian Mysteries, which can be discussed only briefly. This subject has been always fiercely debated, and its literature is immense. Few would now subscribe to the opinion of Gibbon and De Quincey that equally with the oracles, the Mysteries of Demeter at Eleusis were only a gigantic hoax. I will be satisfied to quote a well-known passage of the Panegyricus of Isocrates, in which he estimates their value without describing them in any way. It is true that this rhetorician must not be relied on for a very serious judgment — that his oration, a fine one in its way, is a sort of academic exercise in praise of Athens, but intended chiefly to illustrate his style of oratory. None the less we can argue from his words, for his was a highly-cultivated mind with wholesome instincts, peculiarly adapted to represent the opinions about Eleusis held firmly by the average Athenian gentleman. 46 Demeter," he says, " has granted to the Greek world through Athens very important boons — the gift of corn, and the Mysteries." (This could be so far taken as a conventional state- ment.) He proceeds : " Corn raises our life above that of brute beasts ; and the Mysteries

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give to those participating in them better hopes about the end of their life, and existence for ever" (rov av^Travros al&vos). Here there seems to be a ring of conviction. He pro- ceeds to say that Athens may rightly pride herself for having communicated both these boons to the whole Greek world. It is certain that there was a connexion between death and the rites of the goddess Demeter. The very phrase reXer*;, by which the Mystery was called, has been thought to imply such connexion. There appears to have been quite a wide-spread conviction that a real purification of the soul was granted to those who were in a duly pious spirit initiated.

In a general sketch like the present it is hardly possible to make all the distinctions which a more complete treatise would contain. It would hardly be accurate to speak of a transi- tional period between the religion of the myths and the religion of philosophy — because in truth there was no period which was not transitional. The Greeks were too quickwitted and restless ever to endure a stage of stagnation such as other races have experienced. Yet, in the growth of rationalism we may perhaps detect a moment when it had rendered the disin- tegration of the old faith inevitable. This moment is the crucial one for our inquiry : it is the moment of Plato.

In his day among the rising generation there were many who proclaimed that there were no gods, no higher truths, no touch-stone of life

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but expediency. There was also the party of reaction to whom the Sophists and their teaching were anathema. It is not my intention here to discuss the attitude of the supreme representative of Hellenism towards such controversies, considered as problems of philo- sophy. But with regard to Plato's personal attitude towards traditional religion I may be allowed to quote from a former lecture* of my own. We find ourselves face to face with the most patent and almost crass contradictions. We can be quite certain that neither Socrates nor Plato nor any of their contemporaries, except perhaps children and the most ignorant persons, believed in the literal truth of the orthodox mythology. Socrates, it is true (who was much disliked by the Athenian ultra- patriotic party), had been accused of bringing new gods into the State, and had warmly denied and resented the accusation as evi- dently trumped up by enemies. And both he and Plato speak with reverence of the national divinities. Towards the cult of Apollo in particular Plato seems to have felt quite a devotion. The last recorded words of Socrates, " Remember, I owe a cock to ^sculapius," do not point to entire unfaith in the popular beliefs. On the other hand, when Plato comes to speak out his mind on the stories which were recorded about the pagan divinities by the poets, and Homer in particular, he leaves us in no doubt as to his convictions about their

* History of Religions, 1910. Vol. ii., Lecture 4.

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falsity. Homer was regarded by all the Greeks as their inspired source of knowledge of history, religion, and politics. Even when it is a ques- tion of philosophy, Plato can quote Homer as an infallible court of final appeal. One line in Homer will establish a momentous theory of the distinction of faculties in the soul. But the educator of youth will have none of him. The Iliad is to be thrown out of the school, and that on account of its false and deleterious religious doctrine. Homer is offensive to the religious sense, and must go.*

Plato, therefore, was quite assured as to the untruth of the whole corpus of popular theology taken in its literal sense. We might, perhaps, have anticipated that he would have joined his lot with those thinkers who under- took to explain, or explain away, the symbolism of paganism so as to bring it into harmony with right reason, and with the monotheism which both Socrates and Plato professed.

But it was not so. This method of dealing with the popular faith was identified with the names of the extreme rationalizing party, whom Plato at least thoroughly disliked, all the more because Socrates had been unjustly condemned on the ground of belonging to it. And so far was he from sympathizing with these theories, which had been first invented by the Ionian physicists, that it was the aim of his life to drive them out of the country for

* It is true that Plato also rejects dramatic poetry on other than purely religious grounds. This has been mentioned elsewhere.

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ever. For he laboured to build up a system of metaphysic which should contradict the fundamental presuppositions of the physicists, many of whom had even attempted to gain adherents among the more conservative party by making Greek mythology fit in with their own theories. Evidently Plato thought that in the conventional beliefs elements of truth were contained, though mixed with many corruptions. Manifest error was not to be tolerated, but he did not think it lay within the province of his philosophy, or that of any other frail human mind, to disentangle the wheat from the tares. He would hold fast to what was good, and for the sake of the pearl he would deal gently with the casket which enshrined it. He would always speak with reverence of the Greek divinities, and on occasion he would worship them — for the sake of the Unknown God.

The attitude of Aristotle towards religion is much more difficult to define ; for a treatment of this subject I may refer the reader to the lecture from which I have quoted.

Such, then, are the suggestions which I would offer towards a just estimate of the religious sense of the Greeks. I have purposely ab- stained from dealing with the darker aspects of pagan religion — a matter which is fairly familiar to most readers. In some respects, perhaps, the Greeks were better than their neighbours, but it is by no means part of my thesis that the Greek religion was all sweetness and light.

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On the contrary, it would be possible without exceeding the truth to draw a very dismal picture of many of its features, and at best it must have failed to satisfy the cravings of the Greek spirit. What I have kept before my mind has been, not the ethical content of Greek or of any pagan system of religion, but, taking it at its value, to ask whether the Greeks honestly tried to turn their religion to good account. If the reader concludes that I have made out a weak case, I fear the blame rests with myself for not putting it in a clearer light. If, on the other hand, he concludes that the Hellenic people were not quite so black as they have been usually painted, he has gone as far as I could have hoped to carry him. My own view is that they were neither saints nor sinners but a little of both.

PART THE SECOND THE CLASSICAL REVIVAL

CHAPTER V

THE GOSPEL OF WORK *

The doctrine that work is a thing to be proud of and to love for its own sake has, of course, a distinct fascination for a demo- cratic age ; it is, moreover, one that Christians, as such, have good grounds for claiming as their very own. To live up to a doctrine is the most emphatic way of insisting upon it ; and no one ever did this more than the Founder of our faith, from His earliest years.

Here, however, we shall consider the gospel of work, not as it affects religion, but educa- tion, that is from a professional standpoint. Our occupation as teachers entails constant work of a wearing and wearying kind, and we are particularly proud of that work as being most noble in itself, as well as of immense importance to human society. Our work is, therefore, a labour of love, and it by no means ends with the hours spent in the class-hall, for we regard our work as something more than the imparting of knowledge to those under our charge. If this were all, we should be about on the level of shopkeepers, not necessarily haunted by a sense of responsi- bility and a constant dread of unpreparedness.

The function of the trainer of youth is more like that of the benevolent physician at

* Portions of this and of the following chapter appeared in the Irish Educational Review, in Studies, and in the Journal of the A.R.L.T.

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a patient's bedside, except that the doctor deals chiefly with pathological conditions, whereas our part, like the care of a good parent, is to watch and, if we can, to control the normal growth of the youthful faculties. And we have to watch ourselves narrowly to be sure that our methods are succeeding, that we are adapting our knowledge to the minds and even to the temperaments of our learners. Is their progress more apparent than real ? Or are they gaining from us not mere know- ledge, but discrimination, appreciation, in a word, that sort of culture which is a thing of the heart as well as of the intellect ?

One great motive for unflagging devotion to our work is the knowledge that we have to lead on our students to work for themselves, and this we must do by example rather than by mere precept. School life is (and we realize it only too well) the beginning of the larger life, which we know is full of drudgery — we need not ask why, it is enough to register the fact. Do we not hear moderns constantly talking about the Eternal Grind, as though they had discovered something new in human experience ? Whereas perhaps the most they have succeeded in acquiring is the art of taking their pleasures sadly, and thus providing for themselves a new experience of misery un- dreamt of by their ancestors.

We cannot stand still-our destiny is calling us on — and there never was a time when the gospel of work was more opportune than it

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is for us. At the present moment there is much unrest and discontent combined with so many schemes for reform, some of them good, others at best doubtful — the net result upon education being that the true line of progress may be totally obscured. I mean that, in spite of all the newspapers, and meet- ings, and commissions, and what not, in many a school and college quiet and unobtrusive work is going on, and where that is so, pro- gress is being made, although the world hears very little about it. We do hear about it sometimes though, we get a sudden flash of revelation, coming like a bolt from the blue.

I am not going to defend the system of competitive school examinations. Heaven forbid ! But if it is to be allowed any merits, one of them is, I think, that it tells us, some- times with dramatic suddenness, of good and solid work going on where we could have had no reason to suspect it. Written examinations carried on under abnormal conditions are, as a rule, but a poor test of real teaching. But no one would maintain that exceptionally high marks can be obtained, at least in Classical examinations, apart from genuine training superadded to genuine ability. Successes of this kind must give encouragement where they are gained, and a healthy stimulus in many other quarters.

In considering the gospel of work for work's sake I shall not travel beyond the domain of Classical training, about which alone I have

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any ideas to communicate. My remarks, how- ever, will be generally applicable to all grades of Latin and Greek education, not more to the University grade than to lower ones, especially when viewed as preparatory to a University course.

My main concern is with our conception of work — in what sense it is beneficial or neces- sary, in what sense we must undertake it, and in what sense we are justified in im- posing it on our charges. Although I admit that all work which is worth anything must contain a certain element of pain and drudgery, I would contend that we have no right to inflict unnecessary and useless drudgery on others. And the evident reason is that, by so doing, we should not be training our pupils to useful and rational work, but rather the opposite. We should be stultifying their minds and preparing them to relinquish study at the earliest possible moment, to break away from it as a hateful and degrading kind of mental slavery.

This is a big subject, and it is not a moment too soon for us, the professed teachers of Latin and Greek, to look into it carefully. We have now come to the parting of the ways, and are being put on our defence as we never have been at any previous time in the history of education. No one is more anxious than I am to defend Classical educa- tion, but 1 cannot see any way of defending it except by proving that it gives something

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which cannot be gained at a lower cost. We may deplore the change that is coming over the minds of men, but that will not prevent it. They ask, not are Classics of any advantage in education, but are they worth the time and trouble that is demanded in learning them ? As the French put it, Is the game worth the candle ?

This is a very serious question, and before we try to answer it, we had better be sure that we are looking at it honestly, and with all self-deception cleared away. For my part I am perfectly clear that under modern con- ditions, unless we mend our ways, the game is by no means worth the candle. I do not mean that we must merely improve our methods in a superficial way, but that we must have a fundamental reform in our whole attitude. We must no longer assume that what did very well in our fathers' and grand- fathers' time should do very well for us. Even in our own younger days these things were only beginning to be in question, and we went on pretty much in the old groove, with, perhaps, a little criticism, which nobody attended to in practice.

The question is not whether the methods of the old school, long lessons by heart of grammar, of prosody, or of extracts ; the Greek grammar written in the Latin tongue ; long compositions and impositions backed up by the ferula and the birch-rod — whether, I say, these things produced a result which was

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good in its way and for its day, but will they do now ? Now we have reforms in teaching French and other spoken tongues, in teaching natural science, in teaching geo- metry, in teaching modern history. Why are we classicists so slow in admitting that the new science of pedagogy has anything to say to us ? But lay this to heart, if we are not mended we shall certainly be ended !

Hence I assert that our first great line of defence must include renewed energy and enthusiasm for our work as teachers ; nothing less than that high conception of hard labour, which, we take it, is meant by a gospel of work, will suffice to meet our new requirements. It will not take long to prove this to educationists, for they know well that nothing less will be demanded of them than shifting the main burden of work from their pupils' shoulders on to their own. Nothing in teaching is more laborious than to make it interesting. The careful and sustained effort to make any subject of instruction instinct with reality and with life is a severe strain on the mental and even physical powers of the teacher. Even under the old system of mechanical memory work,* which is entirely condemned by modern re- formers as antiquated, there was often felt to exist in the pedagogue something human. He called himself a humanist, and that sometimes

* Of course we must allow that memory work is not always mechanical, and that it is in some degree necessary. But we are considering the tendency to abuse of memory work which un- doubtedly existed and exists.

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meant that he had a love of learning which, in spite of his defective method, communi- cated itself by a sort of infection to his class, and which softened the fall of the ferula and saved him in our eyes from utter reprobation. Our danger in these degenerate times is to keep to the vices of Dominie Sampson after we have divested ourselves of all his virtues. What is the first thing to make sure of ? We must begin by tearing out of our minds a deeply-rooted heresy, namely, that Classical education exists simply for the purpose of strengthening the mechanical powers of the mind, and of imparting to it clearness and suppleness in the use of language. Mind, I do not question that these results may some- times follow from Classical training, nor that they would be valuable in their own order. But I deliberately call this an educational heresy — and a dangerous one at that, — for it implies a total misconception of values, and a confusion of what is accidental with what is essential. Considering the question of gram- matical training, it is true that certain bene- ficial results follow from it. And it might very plausibly be argued that were there no reasons against it (ah ! there's the rub) time given to the acquisition of a single ancient lan- guage— it need not be Latin or Greek neces- sarily— would not be wholly thrown away. But we, defenders of Classical education, go much further than that. Do we not invite parents to allow their children to pass a great

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part of their time in acquiring, not Latin by itself, nor Greek by itself, but both together ? Let us see. Never did vocabularies and prosodies of themselves bring to any human soul light, warmth, or benediction. What, then, avails in the discipline we are discussing ? Nothing about words — but a new meaning, a new interest in human life, gained through a real grasp of ancient life. It avails to form an acquaintance with the people of old, their ideas as well as their language, their achieve- ments as well as their laws, their poetry, be- cause it mirrors their hearts and minds, their history and their philosophy and their art because they were different from ours, and much more vital, more elemental, more beautiful, more human. Antiquity must be studied as a whole — just as astronomy or any other science. If you asked an astronomer does he study the starry heavens, or applied mathematics, or optical physics, or spectro- scopic chemistry, he might stare at you for a fool. In like manner, if you ask me is the main point in Classical teaching language, or literature, or history, or ancient laws and institutions and philosophies, or religion, or art, or politics — I simply cannot say. But I do say without hesitation that any teacher of Classics who ignores any department of ancient life as not appertaining to his duty has only a poor conception of his business. It is his function as a teacher to train the mind of his pupil — as a teacher of Classics to

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train him to understand something of Greek and Roman life — it may not be very much, because his opportunities may not be very great. Nor am I discussing just at present who ought to receive a Classical education — and I will assume that it is not equally suit- able to all — I am merely discussing what Classical teaching is, or at least what it ought to aim at being.

But what a vista is opened up for the preacher of the gospel of work ! If my view is true, it means that no Classical professor is doing his duty unless he aims at infusing a human and living interest into his whole task and into every part of it. What a different conception, and how much more difficult for the teacher, than the other dry and mechan- ical routine of memory grammar lessons — lists of genders and irregular forms that never were used, and other revolting absurdities.

If, I say, we believe that we can and ought to impart to our class some real knowledge — very imperfect it may be but precious all the same — of the ancient peoples of Rome and Greece, of their words and their thoughts, and all their human experiences, then we shall want to learn a good deal about it our- selves. We must read and we must ruminate, we must grow into our subject, we must sur- round ourselves with an atmosphere, not only to breathe it but to bring our students to breathe it. Many a votary of science does this, and many a teacher of history too, and 10

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of philosophy. Our theme is far vaster than theirs, but that is all the more reason why we should not take it less seriously ; and I truly believe that, apart from divine things, there is nothing more inspiring, more broadening, more truly humanizing than a loving and in- telligent study of Classical, and especially of Hellenic, life and literature. They undoubtedly give us a useful term of comparison for our own surroundings. We may be proud of our- selves, we may even have an intensely modern spirit, but what we cannot afford to do is to leave the ancient peoples out of the count. Their achievements, their true greatness, their true nobility and goodness, they gained in spite of all the drawbacks which we recog- nize in them — though even from their vices we could learn something — but they are our ancestors, of whom we need not be ashamed, and without reference to whom we can never expect to understand ourselves.

Therefore the first aim of the teacher of Classics is to secure that his own mind is thoroughly saturated with his subject. If he keeps this aim before his mind, everything else is of secondary importance and will easily fall into its own place. To be able to interest others he must first be interested himself, and he must have more than he undertakes to give — or rather he must know an immensity to be able to impart a little. He must not only read much and appreciatively, but he must read with a view to grasp the human side of it all.

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It is along these lines only that we can have a chance of rehabilitating Classical education, I trust that my readers are now impressed with the conviction that, even before we have begun to treat of particulars, the gospel of work is already assuming a serious aspect for ourselves.

My contention therefore is that, in making efforts to secure a due place for Classics in a modern educational system, we teachers have mainly ourselves to depend upon. Are we prepared to take the burden of hard drudgery off the shoulders of our students to fit it to our own ? I believe we are, and that to a constantly increasing degree. I have no belief that the gospel of work falls on deaf ears. On the contrary, I take it, the attitude of Classical masters is that they long for reform (and I mean their own reform, of course), and are prepared to welcome any practical suggestions which I or any other gospeller may be pre- pared to give towards economy of time and energy on the students' part. They might even object to me that so far I have been theoretical rather than practical, and that the real difficulties of the case are intensely prac- tical. This I would readily concede, but I may be allowed to plead that to state principles which though theoretical have a bearing on practice is often a useful preliminary to a discussion about details. Cardinal Newman laid it down as a necessary rule that we should never argue about anything unless we are

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quite clear that we have a mutual agreement about the principles underlying our discussion.

Let us, however, take the conditions of modern Classical knowledge and show that in this regard our position is more favourable than that of our predecessors from several points of view. My object, I frankly declare, will be to guard against that tendency to pessimism which, deeply-rooted and very natural just now, would be a serious obstacle to the upward tendency which I think the gospel of work should promote. There has been always, at least since the Revival of Letters, a continual stream of progress in the world of learning ; but what concerns us is the won- derful increase of knowledge gained in our own and the preceding generation, and still more the fact that existing knowledge is turned to so much better account for us than it was for our forefathers.

We are now, as it were, brought into actual contact with the men of old ; we do not depend to the same extent as our forerunners upon a mere literary tradition, often vague and always liable to be gravely challenged by newly-revealed facts. Our knowledge of anti- quity is brought home to us and made vivid, sometimes almost exciting, by modern methods. The advance of learning adds, in this way, to our labour, because of the obligation to keep abreast of our times and not to be satisfied with the information we acquired in earlier ; yet, surely it adds some zest to our

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toil. If it does not, the sooner we retire from the school — and, if necessary, betake ourselves to breaking stones on the roadside — the better for our pupils.

The advantage we gain, or ought to gain, from the actual advance of the world's know- ledge of its own history is as nothing com- pared to our gain from another cause which has been already hinted at. I mean the modern accessibility of all knowledge, old and new. I suppose I need not labour to prove this point, it is so very obvious. However, our literary assets are too important to be passed over altogether, and I will try to be brief. The printing presses positively teem with new books on every branch of Classical learning, many of which are thor- oughly new, well-arranged, and interesting. I am not now referring to the editing of Greek and Latin authors, nor to grammar and com- position books, many of which are excellent, but which open up difficult questions which we must defer for the present. I refer rather to the innumerable publications dealing with history and antiquities, dictionaries and com- pendiums of various sorts. Books like the Companions to Greek and Latin Studies con- stitute a mine of compact information — a perfect boon to the hard-pressed teacher as to the more advanced student. Such books are often written by the best experts in Eng- land on the various topics, and are crisp and modern and well printed and with plenty of

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good illustrations. The annual publication, the Year's Work in Classical Studies, mod- elled to some extent on the Companions, is a happy outcome of the Classical Association. On a smaller scale books are prepared for the younger students very different from what we had to put up with in our early days ; and of course it is not necessary here to name quan- tities of modern books which are of the utmost value in making Classical study real and in- telligible. It might be objected that such compendiums of knowledge are liable to abuse, but I do not care even to consider that ques- tion, because if answered affirmatively it would not in the least affect my argument, which relates to their proper use. I alluded in passing to text-books of authors, and this I feel is a question requiring careful treatment. There is a general feeling abroad (I know it is very strong at Oxford) that Classical study has been much injured by the subtlety and over-erudition of editors, and I am sure there is much truth in it. Partly the books are wrong themselves, overloaded, intolerably rash and entirely wanting in the sense of pro- portion ; and partly they are put to a wrong use when they fall into the hands of those for whom they are utterly unfit and were never intended. Let us not sweepingly con- demn all editors alike, good, bad, and in- different. Who could feel anything but gra- titude to Gildersleeve for his Pindar, Sidgwick for his Mschylus, Monro for his Iliad, and

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Riddell for his Odyssey — to mention a few •which I know very well ? Jebb's Sophocles is an honour to British scholarship, but I do not count it an ideal book for ordinary school or college purposes. His Bacchylides is very fine- Perhaps I have said enough to indicate roughly the sort of advantages which school- masters in our day enjoy in the matter of printed books useful for acquiring and im- parting Classical knowledge, as well as by the rapid advances which that knowledge has made and is making. Be it remembered, how- ever, that our gain is not to be measured by individual discoveries or by individual im- provement in our literatures. Our gain, it seems to me, lies in this — that owing to the rapid diffusion of science, as well as to the division of labour, the different branches of knowledge are co-ordinated in modern times after a new and previously impossible way. In particular the advances made by archae- ology (in the widest sense), by comparative philology, and above all, in spite of all the excesses of its votaries, by the growth of anthropology, enable us to form our minds to some realization of what antiquity was really like. In earlier days, when learning was the property of the few, it got into a groove and remained there. In our times it is brought by cheap literature within reach of a larger mass of human minds, and is in turn re-acted upon by them, is humanized in the true sense* so that it is made to throb with life and with

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actuality. From this point of view our task becomes easier than it may have appeared when stated in abstract language.

From the standpoint I have tried to main- tain, the best Classical professor will not be the best grammarian, or the most facile trans- lator, or the most widely-stocked walking encyclopaedia of heathen mythology, but the man with the warmest sympathy for his younger contemporaries, the man who best understands them and is most anxious to equip them for their life-work. He is not like a cynical book-worm who sourly studies anti- quity to solace himself with the conviction that all moderns are going to the dogs with a fearful rapidity. But he sees the weak points of modern civilization, whether shown in our literature or politics, and he believes that in the rush and hurry of modern life there is need for a spell that will steady the imagination and fix the mind on high ideals bravely realized. He thinks that Athens in the days of Pericles and Plato, and Rome in the days of Cicero and Augustus, can supply us with lessons which we, of all the ages, can least afford to dispense with. He marvels, when he studies the agrarian history of the Italian peoples, how modern they were ; and when he scans the Politics he humbly admits that we have not added so very much to Aristotle's knowledge of the elemental forces that mould society. He will surely have acquired some little particle of Greek reserve

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which will save him from that fatal vice of the schoolmaster — the desire at every turn to be " pointing a moral." He recognizes that his duty is to teach, not to preach sermons. But if his knowledge of humanity grows hand in hand with his knowledge of books, he is aware that the deepest and most permanent lessons are those which are imparted in silence and are received by those who are often all un- conscious of their gain.

I now come to a complicated question, namely, the best method of teaching Greek and Latin authors. Here we have to steer our course between the Scylla of superficiality and the Charybdis of excessive refinement. What makes it difficult to keep to the via media is that at present we are in the middle of a re-action against the tyranny of editors, which may easily carry us too far. Good editors are a great boon to the student, who cannot and must not be left entirely to his own guidance and his own understanding of the text. Even critical notes, with some <6 ap- paratus " of readings, are necessary in studying Greek and Latin authors, just as they are in studying the Bible or Shakespeare. You may say the ordinary reader can get on very com- fortably with his "Song of Solomon" or his '* Hamlet " without troubling his head about various readings or even commentators. Yes — but this is just to miss the point. The differ- ence between the scholar and the ordinary reader precisely consists, not in what he reads,

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but in the way he reads. It is quite good that the mass of mankind should read their literature somewhat superficially, should gain a fair and general impression of its meaning by glancing over the obscurer passages without concern and then passing on. The reader who wants to be learned must not be satisfied with ignoring difficulties ; on the contrary, he keeps his mind on the alert for them, and rather suspects himself if he does not find any.

It is commonly objected that ordinary classical students must not be treated as technical scholars, as their work in life will not be necessarily to lecture on textual cri- ticism. Quite true, yet there may be a fallacy underlying this sort of statement, because it may imply something which loses sight of the very end of education. I take it that end is not mere knowledge as such, but a training of the faculties and of the whole character. For fear of being misunderstood, I must repeat that Classical education does not consist mainly in linguistic training as such, that is, in the acquisition of foreign tongues or even in facility and accuracy in the use of our own. But to be thorough in one's knowledge, to probe, to be circumspect, to be dissatisfied with half-knowledge and slovenly methods of thought, to recognize the importance of de- tails in all the relations of life, and to learn how to balance one's judgment in the pre- sence of conflicting probabilities, this appears to me to be of the very essence of all education

The Gospel of Work 135

rightly so termed. So that — although we may readily admit the danger of going too far, nay, that we often go too far in cri- ticism, so that sometimes our scholars " could not see the wood because of the trees " — we must keep our face fixed against the idea that in the Classical schools of the future, editors are to be done away with, and instead of prolego- mena and critical notes and excursuses we are to have a new millennium of authors in sweet simplicity unadorned. I fear it is still true that " There is no royal road to learning." Hence I cannot unreservedly subscribe to a view, seemingly prevalent, that in prescribing a programme of Classical study the wider and vaguer it is the better. An interesting ex- periment in this direction has been made in the Secondary schools of Ireland, representing the swinging of the pendulum in one direction, which has probably been on the whole bene- ficial, but which yet has to descend in the opposite direction before the centre of equi- librium can be finally reached. You cannot have an ideal programme by excluding de- tailed study any more than you can by unduly insisting on it to the exclusion of wider and more general reading. It is not satisfactory to tell your students they are expected to translate, say, Greek of the standard difficulty of Euripides or Thucydides. For one reason, there is no comparison between the more difficult and the easier passages of Thucydides, and the same of many other authors. It is, I

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admit, worse to tie the learner down to a very minute study of one or two books and to leave him without that range of reading which could alone form his taste and impart to him a knowledge of the thought, language, and achievements of antiquity. The only solution of this difficulty, so far as I can see, is to adopt a sort of dual arrangement, and to prescribe certain authors or parts of authors for more general reading, at the same time that we exact a more minute acquaint- ance with the text and the exegesis of certain limited books or portions of books. I should like, for instance, to see a programme with items like the following : —

The Story oj Achilles (specifying certain books of the Iliad), with a minuter and more critical knowledge of Book I. and Book XI. Or again, ^schylus (or merely the Oresteia), with special attention to the Agamemnon or the Eumenides, and so on.

With regard to examinations (a distasteful subject which I decline to dwell upon), I would have it understood that they are not to be immoderately exacting, even in those portions of the work which are to be carefully read from the textual standpoint. I imagine this is really the sort of thing that is done in the case of English literature ; and it is time that Classical teaching should recognize that it might borrow many good suggestions from the so-called modern side of education.

By this kind of combination of width and

The Gospel of Work 137

depth of reading we should, I believe, arrive at the only working compromise, and, speak- ing from a fairly long experience, I am strongly of opinion that until some such divided list of prescribed authors is attempted, we cannot expect even moderately good results from any sort of mechanical programme — a thing which at best we could merely tolerate as a sort of necessary evil. The highest kind of teaching would leave students and their professors per- fectly free to range at will through their material according to their several tastes and capacities. As, however, it must be long before we are ripe for such a happy use of ancient or even modern literature, and these essays are intended to have close refer- ence to the actual conditions of Classical teaching, I must assume that examinations, with set programmes appertaining to them, must, for the present, continue to exercise an influence (baneful in many respects) upon the fortunes of Classical study. No doubt a healthier public opinion is being rapidly formed when the tyranny of the examiner will not be absolute as it has been in the past ; and I have very little doubt that, besides reducing the cruelty of his sway, the limits in which he exercises it will be also curtailed con- siderably. There is a movement on foot to reduce the number of examinations for which the average undergraduate has to prepare during his college career. And the next ques- tion will be : " What about the schoolboy ? "

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All this has been a very disagreeable di- gression from my theme, which is the proper method of teaching Classics. Before passing on I, perhaps, should explicitly state (what must have been fairly evident) that I have been all along referring to the better and more literary class of students.

In the following remarks, however, I shall have to deal with a branch of my subject which closely affects not merely the higher and more advanced classes, but especially junior students and those who study Latin and Greek, either from compulsion or at least without a strong attraction for the subject. I mean the very thorny question of lessons in grammar and composition, as dis- tinct from the study of the authors.

Ought we to abolish grammar and com- position as special departments of teaching Classics ? I think not, but I am sure we ought to regard them reasonably, that is, not as ends to be followed for their own sake. I would not go quite so far as some reformers, who say these things should be taught ex- clusively in relation to the translation of authors or passages of authors. Here, again, it seems to me, the pendulum is swinging rather violently. I remember only about twenty or twenty-five years back, in most Classical schools in this country, the advent of elaborate teaching of Greek and Latin gram- mar was hailed as the one thing necessary for efficient study. In the Royal University the

The Gospel of Work 139

same idea prevailed, and even to the present day candidates are warned that they cannot pas~» the language examination unless they show competent knowledge of grammar and composition — which may easily be thought to imply that they must get a certain pro- portion of marks in the separate questions set in those branches of this subject. The idea was originally to prevent a sham appear- ance of knowledge by learning translation out of a crib, and reproducing it in a written examination.

This is still a controversial subject, and is likely to be one for some time. The only contribution I can offer towards a solution is this. While I do not think that lessons in grammar can be entirely dispensed with, I think they ought to be to a considerable extent deferred. I would begin with trans- lation from an author (or of simple sentences), and would allow inklings of grammar to spring out of the matter for translation rather than regard it as a necessary preliminary. Then, as the student progresses in his trans- lation, and retranslation (at first purely me- chanical), I would also increase his doses of grammar, though gently and with due regard to proportion. I would never make the students indiscriminately learn long lists of forms (as genders and various inflexions, dia- lectical and otherwise) which will never be required in practice. But as advance is made in other directions, so opportunity at least

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should be given for advanced knowledge, chiefly of the principles of grammar, but also for the hard facts — often unpalatable they must be, but yet not quite so disastrously repugnant to the mind and the will as we have, I fear, succeeded in making them in the past. When we think of it, the wonder is that Classical education was not long ago hooted out of existence. Yet it survived — and, I ask, could we seek a stronger proof of its intrinsic vitality ?

It has been often pointed out,* but I mention it here, that a great deal of the overloading of Greek and Latin grammar in the past was due to the absence of proper grammar teach- ing elsewhere. If our scholars were taught a sufficient and reasonable amount of English grammar and grammatical analysis — if they knew all about subjects and predicates, pos- sessives, conjunctions and prepositions and their proper functions, condition, purpose and result, and all the rest which is good enough in its way — they would not then be getting initiated into these mysteries at the time when we ought to be preparing to introduce them to the important characteristics of Hel- lenic or Roman letters and civilization.

Perhaps the measure of reform here advo- cated will appear inadequate to those who have adopted or are adopting more heroic expedients. I refer especially to the extension

* Especially by my friend Professor Sonnenschein at the last General Meeting of the Classical Association (see Proceedings, 1917, p. 68).

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to the Classical languages of the direct or conversational method now recognized almost universally as the proper way for teaching modern Continental languages. Why, it is argued, should any artificial distinction be made between living and dead languages ? We want Greek and Latin, not because they are dead, but because once they were alive. Latin has been frequently taught as a spoken language on the Continent, especially from the time of Erasmus, but indeed from earlier times. The Association for the Reform of Latin Teaching under the presidency of Dr. Rouse, of Cambridge, exists for the purpose of ad- vocating Direct Teaching of Latin and, in a subordinate degree, of Greek. The Society has given most invaluable aid to visual in- struction in England by instituting what was first called, perhaps unfortunately, a Realien Committee.* This Committee, whose Secretary and moving spirit is Mr. S. E. Winbolt of Christ's Hospital, did me the undeserved honour of making me chairman, in spite of the fact that my residence in Ireland makes it difficult for me to attend its meetings. I will not discuss its action here, more than to state, what perhaps hardly requires stating, that its activities have been almost suspended for the last three years. The Committee, equally with the parent asso- ciation, had to deplore the fall in Gallipoli

* Now called the Archaeological Aids Committee. 11

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of Mr. W. L. Paine, whose loss must be for ever irreparable.

It will be understood that if I do not here discuss minutely the reform known as the Direct Method, it is not from any want of sympathy with it or understanding of its vital importance, but simply because I have not sufficient acquaintance with it in detail to enable me to discuss it with authority. At the Conference of the Association, held at Cambridge, which I attended, my time was so much taken up with an exhibition of Classical Archaeological Aids that I was pre- vented from learning as much as I wished about the actual results obtained by Direct Teaching. However, what I did hear and see was enough to impress my mind very favourably regarding the method, and as opportunity has since occurred, I have strongly advocated this great and inspiring movement. I believe when it is understood it will receive the widest recognition, with cor- responding gratitude to those who initiated it.

But is the present moment an opportune one for bringing forward schemes of reform in regard to Classical education ? It is gen- erally felt, and must we not admit rightly, at a time of national crisis, that the crying need in education is the development of everything that could tend to promote the prosperity of the nation. Granting all this, and admitting that the pendulum is at present swinging in favour of so-called modern educa-

The Gospel of Work 143

tion, it is the object of these papers to show that it is our own fault if Classical teaching is identified with antiquated and deadly survivals.

A critic of these views might raise the objec- tion that it is not Classical education so much as the supremacy of Classics in education which has been questioned. This point brings me face to face with the very essence of the whole difficulty. As soon as you establish that Classics are not supreme, of supreme import- ance, they must necessarily begin to disappear under present conditions. I do not mean to deny that, even if our enemies had their way, Latin would continue to be taught after a fashion, and, of course, there would be here and there a few experts who would devote themselves to Greek as to Hebrew or Arabic — but all that is outside of the question. For ordinary school and college work — it will take time in the Universities, no doubt, before the conclusion is reached — either the study of Classics is waste of time or it is not. It is a thing that involves an enormous output of energy and even of money, and, although it can be crowded out of existence, it cannot be crowded into a corner and live.

There is a sense in which the supremacy of Classical education can be justly called into question. No faculty of learning, however im- portant, can claim any exclusive right to recognition. However, the modern school of Reformed Classics has not made, nor will make, any such claim. So far from seeking to

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belittle other faculties or to drive them away, it merely urges that none of them can afford to dispense with its own services. It not merely approves of all that is truly progressive in modern educational systems, but it honestly desires to be brought into the fullest harmony with them. For it feels that, while it can, as it were, gain new life and vigour from contact with Mother Earth, so in turn it can find the key to many problems of modern study, and can kindle a light to illumine many dark places in the modern mind.

This conviction is by no means confined to the votaries of the ancient learning. I have been told again and again by my colleagues of other faculties, in law, in philosophy, in modern languages, in English literature, in Irish studies (to mention a few), that they are fully conscious of the immense debt which they owe to Classical history and literature — that they have frequently to borrow from Classics the most vital truths which they have to communicate — and that they view with concern any tendency to depress Greek and Roman studies in our common University. I am behind no one in stating that in the traditional groove into which it had gradually been fixing itself the thing had become abso- lutely intolerable to the men and women of to-day. The question before us is this : Are we prepared to bring Classics into line with all that is best in modern education, and all that is sane and progressive in modern life ?

CHAPTER VI

" NEW WINE IN OLD BOTTLES "

Hard work will be required before we prevail. But there is more. In the past, Classical education depended largely on class interests, and has been not unjustly identified with a spirit of narrow and even exclusive conservatism. It has certainly been the case that those who worked hardest for the spread of liberal education, and have been most eager for the opening of the great centres of learn- ing to the democracy, have also been most urgent in demanding that we should cease to consider Classics as the " one thing needful." Thus, at both the older Universities, a very determined effort has been made by the advanced party to get the rule relaxed which closed their portals to those who had not acquired some knowledge of Latin and Greek. And whether it be true or not, the impression prevails that the opposition to the proposed change comes chiefly from a class which is naturally timid and instinctively dislikes all radical changes, especially in education. Again, as it was humorously said at Birmingham University,* the distinction between the ancient learning and the modern is pressed " as

* By the Headmaster of King Edward's High School on the occasion of founding a branch of the Classical Association for the •Midlands.

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though the modern side prepares boys and girls for modern life, and the Classical side for ancient life."

First of all, what is meant by the " mod- ernity " of history, science, and modern languages ? Not merely that they depend on contemporary research for their very exist- ence, but that, quite apart from their educa- tional value, they meet us at every moment of our lives. It is little short of a libel to assume, as is often done, that the votaries of the so-called modern education are attracted merely by the industrial or commercial aspects of the subjects in question. These are not excluded, of course, but they are not the only objects kept in view. Let us make no mistake. The people now feel that education is a department of modern life, and is not to be viewed as a separate thing. So far, I, for one, am in agreement with the " moderns."

But when we find, what is startingly novel, namely, that a defence of Classics is being organized by thoroughly sincere reformers — men and women who are second to none in their keen desire to bring education into line with modern life and progress, who are de- fending Classics, not on the ground that they were useful in the past, but that they will be necessary in the future, who are straining every nerve to apply their subject to the need of the new democracy which is springing up, and whose character is being rapidly fashioned — it becomes surely an interesting question to

"New Wine in Old Bottles" 147

ask what success may be reasonably hoped from such pretensions and such efforts.

It is only those that are behind the scenes who know how much of this old conservative spirit still lingers on amongst us. It is still necessary to utter words of caution, to im- plore teachers of Classics not to go on, in spite of Gospel prohibition, pouring " new wine into old bottles." The essays in this volume are addressed mainly to those who still hesitate, who may be lost, because they will not take a very necessary plunge. Let them once recognize the salient facts of our existing situation and all will yet be well.

May I quote from a writer in the Times, who put the case for the reform in Classical teaching in much more lucid and striking language than I can command. In a review of Mr. Livingstone's Dejence of Classical Edu- cation,* he said : —

The worst enemies of the Classics have in the past been those of their own household. A hundred years ago, and even much later, Classical study was the jealously guarded preserve of a privileged class. The idea of an educated nation was to that class, in its blind and narrow prejudice, either unintelligible or abhorrent. With the confused belief — a belief that was a matter of habit more than of reasoned con- viction— that a Classical education was a thing of real value went the belief, not at all confused though but seldom openly expressed, that it was a thing too valuable to be shared, a thing that would lose its value if it were thrown open instead of being hoarded. Nor, on their side, did the enfranchised middle

* Literary Supplement, Jan. 18th, 1917.

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classes demand it. They also regarded it as some- thing belonging to the privileged class. Themselves, they looked on it with an indulgent contempt. They did not wish to share it, even if a share in it were offered them. For themselves, they only wanted what they called a practical education — that is to say, the minimum of education which was necessary in order that they might live comfortably the sort of life to which they were accustomed. In the Victorian Age the position of the Classics in education was secure, because beyond the three R's the bulk of people did not want any education at all. They were perfectly content to be without it, and per- fectly content that those who did want it, the upper or governing class, should have it of any sort they choose.

Matthew Arnold turned from the middle class as hopeless, and called on the working class to realize and enter into their inheritance. He was a prophet who lived before his time. Another generation had passed before the democracy became conscious of a need, and on the need founded a claim.

Meanwhile the old Classical education, no longer the education of a governing caste, but of the pro- fessional classes and the new plutocracy, had become largely sterilized ; it had got out of touch with its environment. When it was thrown open widely to the well-to-do, timidly and grudgingly to a few picked individuals here and there in the mass of the nation, it was regarded by the lower middle class with open contempt, by the working class with deep suspicion. It needed time, patience, and at last some great shock, to impress on the former the fact that education mattered, and to disabuse the latter of their belief that any education beyond that given at the elementary school was a diabolical contrivance of the enemy, a device to entangle them more and more irretrievably in the net of capitalism.

That time is over, or at least is rapidly passing away. There is no terror now of an educated pro- letariate, even among the proletariate themselves. They are demanding, more and more clearly, a share

" New Wine in Old Bottles " 149

in the best education as a right ; they are even begin- ning to see, which is much more important, that to secure the best education, if not for themselves, at least for their children, is a duty. And the question comes to be, with them as with all other sections of the commonwealth : What, then, is the best educa- tion ? As to this, certain conclusions, negative and positive, may be taken as commanding general assent. It is not the education aiming at the development of technical or commercial aptitude. It is not one directed to immediate enhancement of the value of its product in the market. It is not one limited to acquisition of facts about Nature and her physical processes, or of theories about man as an economic organism. It has a larger aim, the development of the human being as a whole, in the whole range of function of which it is capable. And if this be so, by the admixture of what elements may it best attain this end ? And what place has the study of Latin and Greek, the so-called " dead languages," in the education by which the desired result will be produced ?

That is just the problem to the solution of which I am trying to offer a small contribution.

What, then, do we mean by the modern- ization of Classical study ? It requires the adjustment of our mental focus, not to traditional and worn-out shibboleths of peda- gogues, but to the elemental issues of human existence. Modern life has many complexities, in politics, social intercourse, education, art, literature, religion — to mention a few not un- important things. What we maintain is that in none of the problems, none of the interests of life, can men afford to lose sight of the storehouse bequeathed to them by the ancients. Not in philosophy and history

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alone, not in language and literature alone, not in art and religion alone — but in the complexus of everything which differentiates man from the brute creation, the voice of antiquity must be heard, and by antiquity we mean chiefly our own mental and moral forbears, the Greeks and Romans. And here let me say a passing word about Scien- tific education, and define our attitude to- wards it, since it is so frequently discussed at the present time as though it would be a substitute for Classics. We certainly have no objection to Science, but merely to the view that young persons can be trained for life by imparting to them any number of scientific facts. If scientific truth is handled so as really to stir the learner's imagination, to strengthen his powers of observation, and to ennoble his respect for law controlling the universe — then scientific training has a real, it may be a very high, value. The smallest objects, and most trivial facts of nature, when studied in their proper context — the bursting of a bubble, the sheen on a beetle's wing, equally with the configuration of a mountain, or the poise and flight of an aeroplane — may become suffused with a " light that never was on sea or land." But the mere storing of the memory to repletion with so-called scien- tific facts, and doing this with a view to the reaping of material benefits, can be regarded by the true educationist as at best a necessary evil.

" New Wine in Old Bottles " 151

Our concern just now is with our own labour in the teaching of Classics, and what has just been said is to be regarded merely as an illustration of the view that the main utility of Classical education is the appeal it makes to the imagination, and the success of our methods ought to be tried by this test only. The first thing we have to exert our- selves to do is to get rid of the deadening atmosphere of unreality which did undoubt- edly hang around Classical schools under the older system. Here I speak of what I know, because I speak from the sad and bitter experience of my own school life. Our class were not taught badly ; on the contrary, I happened to fall under the rod of a Senior Classic, who was renowned both as scholar, disciplinarian, and, above all, as teacher. His success may be, to some extent, estimated by the after careers of his pupils. From my own class there came one of the foremost Latinists of the day ; a Vice-Chancellor of a University ; a notable political organizer, who was also a Fellow of his College ; an Editor of Euripides, and one of the most trusted Inspectors of Classical Schools in England (I could mention others, too) ; the late Professor Churton Collins was only just ahead of us. We learned huge quantities of Classics. In those days I detested Thucydides and Aristophanes, be- cause I found them so difficult. I think I began to like Vergil and Sophocles. Cicero I appre- ciated both for his Latinity and sometimes

152 Part II— The Classical Revival

for the matter, and Homer had a fascination, but of a very unreal sort. I am sure I tried to persuade myself that the Greeks did exist, but I never could realize it. There was a sort of shadowy idea, something like what children have of fairyland or of China. Now- a-days, of course, we can realize the objective existence of China because we are in the twentieth century — but a little later than the middle of the nineteenth century, which is the furthest that my recollections can go, I cer- tainly believed that the Chinese existed in some whimsical sort of place, but, to my imagination, they were no more than the people depicted on their willow-pattern plates — and as for the Greeks, they were less. I cannot say how it came about that this " won- derland " feeling did not extend to the Romans also, but, as a matter of fact, they always seemed real and sensible, and near enough to be in some way imaginable. When I heard about Aristides " the Just," and Epaminondas, and, above all, Pericles, I seemed to be dealing with a sort of algebraical formulae which fitted into one another when they were correct, but had no further relation to stern realities. TUTTTW, however, did mean business in every sense, and also those hosts of aorists which we took on faith, and it matters little now that we took them wrong. Nor did I guess, then, that in the Museum in Athens there existed a potsherd with the name of Aristides rudely inscribed on it for pur-

" New Wine in Old Bottles " 153

poses of ostracism — any more than that in the same room one can see bones of warriors from the graves of Chseronea, with their strigils, swords and helmets ; and black-figured lekythi from the tumulus of Marathon.

I am far from finding fault with all this. It was very wrong, but wrongs will exist in the world until they are righted. What was wrong was not Classical education — but educa- tion as such. I cannot help thinking — hor- rible as it may sound to modern ears — that our forefathers thought of education what they thought of their physic, namely, that it was bound to be appalling ; if it was not disagree- able, it was no good. The modern schoolmaster or mistress tries in every way to make the children happy and at home. This is now regarded as the very A B C of school work. Not so with them of the old time. School was admittedly a miserable place ; it was good for children to be miserable, perhaps that they might get inured to life, perhaps that they might appreciate the slightly milder dis- cipline of home. In any case, the fact was not to be questioned — it was just one of those elementary truths that no sensible person ever bothers about.

There can be very little doubt that a great deal of the criticism and abuse poured out on traditional Classical education rests on the entire forgetfulness that it was wrong, not because it was classical, but because it was the main element in a system of training which

Part II — The Classical Revival

has either passed or is rapidly passing away. It is very like condemning the Catholic Church for not holding the Copernican astronomy at a time when nobody, or almost nobody, believed in it. She may have clung to the older view too long. I daresay she did, for Churches are apt to be conservative, but that is very different from pretending or im- plying that the error was the creation of the Catholic Church. The same with teachers of Classics. They represent a faculty which is conservative, for it has long held a dominant position. They think their position is a dig- nified one, and that it does not beseem superior persons to make terms, as it were, with mere modern notions. Their methods have been long tried, and the education they imparted produced great men as well as great scholars. They would like to persuade themselves that the world is at a standstill, e pur si muove.

The reformers, I repeat, do not believe in sitting still and doing nothing except wring their hands impotently. They are willing to brace themselves to a hard task. If Classical teaching is not played out, it will certainly be able to adapt itself, at whatever cost, to modern methods and modern ideas — or rather, I should say, will take all that is really health- ful and helpful in the educational apparatus of to-day, and adapt it to the needs of its own pupils. The Classical Faculty has won for itself the grand title of " humanistic," and who has, therefore, a better right to employ

" New Wine in Old Bottles " 155

those arts and crafts of teaching which are humane and human in the highest sense ? For is there anything in the whole range of civiliza- tion better and more evidently beneficial to man than the improvements the world is making in the training of youthful minds ?

The curious part of educational reform is that the energy required to push it forward seems to come always from below. It requires very little insight to see that our primary system is far ahead of our secondary, and, I might add, our secondary of University teaching. Kindergarten took a long time to win its way into the infant schools of this country, and it will take longer to get into our seats of higher learning. But the principle of teaching by the eye and the sense of touch is, in reality, quite as good for the full-grown man or woman as for the infant. I suppose our geometricians will admit this — they would relegate to the nearest lunatic asylum anyone asserting that diagrams may be used by beginners, but must be discarded by profi- cients. Why, I actually knew a Mathematical Professor in an Irish University who so far forgot the proprieties as to familiarize his class with certain conical curves by means of old cardboard boxes and sewing-thread ! There is hardly any subject where so many varieties of eye-teaching come in as in Classics, when treated according to modern, rational methods. But, before describing these, we must discuss the traditional ideas about Classical education.

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The chief fault we have complained of in the unreformed is that they give an exaggerated prominence to linguistic study as a very sublime kind of mental discipline — gymnastic they call it, I believe. This ideal appears to be still prevalent in Ireland, where, on the whole, we do not display such desperate tenacity in holding to exploded superstitions. In one way, all educative work aims at mental development, and, therefore, may be called discipline. And linguistic study, as such, is certainly of high, but it can never be of the highest, importance for the training of minds. The defenders of the superstition are loud in proclaiming the importance, for instance, of composition, or of translation from Greek or Roman authors, as compared with other similar exercises — and they think they have said enough. What is the use of flogging a dead horse ? All they reiterate is so true, but, unfortunately, it is also excessively trite. They thus discuss everything except the essential question, which is that of relative values. Not whether Classical education is useful — who ever among our most fanatical enemies thought of denying that? — but whether its utility is so great that we can, under no circumstances, afford to renounce it ? Is it not rather late in the day to try to prove to a man of ordinary intelligence that by no possibility could any " mental dis- cipline " be discovered which would compen- sate his children for the loss they would incur

" New Wine in Old Bottles " 157

by not writing Ciceronian prose, or by not translating Plato and Thucydides elegantly ? It is mere waste of words to compare, for instance, Latin with German, or Greek with Irish, as affording mental gymnastics — for the real difficulty is whether such mental gymnastics could not be bought at too high a price.

Therefore, let it be understood that, in claiming for Classical education a wider horizon than that of belated tradition, we raise no question as to the utility of linguistic studies, nor do we propose to substitute any other than a linguistic basis for a reformed scheme of Classical education. I have already said that we view the study of language, and especially the practice of composition, not as an end in itself, or certainly not as our principal end. We view the benefits derived from the study of language merely as a part of a far larger scheme. And what is that scheme ? It is the communication to students of something which is to affect their whole being, and not some particular part of it. We do not believe that the study of mere words,* no matter whether they be thousands of years out of date, can ever be taken as the preparation for human life in its entirety. The true sense of proportion here is entirely lost, and if there

* I heard a very interesting Presidential Address at Newcastle, in 1916, by Rev. W. Temple in defence of Classical education, in which he proposed to omit both Demosthenes and Cicero from school teach- ing. I do not quite agree with this view, but think there is a distinct danger of over-emphasizing the rhetorical element in Classical literature.

12 *

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is any single reason above another why Hellenic studies are important, it is because they strengthen in our minds this precious sense of proportion. Not merely because the Greeks always aimed consciously at the Mean, and indeed had a temperamental distaste for whatever is in excess. Far more because of the many-sidedness of Greek life, which embraced and unified so many interests that it was almost impossible for unbalanced views to prevail. Matthew Arnold says of Sophocles :—

Who saw life steadily and saw it whole.

To grasp the truth about ancient life, and to bring that truth home to his students is the real function of a good teacher of the Classics. He cannot do this if he does not know the lan- guage and appreciate the literature of Greece and Rome, but a knowledge of grammatical rules or even a good style in translation will not of itself make him breathe the Classical atmosphere — still less diffuse it among his disciples.

As the study of grammar has been elevated beyond its function of helping to grasp a language, and language beyond its necessity as an approach to literature, so there is that other fallacy in regard to what is often (in- accurately, as I think) termed literary educa- tion. In a perfectly balanced system, litera- ture will not be considered as an end, or cer- tainly not the end in education. No one would say that the main differentia of an

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educated, though it might be of an accom- plished, man is that he can speak French or German with a good accent, or that he can write Latin or Greek verse with fluency. In like manner, one is not really educated in any complete sense because he has read many speeches and poems and plays, or because he can learnedly descant about dramatic unities, systems of metre, and schools and periods of literature. The fact is, the study of litera- ture must be, in its turn, subordinated to something higher than itself. For this we must now search.

Is it the study of history ? That depends on how you understand history. It may be made as uneducative as any other subject under the sun, for it may be a dry and life- less chronicle of dead persons and things. But if you take it in its highest and most humanistic sense — the history of nations, the history of mankind — then I would put history above every other study for its formative virtues. It includes, of course, the history not merely of wars and dynasties and legal codes (though these are by no means to be overlooked), but the history of art, of philo- sophy, of religion, and, above all, of litera- ture. Literature may be viewed as the very best sort of history, the most vital history. " Let me choose a nation's ballads, and who- ever will may make its laws." What I object to in the narrow view of literature is a tendency, due to a slothful careless treatment of books,

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to exalt unduly the mere expression of feeling as distinct from elemental feeling itself. There- fore it attends to mere graces of style or the rules of rhetoric or the metres of poetry, as if these were the things that really matter in life. Surely, the periods of the Verrine Ora- tions are less important for us than the tyranny of Verres, the state of the people in Sicily, and the rule of its provinces by the Roman Senate. Yet, mark it well ! the student who is taught the real context of the Verrine Orations will be also the one best fitted for entering into and admiring the oratory of them. Or take again JSschylus — such plays as the Per see and the Eumenides throw the most powerful light on the inner history of Athens, and can only be read with real sympathy by those interested in that subject. So with Pindar. Who can read him aright without also drinking deep draughts of the Hellenic mind and spirit ?

It will be found that the view of Classical education which treats literature as a part, and not the whole, so far from depreciating the latter, adds enormously to its prestige and importance. It is exactly the same with the study of ancient art. We do not want to substitute this for letters, but to restore it to its due place in a full and rounded scheme of Classical education. Neither art for art's sake, nor letters for letters' sake, nor even history for history's sake (in the narrow sense), but all these, and more, for education's

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sake — which is the training of a man, not of an artist, or rhetorician, or historian.

To come to details. If we insist on giving a special place in our curriculum to ancient history, with its several branches, such as antiquities, archaeology, art, and, above all, literature, regarded not as a merely textual study, but as a most important element in the real history of a people, this is in order to secure that all these subjects get a due amount of time and attention bestowed on them, and in nowise because we wish to divorce the study of history from that of letters. Surely history is one of the great branches of literature, and, consequently, such a divorce between them (at least in the case of Classics) would be more than unnatural — it would be unthinkable.

There is, of course, frequently misunder- standing of the reforms we advocate, no doubt promoted by that vis inertice which schoolmasters, like other persons, are liable to. It is, however, a little too bad. Did the good doubters ever really meet a Classical master, at least any responsible person, who tried to substitute scraps of archaeology for the regular teaching of Latin and Greek ? It would be almost impossible to thi k of a subject less fitted to be the vehicle of ordinary education than the very complex and subtle and often tentative processes of scientific archaeology. Ignorance of all modern educa- tion could alone account for a comparison

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between training scholars in the methods of a science and imparting to then certain in- formation gained through those methods. Surely there is no feature more characteristic of progressive educational method than the way in which it correlates different branches of learning, bringing them into mutual play for purposes of illustrating and driving home conclusions. Take, for instance, history, geo- graphy, and sociology on one side — and on the other geology, with its kindred physical sciences. Why is every other branch of learning to use all the wealth of apparatus which modern education provides, and the largest and nost difficult and most remote of our disciplines is to be rigidly isolated from all intellectual progress ? And so, if we Classical men do get kicked about, and finally kicked out, whom have we got to thank for it except ourselves ?

We reformers believe that it is almost im- possible to overrate the beneficial influence which archaeological aids to teaching may have upon the Classical education of the future. To illustrate this point from history, let me record what Cicero says of his and his brother's conversation with friends in the groves of the Academy at Athens in 79 B.C. Quintus had related how he had diverged on his way to visit Colonus, " whose inhabitant Sophocles had ever possessed the spot before his eyes," and the thought of CEdipus coming thither and asking in his gentle strains what place

44 New Wine in Old Bottles ': 163

it was <c touched my memory with a strong emotion, imaginary no doubt, but yet it moved me." Then Cicero himself says, that formerly having journeyed to Metapontum, even before going to his entertainer's house, he had hastened to view the spot where Pythagoras had breathed his last. Piso, re- ferring to the spirit of Plato, which still lived in the Academy, had asked the two brothers : 4 'How is it when we view the places where celebrated men have lived, we are more moved by these than by hearing of their deeds, or by reading their writings?"*

Now, it is not always possible for modern students of the Classics to do what the two Ciceros had done, to visit the great centres of ancient life, such as Rome, Athens, Corinth, Capua, or Syracuse. But the fact that in our time foreign travel is so common, and the use of the camera and the lantern so wide- spread, has made it comparatively easy to bring the scenes of ancient life vividly before our classes, and familiarize them with many of the actual results, though not necessarily the mental processes, of recent discovery. Along with views of excavations which are not often of themselves fully significant, we can, if we like, show splendid restorations of plan and elevation which will give clear and striking impressions of many ancient sites. The lantern is, of course, by far the most satis- factory method to use : but it is not in every

*Cic., De Finibus, Bk. v., ch. 1.

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case possible or convenient to have the lan- tern apparatus ready for ordinary class work, and in such case first-class photographic prints, properly mounted and enclosed in boxes, make a very fair and practicable substitute for the more excellent way. The supply of numis- matic aids to teaching, that is, of Greek and Roman silver and copper coins (with electro- types or other facsimiles of the more valuable specimens) specially fitted into small trays, suitable for passing round in class, has also been attempted in England and Ireland, with happy results as far as the experiment has yet extended. Our students were already habituated to a sort of representation of coins as illustrating Greek and Roman history; for in the more recent handbooks, Gow's Com- panion to School Classics, Bury's Histories of Greece, including the small one for Beginners, the Student's Rome, and Heitland's new Short History of the Roman Republic, various repre- sentations of coins are given ; and indeed the last-named book, which is also one of the best, eschews every other kind of illustration. Some of these attempts are poor enough. Heitland does, indeed, give adequate photo- graphic plates, but Bury only marginal wood- cuts, which are really of very little use. At best, this plan of picturing coins, though taking us a certain distance, does not go far enough. Good facsimiles, to say nothing of originals, are, of course, infinitely more to the point. Surely, if it is taken for granted

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that some numismatic aids to history are needed by our students, there is nothing like giving them the real thing. Teaching by the eye is good, but to appeal also to the sense of touch is better. It imports reality, and appeals to the imagination.

It is "the first step that counts," and in the use of archaeological aids to teaching it is more than ever true to say "a thing well begun is half done." Let the average master once be persuaded that he is doing an injustice to his students as well as to his own best interests by neglecting the opportunities of improved teaching which are ready to his hand ; it is impossible to say how far he will be gently carried along the road to new life and new energy.

It has very recently become evident that a new educational era is about to be opened in Great Britain and Ireland. Mr. Fisher's scheme for widening and deepening education all along the line has grown out of a simple demand for improved scientific instruction in schools — but has now acquired a much larger importance than any mere reforms in matters of detail. It is a national revolution in edu- cation that is implied, and this fact and the proportions of the scheme seem to warrant us in assuming that at least many of the benefits contained in it wrill be before long extended even to this country, where assuredly they are needed not less than in England.

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I have not, however, the intention of discuss- ing the general bearings of Mr. Fisher's policy, nor indeed is it a matter regarding which I claim to possess special knowledge. But it so happens that a rather unexpected development has grown out of the scheme which may be of enormous significance for that reform of Classical teaching.

To make this clear it will be necessary to revert for a moment to the situation before the war. Already for many years contro- versy had been raging regarding the position of Classics in the scheme of national educa- tion ; but it was chiefly regarding the older Universities, and higher examinations for the Indian and Home Civil Services. At this stage, however, the defenders of the old learning were divided, as nearly all the younger and more progressive men were in opposition to those who maintained a policy which savoured of compulsion and undue privilege. But, like so many other things, all this was changed by the war. With the war came a feeling that the nation had been asleep and that drastic reforms of all sorts were urgently needed. Blame was meted out pretty impartially to all State depart- ments except one (which is now beginning to catch it), and the hammering hit hardest the heads of the educationists. Here was, in any case, a chance for the militant scientists which they were not going to miss.

I refer, of course, to extreme and fanatical

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promoters of scientific education. The moderate people not merely have the blessing of the advocates of humanism, but many of the latter claim to be foremost in any demand for sane reform and even extension of scientific teaching in all kinds of schools. Many who are engaged in Classical teaching could re-echo the words of Mr. Gary Gilson, the Headmaster of a great Classical school (and one who, as Chairman of the Headmasters' Conference, proved himself a stalwart and very efficient defender of Classics), when he declared at a conference, held in Birmingham last May, that "his own main personal interest is in physical science." On the same occasion Sir Oliver Lodge remarked that " physical science alone would develop an illiterate specialist, and would be an absurdity."

But the extreme agitators for reform, who have been clamouring at our doors, put forward a very simple programme indeed. At least they make their views intelligible. There is only one cry, there is only one thing needful — new scientific teaching, narrow, of course, but plenty of it. This great panacea for all our national woes is to be applied impartially all round, but especially in the schools. The Universities of late have not been so much worried because the attack has been moved to the most vulnerable quarter. Still we are all in the same condemnation, and fast and furious fell the blows on all our poor devoted heads.

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Newspaper articles, articles in reviews, pamphlets, committees, petitions to Parlia- ment— nothing was omitted which could stir up public opinion against the wretched votaries of a study that is long dead, and ought to have been long buried out of sight. What was wanted instead was not in every case so very clear ; but what had to go was unquestionable —Classical teaching chiefly, but also every kind of literary and humanistic instruction which could or seemed to interfere with the approach of the scientific millennium.

And what has been the real result of this extreme form of propaganda, addressed as it was to a nation which was smarting under the inevitable strain of perhaps the severest struggle in history ? I propose to show that the result has been extremely favourable to the Classical cause. Personally, I consider that our whole outlook is entirely changed for the better — I might add, we are going to be put on a completely new level. In fact, the situation is not merely changed, it is to be revolutionized. For the first time in the his- tory of the Classical controversy, all the de- fending forces are standing together — and what is more, they are newly committed to the only reasonable policy, the only policy which ever had the slightest chance of success, that of appealing directly to the people and claiming for our mental discipline that it exists for the people and is not the special property or privilege of any favoured class.

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I may pass over lightly the arguments advanced with great force to prove that the lessons of the war are quite as strong for as against Classical education. Especially Prof. R. S. Conway, in an article in the Contempo- rary, entitled " Education and Freedom," pointed out that if the war is really a war of ideals, it is not going to be won by purely mechanical and chemical devices, however necessary these may be in the hands of the fighting men who will really decide the issue. Many of us believe that already the war has had some regenerative effect ; and if our new national education is to carry on the process it will not be by relegating all moral and humanistic training of our youth to the scrap heap, or by supplanting it with scientific and technological instruction — even though it be of the most approved continental type. This view was enforced very ably in a book already referred to, A Defence of Classical Education, by R. W. Livingstone. In certain respects this work is of the utmost persuasiveness ; its chief merit being that it deals with the actual living issues of the moment rather than merely with dry and abstract estimates of relative educational values. Lord Bryce's Presidential Address at the Classical Associa- tion Meeting, held at Leeds, in January of this year, pressed home the same lessons from the standpoint of the statesman and diploma- tist who had studied great educational prob- lems on both sides of the Atlantic.

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It was the action taken by this Association at the same meeting which seems to me to augur favourably. During the year previous to the meeting, conferences had been held with other societies which represent various aspects of humanistic teaching : English, Modern Languages, History, and even Geo- graphy, that most ancient of sciences and most modern exponent of wise humanism. These sister associations had formulated prin- ciples held by them in common, as a common defence against the attacks of their narrow and bigoted scientific enemies, one of whom had declared that the teaching of Latin and Greek was like a cancer in our educational system, which " must be cut out with the knife."

But the Classical Association did not stop at the point of enunciating and re-affirming the principle that education must retain a literary and historical side in some shape or form. It had a message of its own, which took the form of a resolution, proposed by Mr. Livingstone himself, to the effect that " In every local area provision for the teaching of Latin and Greek should be made such as will place these studies everywhere within the reach of pupils from every class of the nation."

This proposal was fully debated, in the largest and by far the most representative meeting of the Classical Faculty ever held in England; it was unanimously adopted, and directions were given to the Council to bring it

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before the educational authorities of the country. Subsequently we read in the Times that the resolution was received by Mr. Fisher from a deputation of the Association very favourably, and that he has pledged the Board of Education to strive to carry it into practice as soon and as far as it is possible.

This result is, of course, most gratifying, in so far as it excludes any sort of suspicion that the resolution which Mr. Livingstone got carried by the whole Association was in itself either absurd or wholly impracticable. But the real point gained is not the carrying out of the demand — that may or may not imme- diately follow — but the making of it. At last the claims of Classical learning have been properly formulated. At last the natural representatives of that learning have put themselves right before the nation — they have taken the offensive. They were told to go into a corner, and, behold, they have come out of their corner ! Assuredly — where were they, those pre- Victorian champions of the good old school, with their antiquated ideas and methods and line of defence ? They were off the track already, they were contented to be in a corner, contented that the world should wag on — provided only that they were left in peace. Let the truth be told, the Classical Association had been losing the con- fidence of the party of reform and of action. Now they have (thanks to Mr. H. G. Wells and others like him) been stung into action.

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They have at last taken a line which is certainly bold, and have taken it with dignity and with apparently already a remarkable measure of success — for which we may offer them our humble but most sincere congratulations.

Henceforth Classical education claims, according to the highest and most representa- tive authority, to be an essentially demo- cratic method of mental training. It is suited for all classes of the nation. It demands to be recognized as such and to be brought within reach of every pupil under charge of the Board of Education. Classical learning cannot make this towering claim for itself without doing something to live up to it. If our Classical authorities really believe that they have a popular appeal, it is quite time that they do something to put that appeal to a practical test.

They must come out of their corner. They must come out of their shell. Before we can honestly say that Classical teaching is really efficient, really practical, really attractive in its human appeal, really on a par with other kinds of teaching, which have been progressing enormously while we have been folding our hands or at most patting one another on the back, there is something to be done. Mr. Fisher may try to do something for us. But there is a great deal to be done for us which cannot be done by Mr. Fisher. We might sometimes try to remember the true saying : " God helps those that help themselves."

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When the reckoning comes, the lessons of this war are not going to be all on one side. "Out of the Eater came forth Meat." We take it for granted that others have to learn very salutary lessons about the difference between right and wrong, and even about superiority of true nationality over mere organization in the military sense. But what we are going to learn is that Inefficiency does not pay, and this is most true in regard to education. We have been inefficient, and what is more we have been content to know that we were inefficient. For many reasons this attitude will have to be, and we are cer- tain will be, modified in the near future.

The real value of reform in education is that it means probing ourselves and our methods — going to the bottom of our diffi- culties. We are not to be deterred by the bother. We are not too proud to acknow- ledge our past sins.

The Archaeological Aids Committee, referred to in a former chapter, has unfortunately learned only too well another lesson from the state of war. Almost all the paraphernalia we have been striving to introduce has been hitherto made in Germany, used in Germany, and supplied from Germany. What British educa- tionists have to learn is to provide their own (Classical) apparatus.

A few details will be more informing to the reader than mere theory, and we propose now to subjoin a statement of facts to prove how

13

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entirely dependent on Germany and Austria we have hitherto been, who sought to intro- duce into Classical teaching those aids which can alone make it attractive and fit to com- pete with other lines of mind-formation. We may classify them as follows :

(1) Real Antiquities — Chiefly ancient money, for its multifarious interest, artistic, com- mercial, historical. Also scraps of pottery, metal, and many other simple fabrics, such as can be obtained.

(2) Various kinds of casts, electrotypes, and other replicas of originals which are not them- selves obtainable.

(3) a — All classes of photographs, but most especially lantern slides.

6 — Printed matter, including charts and diagrams ; albums of prints, collotypes, or half- tones ; various illustrated books or atlases relating to topography, excavations, archi- tecture, art, war, private life, and general antiquities.

The last class, including a and b, is of course the largest and most varied department, and, from our point of view, is of extreme import- ance. Book illustrations, diagrams and slides have, however, this restriction, that they make an appeal only to the eye ; whereas archaeo- logical and especially numismatic aids can be handled as well as looked at, and therefore, psychologically, are on a higher plane even than the print or photograph. But this matters not to our argument, for all Classical

" New Wine in Old Bottles " 175

aids, roughly speaking, are alike, they are all in the same boat. While the war lasts we shall be simply blocked from the impossibility of obtaining suitable material of every descrip" tion.

It is, however, utterly impossible that we can go back. England, as a whole, is by no means backward in regard to archaeology. What continental country has a Classical Museum to compare with our great one ; or a society with a better record or roll of names than the Hellenic Society ; or greater exca- vators than Evans, Hogarth, and Wace; or more learned writers than Ridgeway, Myres, Percy Gardner, Macdonald, to mention only a few names that occur to me out of a goodly host of living authorities ? No, we are not going back just because we shall be obliged to depend upon Germany less in future for our educational apparatus. We shall go forward, but we must travel far, and travel fast, if we really think to tell our enemy that in future we shall not, to anything like the same extent as heretofore, be beholden to his museums, work- shops, printing presses, and publishing trade.

Let us view the situation calmly. Take the numismatic question first, as it always deserves to be taken. Here, it is true, we are not in the worst plight, for we can turn to the dealers at home. If they are not very numerous, they are excellent, for, so far as I can judge after some little experience, their specimens are good and their prices not unreasonable. When

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buying special classes of coins, however, it is good and sometimes necessary to go outside the country, and, among continentals, the German dealers were of the best. Even a more urgent question relating to our special wants is the supply of coin-electrotypes, things of the highest importance for young pupils. It has been found exceedingly difficult to get an adequate supply of electrotypes. Had it not been possible to get some assistance in the first year from the Classical Association of Ireland, the initial efforts of the A.R.L.T. Committee would have been sorely hindered. There are special difficulties surrounding this question, which we hope will be surmounted.

When we come to the general series of other casts and replicas suitable for school purposes, the contrast between the Teutonic and other countries is truly wonderful. There is no supply at home in any organized fashion. What is worse, there has been practically no demand.

This is no question of the sort of Classical casts which, of course, abound in galleries, art schools, and popular museums. Useful and illuminating replicas of little things appertain- ing to ordinary life, to athletic sports, to play- actors and their masks and costumes, to war- fare, to industry, to religion and the cult of the dead, and such other things as naturally appeal to the youthful mind — these things can be had in Berlin and Leipsic, in Vienna, Dresden, Munich, and other centres of German

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education ; but not to any great extent else- where. It would take too much room to describe here what has been done by the Wurtemburg Company alone to make known the prehistoric civilization and art Unearthed at Mycenae, Tiryns, and Troy on the mainland, and at Gnossus and Phaestus in Crete.

And lastly, we come to the worst case of all, printed stuff and photographs. With regard to the latter, England is very backward, and English education is very backward : Italy, however, is well to the front in Classical photo- graphy— not but that there is something to be desired in regard to Italian trade methods. And why should we depend even on Italy, or on Athens, or on Paris ? However, it is but just to say that the British Museum has taken up this matter : of course, only with regard to its own exhibits, which are, however, im- portant and numerous. Too much praise could not be bestowed upon the series of post- cards and other photographic reproductions lately ordered by the Trustees to be prepared and sold at the main entrance of the Museum. To reinforce this effort, what is most wanted is a large universal photographic depot, which would keep in touch with all continental and even American sources of supply, keeping its prices as low as possible, and briskly pushing its wares by advertisement and other legitimate methods of diffusion. Such a depot, while specially devoting itself to Classical subjects and modern excavations, and while catering

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properly for our schools and other educational centres, could also deal in art photography generally. It may be objected that such depots exist. Possibly, but not of the sort we are contemplating, and certainly not doing the work which is clamouring aloud to be done. This campaign will never start, it cannot, as a purely trade concern — it must be inspired, fostered, and directed by educa- tional persons or organizations. Would it not be possible that it might receive direct aid and encouragement, not necessarily of a monetary kind, from the Board of Education itself ?

The difficulty about the supply of lantern slides to schools is one that we may hope to see overcome by existing organizations. As a matter of fact, the solution appeared to be not so far off at the hands of the Materials Board of the Classical Association; but when the war broke out, that, like so many under- takings of the sort, was necessarily for the time left alone. The question of printed matter, including, of course, photogravures and other reproductions of a similar kind, is much more serious.

The way to approach this subject is simply to form some acquaintance with what has been done by the German printing press to produce manuals, diagrams, albums, series of pictures for hanging and for class use, and a thousand other useful apparatus.

We may mention the Bulle series of Greek and Roman sculpture and painting, a truly

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marvellous collection of art, beautifully turned out and at a price which would make a British publisher gasp like a codfish on the sand. The letterpress of such a work is naturally very important, and being in German is of course beyond the ken of the vast majority of our students and of a very considerable proportion of our teachers. Occasionally one sees such works with polyglot or translated reading matter. What a small amount of business enterprise would have been required to get this done in the case under mention. If we had the power to guarantee even a limited demand there is little doubt the chance would have been instantly seized by the printers, for it would have cost them only a trifle to do so, and would have been excellent business. Even to state this, under present circum- stances, may appear to suggest that we cannot really dispense with Germany. Perhaps it is so, and may it not be so for many a long day ! To offer translated matter to our students is, from the patriotic standpoint, a mere pis aller ; but at least we should be supplying them with something written in their own tongue, and something from which they could derive sound information about the pictures.

We could name any number of similar cages, for, indeed, we have fallen very far behind in the race. The question of models has not been dealt with, as the present writer has not used them to any great extent. But I know that several teachers have a great belief in the

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importance of models and of having them made as far as possible by the boys themselves. Perhaps it is on this side that our greatest progress will be made. There is plenty of room here for individual enterprise, and when we get properly under weigh we may show that our own boys in their own workshops will be capable of great things. I might allude to the excellent work of Mr. M. A. Bayfield in making models to show the equipment of the Homeric warrior, and in particular the Mycenean Shield,* and of Mr. A. B. Cook, who gave directions for a model f to represent his theory of the Greek Trireme. The published illustra- tions even of these models are extremely helpful.

The fact is, we have no lack of talent nor of good will. What we do lack is organization to bring our resources to bear on ordinary school and college work.

When England emerges from the ordeal she will become a changed nation. She is already bracing herself to deal with national problems in a new and improved frame of mind. Many time-honoured controversies will be found to be dead. There will be less tendency to break the Gospel prohibition about bottles. We shall be more united, more practical, per- haps a trifle more humble, and certainly a good deal less inefficient.

The average teacher of Classics must benefit

* See Leaf and Bayfield's Iliad, Vol. i., p. 546.

•f The model was executed by Messrs. Swan, Hunter, and Richardson. For description see the Classical Review, Vol. xix. p. 376.

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by the infusion of new virtues into our educa- tional system. He will at length have learned — and may it not be too late — that there is no longer room for dispute as to the possibility of England continuing to tolerate unreformed Classical education. The problem which will confront us will be different, and its final solu- tion not so easy to foretell. When Classics are reformed, and as thoroughly efficient as other branches of modern education, will they even then be able to hold their own in their struggle for life ?

Perhaps the best way of summarizing the above views will be to enumerate the features of education which we believe can alone com- mend it to the modern mind, and give it a hope of surviving in the struggle for life. It is unnecessary to add that we assume no reform of Classical teaching can be worth considering which does not satisfy this test.

Modernized education, then, should show, at least, the following five characteristics :

1. The ability to apply to its own processes striking results of modern science.

2. A desire to place itself in harmony with approved ideals of modern pedagogy.

3. A readiness to employ modern educa- tional appliances.

4. A distinct claim to prepare its pupils for taking their place in the modern social organism.

5. A power to commend itself to the mind and instincts of modern democracy.

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Undoubtedly there are a large number of branches of modern education which satisfy every one of the above tests. Take, for instance, the new geography, and to a less degree the best methods of teaching unified modern history. The Reform that has taken place in our time in regard to the teaching of modern languages is too well known to require any detailed description here. Nor do I pro- fess to have special knowledge about the modern methods of dealing with such subjects as mathematical and physical sciences ; but every man in the street knows that various changes and reforms, both as to ideals and as to methods, are constantly taking place in regard to laboratories and laboratory work and every side of technical education.

The great fault of Classical teachers in the past was that, instead of throwing them- selves into the current of modern life, and adapting themselves to all that is really good and progressive in education, they kept aloof, on the ground that their fathers and grand- fathers and great-grandfathers knew better than modern people what and how to teach — a heresy which just contains the grain of truth to make it dangerous ! The men of old suc- ceeded precisely because they knew how to adapt themselves to the needs of their own times, and that is what the Reformer in Classics is trying to do to-day. And no subject can be more truly modern in the sense above defined than Classical, and particularly

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Hellenic, learning, when it is treated on the broad lines which it deserves. The Times recently stated that "the revival of Greek is one of the striking features of the present age, and is nowhere more marked than among ourselves. Greek studies find themselves in vital contact with the new sciences, with physiography and anthropology, with his- tory and economics." The general public in England, as in Ireland, can be interested in Greek art and ancient institutions when they are brought before them agreeably. A great part of the work of all Classical Associations (a greater part than they seem to be aware of) should consist in the steady effort to popu- larize those aspects of Classical learning which are both important in themselves and suitable for being impressed on minds which cannot acquire deep culture. For one person who learns to read and write Latin and Greek fluently, one hundred could be fairly well versed in Greek and Roman literature by means of good translations, and one thousand could be familiarized with many salient facts about ancient life, and even interested in some of the great monuments which have come down to us. And we shall be prepared to be mis- understood in our efforts. We shall smile at the accusation of superficiality because we brace ourselves to the hardest of conflicts, the effort to reach superficial persons, to bring our lessons within the purview of a superficial age.

CHAPTER VII

How TO QUICKEN APPRECIATION OF CLASSICS *

We must now descend to details. In this paper it will be our effort to explain prac- tically how at least one very important part of our principles may be carried into effect. When driving home the method of eye- teaching as something vital to the healthful development of Classical teaching on modern, efficient, and democratic lines, one must guard against misunderstanding.

It should hardly be necessary to allude to the faults and exaggerations of weak-headed persons who, being dissatisfied with the present position and prospects of Classical education, think that any wild panacea will suffice to save the situation. Representing a sort of revolt from the hard discipline of Classical study, and having acquired cheaply and hastily some scraps of modern information about Classical history or literature, they seem to themselves to have discovered that royal road to learning. But we know better. A Kodak is a poor substitute for the grammar and the dictionary, and a smattering of that degenerate compound of tongues called Mod- ern Greek is of very little avail to give us a

* The substance of this chapter and Appendix No. 2 were read to the Educational Conference held at Chautauqua, N.Y., in July, 1916.

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real appreciation of the language of Sophocles, Plato, and Demosthenes. To all this, one is forced to exclaim : " Non tali auxilio, nee defensoribus istis ! r

Why, then, do we insist so much on one particular aspect of a large problem ? Not because eye-teaching is everything — not be- cause by itself it will suffice to put everything right — but because the neglect of eye-teaching is, as I believe, in these countries our besetting sin. The degree to which it has been neglected in the past appears to me personally some- thing quite appalling. I use a strong word, but I have weighed it. Nothing has shocked me, when I have ventured to propose that something must be done, more than the attitude of the archaeologists themselves. When discussing eye-teaching with Professors of Classical Archaeology I positively derived less encouragement from them than from any of the other classes whom I have approached, viz., teachers, headmasters, curators, adminis- trators, and professors of pedagogy — which is saying a good deal.

Again and again I was warned (even by friendly archaeologists) that to employ the lantern and archaeological aids to ordinary teaching is to endanger the well-being of archaeology as a science because, forsooth, ordinary teachers cannot know all about it. This is the sort of fatuity that renders one limp and speechless. It is as though bankers made a rule that there are to be no depositors who

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do not thoroughly understand the science of banking — or that professional cricketers were to exclude all amateurs who play on a standard lower than their own. The topsy-turvydom of Alice would pale before a Wonderland like this!

Let this pass — they did not really mean it. But we are beyond all doubt up against a very big difficulty. Take the case of a teacher of Greek or Latin who, for the first time, feels his conscience twinging him because he has never shown a slide or anything else to his students. They are in Cimmerian darkness — but he finds himself in an uncommonly awk- ward dilemma. He cannot get slides very easily, he does not possess photos, still less archaeological material. His school may not be within reach of large collections, nor does he know how to obtain anything, even on the more modest scale, which, if not fully ade- quate, would be better than nothing. What is worse and what seems often to absolutely paralyse these poor wretches is the undoubted fact that even if they could obtain material they would not at first know how to use it.

To set about helping people like this may indeed sound paradoxical, and yet it is not impossible. Solvitur ambulando. Those of us who were once in a desperate condition know that we got out of it by degrees. We saw " men as trees walking " before we saw anything clearly. We saw and handled first one thing and then another : the more we saw

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the more we wanted to see — improvement was perhaps imperceptible, but it was steady. When I was starting to use, first, coin-slides, and then coins, as illustrations of my class- work, I always told my students that numis- matic study is difficult, and that I did not expect them to know very much about it, because I knew very little myself. Now things are better : we do not pretend to be numismatists (at least I don't, though I have perpetrated a small book on the subject) but we do know something about the way that history can be illustrated and vitalized by handling Greek and Roman coins and by learning accurately a few simple facts about currency. Since I took up this hobby I have really grasped an infinity of interesting things about Greek and Roman life and history which I am certain I should never have learned any other way. And then the delight of seeing and handling the coins is to me intense and indescribable.

This matter is so important and so typical of the whole question of reviving and reform- ing Classics that I shall venture to give a few particulars regarding Greek history as illustrated by numismatic material, whether it be original or reproduced. And there is a frame of mind which we must consider — it was for a very long time my own state of mind — it is just this. One will reflect that a knowledge of Greek and Roman coins is certainly an important thing for learned

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specialists. We see how they are frequently referred to in our manuals of history and antiquities and in commentaries on Classical authors. But we gather from those very references that the subject is most intricate, because it evidently deals with material which is recondite and even difficult of access. The points observed by experts and referred to in their treatises are often extremely minute and elusive to an untrained eye, which has not learned to interpret them by long and close application to the subject. Above all, the varieties of coins, chiefly the Greek but also the later Roman issues, appear to be so immense as to be positively bewildering to the tiro.

All this is indeed very true, and yet I wish to convince my readers that the subject may be made both interesting and practical for ordinary students of antiquity. What I wish to advocate is that, even though small, a knowledge of coins may be encouraged as a useful attainment. I should like to encourage schoolboys to take up Greek and Roman coins as a sort of hobby, collecting them as they do butterflies or postage stamps; and, when this is impossible, at least to bring within their reach a small collection of Greek and Roman coins. It is easy enough to obtain many interesting and beautiful speci- mens, and electrotypes of the rarer coins. The real coins are, of course, the best. Nothing seems to put you more closely into touch with

Appreciation of Classics 189

antiquity than to handle Greek silver or Roman brass. If all danger of modern forgery is eliminated, as it may be easily enough, to see and touch them is to hold what passed through the fingers of Romans, Athenians, Corinthians, and Thebans in the days of Peistratus, Pericles, and Aristophanes, or of Scipio, Antony, and Vergil.

First of all, let me point out that I am not now going to deal with more than one particular aspect of coin-study — its general historical interest. Other highly noteworthy aspects are much less important for beginners, though I should not dream of stating that they ought to be absolutely excluded from our purview. But I do not intend to insist upon them in these pages.

First of all there is the question, which is highly technical, and one which we could never master even for ourselves, the questions of weight, standard, and value. The standards e.g., in use in Greece were merely approximate and were perpetually changing. The same is true, to a less extent indeed, in Rome, where there was a steady depreciation. In Greece it has even been maintained that it was im- possible, except perhaps in the earliest periods of coinage, for people ordinarily to have attached any fixed value to special coins — but must have used them as specie, by weight rather than recognized standards. Again, there are whole controversies about the origin and development of coinage, and their types,

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which are interesting and instructive, but are only mentioned to rule them out of our present discussion.

Lastly, the study of coins from the aesthetic standpoint is fascinating enough for the student of art, and of first-class importance for the understanding of many art problems. Coins are often masterpieces of art ; they are not, like most of the statues in the great Museums, only copies of earlier works. Yet I do not include this topic as belonging to the historical value of coins.

What I mean is this. The student of ancient life who pays even a cursory attention to the study of coins will find considerable light thrown on this subject.

In Roman coinage the interest is broad because so many little points of ancient life are referred to, especially in the consular denarii, but also in the Imperial series. In one very small collection of the later Re- publican period, made for schools, the follow- ing references to contemporary events were noticed. The wars of Pompey and Caesar ; the victories of the latter in Gaul after Pompey's flight, and that in Spain, at Munda, over Pompey's friends ; the Battle of Phar- salia ; Caesar's claim to descend from ^Eneas and therefore from Venus. We also find reference to Antony and his cruel Fulvia, who pierced the dead Cicero's tongue with a needle ; to Antony's marriage to Octavia ; to the Battle of Actium, and the triumph of Octavius

Appreciation of Classics 191

in honour of the same battle ; next to the submission of Asia to the Conqueror, and to the Asiatic cult of mystic serpents ; then to that greatest diplomatic triumph of Augustus, the surrender of the Roman standards lost by Crassus to the Parthians ; again to various triumphs of the new Emperor in the year 20 B.C., and finally to his title " Pater Patriae," and his choice of two grandsons (in default of direct male issue) to succeed him in the Prin- cipate. That both these youths, Caius and Lucius, predeceased the Emperor, and that he therefore had later to make a new and different choice, is but a special instance of the irony of fate — and in no way detracts from the interest attaching to the denarius struck in the year 2 B.C., the last in the series of the cabinet, which ends with the century.

Let us now turn to what is even more important in this connexion, the study of Greek history. When he studies Greek his- tory in the ordinary way, I mean through the ordinary literary process, the beginner must almost necessarily gain a somewhat restricted or even distorted view of his subject. He looks at everything through Attic spectacles* He gets Attic salt with his food, not by spoon- fuls, but rather by the overturning of the salt-cellar. It may be true to say that Paris is France, but it was certainly never true to say that Athens was Greece. However, it is allowed in our histories that one or two

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places existed in Greece — outside of Attica — Sparta existed, so did Corinth and Thebes. But I believe it is only those who begin to handle Greek coins who also begin a little to realize the vast extent of the real Greek world, as distinct from the world of books- how it was practically spread over the area of the whole world then known, or at least the more important part of it. I like to show charts showing the Greek world of books and the Greek world of coins. I do not mean merely that modern students should learn, perhaps for the first time, of centres of Greek life of which he would be otherwise more or less ignorant. It is his whole perspective that will be changed by coin-study. He will get a real and lasting inkling of the relative im- portance of, say, the Asiatic Greeks, or those of Magna Graecia and Sicily (he just guessed that Syracuse must have been a big place owing to the misadventures of Athenian armies there, now he will see the decadrachms), of the early ^Egina, of the Imperial Cyrene, of the wealthy cities of Thrace and the Pro- pontis. But it is regarding the Hellenistic period that his eyes will be properly opened. From a very superficial acquaintance with Greek numismatic issues, he will learn how large and how true was the spread of Greek civilization, art, commerce, language, and re- ligion in Egypt, Syria, and even the Far East, during the fourth and third centuries before Christ.

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Again, still keeping to a general view, the student learns much as to connexion between the religion of the Greeks and their life in the market-place. On a very large proportion of coins we find either an effigy of a deity or some reference to his or her supernatural power. Authorities may differ on the ques- tion as to how far this fact is due to the religious spirit, or to ordinary motives of convenience or patriotic feeling. But even if we hold that the god appears rather on account of his distinctive connexion with the locality than on account of his spiritual attributes, the result is much the same as to the intimate connexion between civil and religious life in Greece.

Thus do we gain new points of interest regarding the extent of the Greek world, and the variety and importance of the cities which constituted it. But there is another point of very great importance for the young student, and that is that coins illustrate the mutual independence of the city-states. They show strikingly the fact of their individual sove- reignty, just as the city-tokens of England and Ireland illustrate the individual life and growth of the towns at the time of striking them.

And yet there is the other side of the numis- matic shield. Everyone familiar with Bury's History oj Greece must have been struck with his references to coin-alliances, as illustrating history. And yet he wrote before Professor

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Percy Gardner's really epoch-making dis- covery about the coinage of the Ionic Revolt. This period is one of great importance, it interests the average boy, and yet very little is known about the real progress of the revolt and the reasons for its disastrous failure. We know there must have been imperfect organization, indeed there is plenty of evidence of the general fact. What more illuminating than the knowledge that at a time when every state issued its own coins (and indeed the rule was not broken in the Alliance) these cities should have had a series of electron staters, almost identical in colour, weight, form (which is very peculiar), style of type and of reverse incuse. Again, that these staters most probably provided each the monthly pay of a fighting-man. Anyhow, it works. Less than a week ago a student of the first year, not particularly brilliant or archseo- logically disposed, came to me and said : " Do show me the coins of the Ionic Revolt." Alas ! I could only show him one, and that a repro- duction, but I showed him also the photos given by Gardner in the Journal of Hellenic Studies. It was enough, though barely.

Again, there is the alliance of the Achaean cities of South Italy, as shown by the strange flat coins, with type duplicated on reverse in incuse ; and of course the anti-Spartan league of the time of Epaminondas ; as well as a coin struck by that great general. It would be out of place here to pursue the subject

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further. But I may just refer to the inter- esting issues of Selinus, illustrating its puri- fication by Empedocles ; the Nike-coin of Poliorcetes ; the Himera issue, when under Agrigentine control; and the Bactrian series, of extraordinary fineness and abundance.

Before proceeding further an important proviso may be made, which regards not merely coin-study but the whole principle of visual or rather tactual instruction as applied to Classics. According to Professor Gardner, practically everyone who attacks this problem for the first time believes that the process con- sists in seeking to obtain direct illustration of ancient authors, such as we occasionally find, especially in recent editions, of Classical books. This is, of course, a fallacy, and a very per- nicious one, lying, as I believe it does, at the root of four-fifths of the prejudices against which unfortunately we have to contend.

It is possible to illustrate a modern novel, though I doubt whether it is of much im- portance to do so, except perhaps for un- educated people or children. But historical writing or literature of the higher sort scarcely ever lends itself to direct illustration with real advantage. Who really cares to see illustrated editions of Dante, Shakespeare, or Milton ? This is not, of course, a question of high art. Painters and artists will fre- quently find themselves inspired by sacred and secular literature for their grandest crea- tion. But that is another story.

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To return to our subject: we do not, of course, deny that occasionally the texts read by students even require illustration, which, in these exceptional cases, it would be our duty to provide. But, generally speaking, the effort to illustrate authors directly on any elaborate scale will assuredly end in dis- appointment, and not improbably in fiasco. A concrete instance of this will make the matter clear. Suppose you are teaching the Bacchce to a class, and want to give their minds a real grip of the subject. One plan would be laboriously to collect a lot of wood- cuts of gems, vase-paintings or reliefs, illus- trating more or less grotesquely Bacchanalian scenes, or rather what artists, very likely of the later Greco-Roman period, thought bac- chanals must have looked like. The result of this will be either to shock your students or more likely to bore them to death ; you will not really carry them forward in their work, but will give them an impression which is certainly unreal and more than likely posi- tively false and misleading. And the effect on yourself (I have seen this sort of case) will be to put you out of humour with the whole reform of teaching, so far as depending upon Visual Instruction.

Now for the true method, which consists not in the Direct but the Indirect illustration of Latin and Greek authors, by brightening and enlightening the study of them all along the line. If you were aiming at this in the

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case referred to, you will use your lantern and all your powers of illustration to make your lads or your girls understand what a Greek theatre was really like, what the Athenian audience was really like, what Macedonia was like, what Euripides was like, with his friends and his enemies ; and then you will have helped them to get a real understanding of the Bacchce. Show them views of the extant theatres, not too many ; show them a theatre ticket; show them casts of the tragic masks, with the onkos and the cothurnos ; show them the aulos and the kithara ; the infant Dionysus with Hermes, or the grave, bearded Dionysus on the Theban tetradrachm ; by all means show them a Thyrsos, with its pine-cone top, and wreath of wild convolvulus ; but you can safely leave the revels to their own imagination, stimulated as it will be by the Euripidean text. Hence we get the answer to the commonly put question: What is meant by visual in- struction in Classical education, if it does not imply textual illustrations ? We want to bring the senses of our pupils into direct relation with ancient life as a whole. They cannot actually be transported to Rome or Carthage, Athens, Syracuse, or Ephesus, as they existed of old. They cannot actually shake hands with Pericles or Cicero. They cannot see with their eyes the games of Olympia and Delphi ; the performances in the Great Theatre at Athens or the processions to Eleusis and the Parthenon ; nor can they

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actually witness a triumph of Scipio, Pompey, or Julius Caesar and hear the shoutings of the delirious Romans as the chariots pass along the Via Sacra. What we can do for our students is less than this, but it is worth doing. We can at least bring them to feel that such things happened. Reading is all very well, for grown-ups especially — but cer- tainly for the mind that is immature only seeing is believing. We can show them a lot that will stir their hearts as well as their minds, stimulate their imagination, correct their misapprehensions, and, above all, clear them of a great deal of that mental haziness which is incompatible with real education. From seeing the right kind of archaeological aids to study they will return to their litera- ture refreshed, interested, alert, and contented. There is only one method which has been proposed, so far as we know, of providing, at least in a small but very definite manner, for the wants of the great mass of our Classical schools and colleges. In a later chapter we offer some suggestions as to the possible utility of public Museums for students of the Humanities. What can be done in that direc- tion is not yet clear, and it will take time, perhaps a long time, before anything very complete can be effected. But meanwhile we must help ourselves. Besides, many schools are not within reach of any public Museum of importance such as might be expected to provide adequate aids to Classical study.

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The most ideal thing would be if schools and colleges could have (what, of course, exists to some extent in the Universities and elsewhere) a small but practical collection of their own of Classical pictures, slides, anti- quities, and other aids to Classical teaching. Till that can be done— and when will it be done ? — the only alternative is the system which has been already tried with some suc- cess in England, Ireland, and America ; that is, the use of small loan-collections specially prepared for circulation among all the centres of education which require them and can arrange to get them in due rotation. All the difficulties and drawbacks of such a system are so obvious that it is hardly necessary to state that we take them all for granted. Difficulty is one thing ; impossibility another, and that, we claim, has been already proved not to exist.

Such a collection will necessarily include small, specially prepared, numismatic collec- tions, properly catalogued, so as to give the teacher the minimum of trouble. We may prepare the cabinet ; the teacher has to prepare himself — that is the rub ! Besides coins and electrotypes, there will also be small collections of portable (and of course not too valuable) antiquities, by which is meant specimens of metal, pottery, glass, and other fabrics suitable for illustrating any phases of ancient life or literature. Replicas are of the highest importance. For instance,

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we cannot circulate original inscribed stones, but nothing is easier than obtaining squeezes or even casts of very interesting inscriptions and inscribed objects. As an instance, I may refer to the small bronzes found at Olympia and proved by Professor Bosanquet* to be spear-butts, though originally taken by Dorp- feld and others for spear-heads. The inscrip- tions on them state that they are part of votive offerings to Zeus, from the spoils taken by certain Greek armies who were victorious over their enemies. They are very portable, and students find them interesting. Many other similar objects exist and would give invaluable casts.

But this is not all. A most important part of a loan collection will consist of photos, slides, books, diagrams, or wall-pictures ; and perhaps models, illustrating Classical life and art. This method of circulation is already generally adopted in the case of lantern slides, though, unfortunately, there are only too many schools which cannot get lantern slides and would not be able to use them, if they could. Nothing can be more useful in teaching Greek and Roman history than good sets of slides, illustrating important centres like Rome and Athens, Corinth, Sparta, Delphi, Olympia, Pompeii, and a hundred other sites. The prehistoric settlements or fortresses of Gnossos, Troy, Tiryns, Mycenae,

* Essays and Studies presented to W. Ridgeway. Cambridge, 1913; p. 276 ff.

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Pylos, etc., can be made extremely interest- ing, even for young students, by the lantern. And, of course, topography is only one branch of work, Architecture and every phase of art ; military, civil, and domestic life ; many classes of antiquities (notably coins and pot- tery) are admirably presented on the screen — and it is sad to think how much of this is neglected in very important centres of learn- ing, and I fear in most of the Classical schools, not merely of Great Britain, but even of America. No doubt the chief cause of this neglect is the real difficulty in many schools and colleges of obtaining, upon easy terms, a regular supply of lantern slides on Classical subjects which shall be adequate and varied. This is not by any means the only cause, perhaps not the most deeply rooted, as those of wide experience know too well.

The collections of our Hellenic and Roman Societies are indeed admirable — too much so for the humble people I have been con- sidering. Such collections require to be sim- plified or adapted to school needs more fully than they have been, so far as I am aware. Teachers want definite sets of slides on de- finite subjects, with suitable descriptive cata- logues and references as to sources of further simple information. But there is another difficulty which will have to be faced, and the sooner it is done the better. The sets of slides referred to are, of course, only available for members of the societies. The rate of

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hire has been considerably reduced, but, car- riage and insurance included, the use of them is fairly expensive, and there are numbers of Classical teachers who are outside these learned bodies, and they are just the people most in need of help. When the matter is properly understood and attended to, un- doubtedly some means will be found to over- come these difficulties ; nor do I think it necessary to make detailed suggestions on that score. To acquire permanently a suffi- cient number of slides is impossible, except for very well equipped colleges and schools ; and, I repeat, a small number of slides is no good. To try to improve your teaching by using two or three sets is like sleeping on a feather- bed containing but two or three feathers.

Although we lay ever so much stress upon a larger and improved use of the lantern, of photographs, and of other means of pictorial illustration, it must be stated again and again that if we are to vitalize our teaching of Classics thoroughly, this method, good as it may be, is yet not enough. Photography is in many cases inadequate and even deceptive ; for instance, in the case of coins, pottery, and sculpture, and even in architecture, it does not give an accurate notion of the magnitude of any object, which often may be an im- portant element in our impressions. But the great thing is it is psychologically wrong. Pictures are never tri-dimensional, and they can only appeal to a single sense. We must

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also use the tactile sense — we must see, but we must handle also. What chemist, geo- logist, or biologist would be satisfied with teaching by slides alone ? and are we less human than these inhuman monsters ? I hope not.

The preparation of loan cabinets is un- doubtedly a more delicate matter than sup- plying photos, diagrams, and slides, partly owing to the difficulty, explained in a former chapter, of procuring suitable material, partly from the general lack of experience in using them, and partly on account of the increased difficulty of transit. In an appendix I give details based upon experience gained by the existing Committee of the A.R.L.T., and of the Classical Association of Ireland, both of which bodies have prepared loan collections for schools. I may here quote a few words by S. E. Winbolt, written just before the war broke out : —

A Headmistress, who is a subscriber to the scheme, wrote: "Altogether I think the Realien worth several guineas a year, not one only." Perhaps she is an enthusiast, but what she says is borne out by many others, who write : " the coins have been greatly ap- preciated " ; "I have found the pictures tremendously useful, and the children are very keen "; "the boys are delighted with the pictures" ; " the pictures and photographs have been of the greatest interest," and so on. Altogether, there can be no doubt of the complete success of the beginnings of our attempt to popularize the use of Classical Realien. The news has spread, and we have several names already waiting to be enrolled as members for our next year's working.*

* Journal of the Association for July, 1914, p. 44.

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Alas, Vhomme propose, Dieu dispose. The Com- mittee has just managed, by herculean efforts, to keep things going during the war, but, need- less to say, progress has not been remarkable.

I would urge this system as very important for different classes of teachers. There are, as I said, many schools and institutions out of reach of Museums : for those there is no alter- native to the circulation system. But everi for those who are not quite out of reach of Museums the circulating cabinets will be useful, because as a beginning it brings the material to their own door. We know by experience that there are many who do not utilize their public museum opportunities to the full from want of time, want of know- ledge, and (I fear I must add) want of inclina- tion. Now, these persons will be enabled by means of circulating exhibits to overcome their vis inertice with a minimum of expense, time, and labour. In regard to preparing and cir- culating museum exhibits I append some hints in a summary of Don'ts, or " things to be avoided." I have also drawn up, in a separate schedule, a detailed catalogue of the kind of material which has been, or ought to be, in general use.* It is, however, necessary to premise that the whole scheme is still in an experimental stage, and ought to be regarded rather as something transitional, which may lead to better things, than as something which is already to give absolutely perfect results.

* See Appendix No. 2, p. 273.

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THINGS TO AVOID IN A CIRCULATING MUSEUM. A SUMMARY.

1°. DON'T attempt to illustrate Greek and Latin texts directly. This is a very common fallacy which is almost certain to lead to dis- appointment and even revulsion. To illus- trate ancient life rationally means to illustrate literature also, but indirectly. • • •

2°. DON'T attempt to teach archaeology as a science — but merely to make use for or- dinary class purposes of the assured results of archaeological research.

• • •

3°. DON'T attempt to collect for circulation valuable objects, as coins which are rare or exceptionally well-preserved, or things that are easily broken, as valuable specimens of glass and pottery.

4°. DON'T circulate anything which is not good of its kind. Poor slides, e.g., are to be rigorously excluded : photographs and wall- pictures should be of a high quality : even the cabinets should be not only strong but artistically made. (They will, of course, re- quire outside cases for transmission.) The boxes for mounted photographs must be designed specially.

5°. DON'T ever mix reproductions with ori- ginals, but use both and keep your cabinets

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separate. Thus much confusion and bewilder- ment will be avoided. The electros of the choicest coins will be fairer to look upon than the cheaper sort of originals. But, of course, the latter are more interesting. • • •

6°. DON'T send out any exhibit, including slides, without some adequate explanation. (Opinions will differ as to the amount of in- formation which should be offered.) It is a good thing with certain cabinets, e.g., numis- matic ones, to send a book in illustration of the subject ; or sometimes, when so requested, a set of photographs.

7°. DON'T expect to escape trouble and difficulties in getting back the exhibits. But if the loans are properly organized, the loss and damage will be inappreciable compared with the advantages gained.

8°. DON'T restrict the use of the cabinets to any one class of school or institution. Exhibits which are well selected and pro- perly prepared may be suitable for very different classes of students, though naturally these will view the objects with different eyes. The youngest children can be interested in ancient history — whereas many university students have never in their lives handled a Greek or Roman coin.

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9°. DON'T expect that public Museums will do what is impossible. As a rule they are sympathetic with Classical students and even anxious to help us; and in preparing exhibits, particularly in the case of reproductions, they can be expected to render valuable service. But in regard to originals, we must make it clear to them that we do not expect them to part with their treasures. On the contrary, unless they happen to have absolutely surplus material which cannot be of use, exhibits for circulation must be specially acquired as well as prepared for the purpose in view.

CHAPTER VIII

A NEW ERA FOB PUBLIC MUSEUMS *

It is becoming evident that in the near future the true function of public Museums, by which is meant those supported by national or municipal funds, will be better understood. During the past few years a serious move- ment began in London, and is now extending to the provinces, to bring Museums into direct relation to the educational systems of the country. The object of the movement is to impress on the minds of all concerned that public Museums are in fact a vast national asset, which has not been hitherto utilized to the full, and to endeavour to arrive at methods of developing their utility to the highest degree. It has been computed that the entire worth of National and Municipal Museums in the British Isles amounts to something like the enormous sum of eighty million sterling, a capi- tal sum which, if realizable now, would pro- duce an income of more than four million pounds.

Now, considering the increased and in- creasing expense of education to the nation — which hardly any wise person would consider a matter for regret — considering, in fact, the growing conviction that upon our system of

* Partly reprinted from Studies by kind permission of the Editorial Committee.

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education national welfare depends, almost more than on anything else, it hardly requires to be argued that such a huge national asset ought to be utilized to the full. In speaking thus of education, we must not understand it in any narrow sense. There is not only the education of children and the education of people growing up, but also in a very true sense the education of the grown up ; and all these could be greatly benefited by a more rational and a more ordered attention to the utility of public Museums.

What has been the history of Museums in the past ? I do not say of course exclusively, but very largely, they have been regarded by most people as vast store-houses of more or less useless, and very often absurd, curiosities — or places where the public may lounge about listlessly on a wet Saturday afternoon, and become by degrees infinitely bored by their surroundings.

The mind of the public is now being forced to attend to this question, owing largely to a campaign which has been carried on to force on reform, at least in one particular direction, by Lord Sudeley, F.R.S. He succeeded in persuading the House of Lords to take action, at least to the extent of demanding information from the Museums as to what they were doing for the direct mental improvement of those who enter their portals. All this was before the war, which, of course, has, for the time, interfered with parliamentary activity.

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Meanwhile, from another quarter interest is being aroused in the educational world as to the value of Museums. At a meeting of the British Association held in England just before the war a most interesting debate was carried on by experts in the Educational Section on Museums in their relation to education ; and as the outcome of this discussion a Committee was appointed to consider and report on the whole question, under the Presidency of the Professor of Education in Sheffield University. The Museums' Association (an organization which holds a Conference annually in different centres) had already taken up the matter warmly, and it is remarkable that the two Secretaries of the British Association Com- mittee are both Curators and active members of the Museums' Conference. I may be per- mitted to add that at the Dublin meeting (1912) I had been invited to address the Conference on the help which public Museums can and should render to students of the ancient learning. My suggestions were received with marked sympathy by the Curators present, and I owe it to their influence that I was asked to join the Committee of the British Associa- tion (Education Section) in order to collect the views of teachers of Classics on the utility to them of public Museums, and to submit these views with my own in the form of a Special Report. When we consider that the object of the British Association is the advancement of Science (as generally understood), I think

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the advocates of Classical teaching will agree that the Educational Section have shown a desire to approach the question of Museum facilities in a broad-minded way, and without that partisan spirit which is detrimental to the progress of learning.

We may consider, first, the classes of people which the Museum should benefit. Then we can briefly discuss the various plans that have been suggested, and inquire how far they have been already put to the test and with what results.

There are clearly three classes of persons whose interests in regard to Museums are not merely distinct, but in some cases may be even opposed to one another. These are — (1) Students in the narrower sense ; those, for instance, who are devoting themselves to some particular branch of art, industry, science, history, or archaeology. (2) The general public who are not expert students, but who desire to enlarge their stock of information, and to become interested in various departments of mental culture. (3) Classes of school-children of various ages and sorts — none of whom are necessarily excluded from Museum influences. In regard, for instance, to natural history, it is evident that the youngest children are capable of being highly interested in suitable exhibits, and of deriving therefrom much benefit.

In saying above that the interest of these different classes (all of whom belong to the

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public, and have therefore a right to be con- sidered) may be in mutual opposition ; it will be of course understood that this is meant in a relative sense. It would be possible to cater for all ; but clearly, if the attention of Museums is closely centred on any one class, say, the expert student, or the schoolboy or girl, other classes will be in danger of being to that extent neglected. And as a matter of fact we find that those who have spoken and written with a view to effect reform in the Museum system, generally seem to urge the claims of one, or at most two, of the above-mentioned classes of persons.

Lord Sudeley's chief care seems to be the extension of the system, which has been adopted from America, of Museum Guides. I cannot do better than give the following extract from a lecture which his Lordship gave in London, in 1914, to a number of local school teachers, on the invitation of the London County Council. His idea is that school teachers might themselves act as Demonstrator-Guides, thus, as it were, killing two birds with one stone by rendering assistance alike to their own scholars and to the general public. He said : —

If I am right, as I am sure I am, that in the near future many of you teachers will become thoroughly proficient in and enamoured with your power of interpretation of Museum subjects, then you will begin to realize what an opening there is for cul- tivated men and women amongst your assistant teachers in this pleasant, useful, and educationally

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important profession of Official Guides and Popular Interpreters for Museums, Galleries, and Botanic Gardens.

I feel quite certain that year by year more and more Guides of both sexes will be required by the institutions scattered throughout the country, and there will, of necessity, soon have to be formed a new profession of Guide-Demonstrators,

In London, at the British Museum, three years ago — 1911 — which was the year Public Guides were started, and before it was sufficiently well known to affect the entries, the number of visitors to the Museum was 754,872. In the year 1913 there have been no less than 947,000 visitors. This is an in- crease of about 200,000 visitors. Surely this enormous increase must be principally due to the interest and pleasure which the Guide system has created in this great Museum, in the opening up of its vast treasures.

This is principally due to the fact that a first-rate Guide was obtained, and to the enthusiastic manner in which the plan has been carried out by Sir Frederic Kenyon, and by the authorities and officials of the Museum.

Anyone visiting the Museum now and remembering what it was two or three years ago, will at once observe that it is now a hive of industry, showing that large additional numbers of people are inter- ested and are examining the various exhibits.

Let us now take the case of the Provincial Museum in the large town of Leicester. The population of Leicester amounts to 227,000 people. Last year, 1913, no less than 334,000 people visited the Museum, one-half more than the population. These large numbers have undoubtedly come to such an extent owing to special local causes, including a Loan Ex- hibition of Impressionist Pictures, which created great controversy. Giving, however, full allowance for these special facts, it cannot be denied that the greater part of this large influx of people, one-half more than the entire population, is due to the great activity and special steps taken to popularize the

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Museum by the very able Curator, Mr. Lowe, and an active local Museum Committee.

It will be necessary to add that the scheme as outlined has received the warmest en- couragement, not only from Sir R. Blair, the chief Educational Officer of the London Council, but also from the English Board of Education. Mr. Joseph A. Pease, late Minister of Education, wrote to Lord Sudeley : —

The question of the relations of Museums to edu- cation, and especially in the payment of visits to them by students from various types of schools, is one in which I feel a great interest. I am glad to say that there are a number of children from public elementary schools already in the habit of paying visits, under the supervision of their teachers, to Museums under the control of the Board. The reports received from my Inspectors are unanimous in emphasizing the value which the children derive from these visits, when properly conducted, and the increase of animation and interest which they show as the result of this form of visual instruction.

There is no need for me to lay stress on the im- portance which is rightly attached to visits and study under proper supervision on the part of more advanced students, and it is gratifying to know that a large majority of the Schools of Art in London are in the habit of sending students regularly to the Victoria and Albert Museum for purposes of study. I may add that the provision of Guides, in which I know you take a keen personal interest, continues to be appreciated.

These extracts prove that in England, at least, a very wide-spread effort will be made to bring Museums more into touch with teaching, at least in the lower grades. In London, where experiments can be made on a large scale,

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practical difficulties either do not exist, or can be readily overcome. In the provinces, on the other hand, and much more in Ireland — I might say Dublin and Belfast, where alone, I fear, public Museums of importance exist — the practical difficulties are much greater both on the side of schools, where eye-teaching is only in its infancy, and on the side of the Museums themselves. And there is, naturally, con- siderable difference of opinion as to the methods by which Museums ought to endeavour to extend their educational influence.

In the first place, some authorities think that the main duty of Curators in regard to educa- tional facilities is to promote research, to work hand in hand with the University or higher school, and to provide every means in their power by which the special student may have access to any material and expert aid in its interpretation which he may require. Others, while taking it for granted that a Museum's functions will include some aid provided for the expert student, yet do not believe that it falls within the Curator's duty to devote his own time and mental resources to those who ought to find teaching elsewhere, generally in a local University or technological institute. They lay more stress on the needs of the general inquirer, believing that it is the Museum's chief function to collect and preserve, to label, and otherwise arrange to the best advantage, the exhibits which the student will turn to account for his own purposes as best he may.

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This aspect of the subject was dealt with in a paper communicated by Dr. F. A. Bather, of the Kensington Museum of Natural History, to the Congres de Fassociation frangaise pour Pavancement des Sciences, held at Havre in 1914. Dr. Bather, who is Vice-Chairman of the British Association Committee, has taken a foremost part in the English movement, and is qualified to speak with authority con- cerning it. In this paper he advocates the cause of young school-children, and seems to imply that a section of a Museum, or even when possible a Museum, should be entirely conse- crated to their service, the cases being adapted to their height, and the exhibits and labels arranged to suit their intelligence. When this is done, he adds, "the Museum, instead of boring them, will become a truly enchanted palace." He adds that this experiment has been very fully carried out at Brooklyn and other American cities, but that all we ourselves can hope to do at present is to try and utilize in favour of the young our existing establish- ments.

On the subject, however, of carrying on actual teaching at Museums (by means of the Museum staff) Dr. Bather frankly admits that he is, as he styles himself, something of a heretic. He says* : —

The Librarian fulfils his duty when he collects the best books, and preserves them and has them always in good order at the disposal of his readers, and whose * The paper is in French, but I translate the passage.

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catalogues are properly descriptive. He is not ex- pected to give lectures on his books, either on the binding or on the contents. The duties of a Curator are similar : his business is first to preserve ; secondly, to give all facilities to students and researchers ; thirdly, to put forward the objects wanted by the public and to arrange them, attractively if objects of art, systematically if scientific specimens. For teach- ing there are schools, professors, and manuals — but in the Museum it is the exhibits themselves which ought to speak.

This doctrine is very well for the great Museums of capital cities. In smaller centres it will generally be found that those in charge of collections will be glad to promote study by personal service, so far as opportunity will allow. It may easily happen that Curators will be the only available sources of expert information relating to exhibits ; and, as a rule, they only want to be asked to share their knowledge with serious inquirers. It is evident that in applying a new principle — or I should rather say, in finding new applications for a principle which has always been to some extent recognized — no hard and fast rule can be discovered which will suit all cases in detail. If the Museum of the future is to be a centre for distributing exact knowledge it is only through experiment, and possibly only after making mistakes, that we can hope to hit upon the most feasible and the most efficient methods of carrying on the distribution.

With regard to the employment of pro- fessional guides (these, of course, do not ordin- arily belong to the Museum staff), it is evident

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that the use of the method must depend upon varying conditions in different localities. They will certainly best suit industrial centres in which Museums are often crowded with classes of people who, though poorly educated, are yet intelligent and willing to learn at a small ex- pense of labour. In the provinces and in Ireland I am not aware that such Demon- strator-Guides have been to any extent employed.

There is, however, a third method of utilizing Museums for teaching purposes, and it is perhaps in many cases the best, anyhow it is fairly clear that for the Classical teacher it is generally the best. I mean the system of class-demonstrations (or even semi-public de- monstrations) given by the ordinary professor or schoolmaster in the Museum; of course with the approval and, if necessary, the help of the Museum authorities. This is the natural method, and is suitable for all grades of education ; even if it can be extended to the outside public it will contain many of the advantages of the Demonstrator-Guide system without its evident drawbacks. I have myself derived the greatest pleasure from lectures given in this way in the British Museum, having heard Professor E. A. Gardner lecture on Greek Sculpture in the Elgin room ; and in the same room a lady-teacher talking to young children on Greek life, as illustrated by sculpture.

If educators showed more interest in the

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work of Museums, the Trustees and Curators could give assistance, which they are really eager to give, in a hundred ways, without actu- ally undertaking the burden of demonstrations. Surely the actual teaching of a class (or even of the outside public in regard to one's own special subject) can be done at least as well by ourselves as by those who do not include teaching among their primary duties. The Museum staff can help teachers indefinitely by supplying the exhibits needed, by displaying them in a way suitable for demonstration, by giving facilities and assistance for Museum teaching, and sometimes, when we ask it, by supplying expert information about the ex- hibits, their history, provenance, etc., and, in a word, by heartily co-operating with us in our desire to utilize to the full the opportunities which we have a right to expect in a public Museum.

The new movement to utilize public Museums for education took its rise about the last decade of the nineteenth century in the United States of America, where it is rapidly progressing. In 1916, with the view of studying the move- ment on its Classical side, and preparing my report on the subject to the British Association Committee, I made a short tour of the Eastern States and the Middle West. This Report, which has not yet been published, and may be further delayed owing to war conditions, is by arrangement appended to this Volume. I will now endeavour merely to convey some of the

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impressions I received in America of the vast and important results obtained there from the co-operation of Museums with teaching in- stitutions. I can also avail myself here of a report written on the subject by Miss Louise Connolly, of the Free Public Library of Newark, N.J., which did not come into my hands until my own report had been written, and which I find to be a mine of admirably condensed information. Being specially deputed by Newark Museum, she had visited for the purpose of reporting on them 65 institutions, including 35 Museums ; and had also made a special study of Museum literature issued, chiefly in America, during the last 20 years. In the form of an appendix covering nearly 8 pages she gives a list of these books and articles, the titles of which are instructive. A few of the more striking are : " Museums in connexion with Public Libraries " (C.Adler and M. Medlicott) ; " Educative Value of the Modern Museum " (W. Gilbey) ; " Museum Study by Chicago Public Schools" (0. C. Farrington); "Essentials of a Children's Museum " (A. B. Gallup) ; " How may Museums best Retard the Advance of Science ? " (F. A. Bather, who has been quoted above) ; " Some Experiments of a small Museum " (H. L. Madison) ; " Gloom of the Museum " (J. C. Dana) ; " Museum Extension in Schools," and " Circulating Museums " (F. J. Mather, Jun.) ; " If Public Libraries why not Public Museums ? " (E. S. Morse) ; " Use and Abuse of Museums " (W. S. Jevons) ;

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and " Museums and their Value to a City" (A. H. Griffith).

The titles quoted will at least suggest the great complexity of this subject. Miss Con- nolly herself remarks that in her view every Museum must be three kinds of a Museum. It must provide for Art (under which we may in part include archaeology), Science in the stricter sense, and Industry. There is the question of Children's Museums (or Depart- ments), which is rapidly coming to the front. Moreover, it will be understood that we do not include among public Museums those which are adjuncts to Universities, or other educa- tional institutions ; and still less special Museums connected with commercial or pro- fessional interests. A good example of the latter would be Medical Museums, with which the public, however important they may be ultimately for its welfare, has no immediate concern.

The combination alluded to above, of Art, Science, and Industry, all in a single building or under a single organization, may appear to many to involve doubtful advantages. There may, however, be a special reason for adhering to the arrangement where activities are very intense and where large cities spring up rather suddenly, so that much has to be accomplished with the shortest possible delay. This, however, is a side issue which we need not dwell upon here.

What, however, is important to note from our

16

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stand-point is that under all systems, where Museums are to be turned to account educa- tionally, the difficulty of co-ordinating and even balancing conflicting interests must be im- mense. And it appears to me that, for any one approaching the subject, the first thing to grasp is the impossibility of attempting to lay down hard and fast rules for Museum reform. The most we can try to indicate is certain principles, which, however good and true in themselves, will always have to be applied to individual cases with the utmost caution. Everything must depend on local needs : and everything must depend on local possibilities. Types of Museums vary enormously. This is both inevitable and supremely desirable. When we come to deal with questions relating to Classical collections and the use of them, we must always bear in mind that relative and not absolute perfection is the goal we aim at.

Before, however, leaving the general con- sideration of the subject, I must guard against the implication that in America I found the problems in question to have been finally solved. I have before me a very interesting paper on the subject issued by the Federal Government for the year preceding my visit (1915)* in which it is stated, on the one hand, that the important educational function of Museums is now gener- ally recognized alike by the leaders in both museum work and school work and by the

* Report of Department of the Interior Bureau of Education. Chapter xxii. Vol. i. (Washington Govt. Printing Office).

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teachers who have come in contact with it. Yet, on the other hand, it is complained that

(1) As yet only a comparatively small proportion of the Museums in the country are thoroughly aroused to their possibilities ; (2) there is a much larger opportunity for educational work among the smaller public Museums, college Museums, and historical- society Museums than is now appreciated ; (3) the initiative in this work is usually taken by the Museums, and school authorities who have not had actual experience with it are not thoroughly alive to its advantages ; (4) Museum facilities are available to schools in various localities to a very unequal degree.

The Report then proceeds to state that there is clearly need of some agency " to stimulate and co-ordinate museum educational work throughout the country and to diffuse a full knowledge of it among schools and other educational organizations."

The more, I think, the experience gained in America is understood in this country, the more it will be realized that, however backward we may seem to be in comparison with our cousins over the Atlantic, we are bound at no very distant date to follow their important lead. In fact we have already started.

A very distinct advance was made about ten years ago in the British Museum, on the Classical side* — one which, as it seems to me, definitely committed the authorities to the principle that even a great national Museum should directly promote not merely higher research, but, in the ordinary sense, education.

* Previously similar experiments had been made in other Departments of the Museum.

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I mean the establishment of the exhibition of Greek and Roman life in a large and central position in the Museum, and the providing of an excellent guide to the same, well illustrated, and sold cheaply. The objects were brought together from various sections — a few repro- ductions were also included, and the result is an educational exhibit which must have been and is of untold value for classical students in and near London. Athletics, war, industry, domestic antiquities, burial rites, the arts (including the useful art of medicine and surgery), education, agriculture and sea- manship are among the subjects illustrated. Even this exhibit has its drawback — what is there that has not ? The different periods and cultures are not sufficiently discriminated : ancient life is treated as though it were one thing. Therefore there is some danger of false impressions as to detail being received, which would, however, be easily corrected by a competent master or guide. As a means of stimulating the imagination of students, and leading them on to further inquiry, the ex- hibition is beyond all praise, and, as we have hinted, its inauguration marks an epoch in the evolution of educational Museums in Eng- land, and has undoubtedly paved the way for further developments in the near future.

In regard to the action taken by the British Association to stimulate our progress, the fact that the appointment of the Committee almost synchronized with the outbreak of the war

A New Era for Public Museums 225

has been a very serious drawback — though to me personally it is nothing short of marvellous how much has been already accomplished by my colleagues under these apparently im- possible conditions. One reason for this is, I think, the conviction we all have that when the war is ended it will be found that the work of the Committee has been most opportune. For it is clear that a vast amount of national reorganization will be necessary — a process which must profoundly affect every grade and type of education.* We have, moreover, very high authority for asserting that the Museum movement (whose inception we have seen was prior to the war) will have to be carried on at a much accelerated pace. Two causes will contribute to this. The demand for efficiency and economy will ensure that the nation will no longer go on wasting the precious resources of its national and municipal (and I might add some of our educational) Museums. Secondly, an improved psychology will tend more and more to emphasize the advantages of visual as distinct from merely aural in- struction.

This will undoubtedly mean that, much as we have been spending on Museums (with, comparatively speaking, poor results), we shall have to spend freely upon them, almost lavishly, if they are to do the work which will be in the future demanded of them. From

* Written before the promulgation in the Hoiise of Commons of Mr. Fisher's scheme for educational reorganization.

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the educational point of view (and ought Museums really to be considered from any other standpoint ?*) the Museums of Great Britain have been simply starved. It is abund- antly clear that as a class Curators are most willing to respond to all educational initiative : but it is equally clear that with the staff they have they can barely keep their own heads above water. If our Committee bring this one fact home to the public, it will have done good work. If the Museums (the larger ones) are going in future to take a regular part in the whole education system of the country, they will require, what is conceded in America, at least some officials who are properly equipped for educational work and are free to devote their time to it. This is quite independent of those questions which are still sub judice re- garding method, e.g., whether it is the proper duty of a museum staff to do regular teaching for schools or not. Even if the museum staff are only expected to organize the educational side of museum work, they will find their hands pretty well filled in the larger centres of population. One fact will illustrate this : it is, that in the Metropolitan Museum of New York, no less than six museum officials are engaged in carrying on work which is directly educational (only two of these being actual Docents or Instructors).

* I hope the context will make it clear that I do not mean by this that students, in the strict sense, have alone a right to be considered — but that the general public may always derive from Museums the sort of education which is fitted for them.

A New Era for Public Museums 227

Our immediate interest is, of course, merely the question how far we may hope as teachers of Classics to participate in the benefits of the movement ? The answer to this is, I believe, very simple. It depends on ourselves.

The question has two aspects — one regard- ing the collection of material, the other the use of it when provided. If museum reform in general had once become an accomplished fact, we should soon learn how to use our material, and we may very well for the moment dis- regard that side of the problem. The real difficulty at present and for the immediate future is — how can the large bulk of our public Museums be induced to give any aid to the cause of Classical education ?

It is, however, only fair to note here that we have already in England very important collections of Greek and Roman and cognate material, which, on the whole, are admirably co-ordinated with serious study in all its grades. Quite independent of the special section to which I referred, the British Museum is, in fact, the Mecca of classical students. There is nothing, I make bold to say, in the world to compare with its collections in the Greek and Roman and the Numismatic De- partments, to say nothing of others which also contain much useful and necessary material for us, or of the Library, which is, I suppose, unique. It is fortunate for University College that it is located very near the Museum, while the Hellenic and Roman

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Societies, with their superb photographic collec- tions, are practically next door. It is unnecessary to point out here what are the facilities pro- vided for research students and what is the unfailing patience and courtesy of the staff towards all comers, even the rankest of out- siders. No doubt there is plenty of criticism, and room for criticism, regarding the Museum. But the real weakness of our Museum system is not at Bloomsbury — nor is it in the older Universities. I can speak better for Oxford than for Cambridge ; where could a better Museum be found for University students than the Ashmolean — except, that it perhaps suffers from want of room, and such-like drawbacks. The Public Museum of Liverpool and the Liverpool (University) Institute of Archaeology give an admirable object-lesson of harmonious action between the Museum Director, Dr. Clubb, and Professor Bosanquet with others of the University staff. As at present organized the two institutions furnish Liverpool with an excellent school for Classical study on its archaeological side. At Nottingham there is a valuable exhibit of about half the yield of the important excavation at the celebrated lake of Nemi in Italy. The wealth of Romano- British antiquities in Great Britain is great and well-spread over the island. I may men- tion the Museums I know best — in the south the Guildhall in London, Bath, and Reading (for Silchester) ; in the north, York, Chester, Ribchester, and the important collections along

A New Era for Public Museums 229

the line of Hadrian's Wall — Carlisle, Chesters, Corbridge and Newcastle. (No one will take this as an exhaustive list.) Then there are many private collections, some of which are, with special permission, available for study.

I have said nothing of the Scottish collections which I have not personally visited, but they are known to be full of academical as well as of local interest. In Ireland the collection at the National Museum, while not relatively important, is certainly useful ; and there has been a marked disposition of recent years to improve it on extremely practical lines.*

But after all that can be said, if we extend our view to the great mass of public Museums in these countries, the condition of affairs is not so reassuring. No one could pretend that as a rule they are in a position materially to assist Classical education. The question at once arises, why is it that, except in a few exceptional cases, and outside of local excavation, little or nothing is found in our municipal collections in illustration of the ancient civilization from which we have inherited nearly everything in which we take national pride ? China and Japan, Mexico and Peru, every form of savage culture, possibly Egypt, Persia, India, Burmah, or Turkey, you may expect to find more or less represented. Why not Minoan and Greek culture — above all, why not that Roman empire from which our forefathers started to build

*While this book was in the press important Greek vases of the Hope collection were purchased by the Museum.

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the culture of our own imperial race ? At first sight some of us might feel inclined to find fault with our museum authorities, on the ground that they have done so little to inspire and enliven our study of ancient history and literature.

So far am I from framing an indictment against our Curators for not catering for the study of ancient art, history and sociology, that I would exempt them almost entirely from blame in this matter. All experience which I have gained, both as a member of the Committee on Museums and otherwise, leads me to believe that although Curators have to make their Museums popular and attractive they do not want them to be one-sided. They want them to be educational in the highest sense, and, as a rule, they understand that edu- cation with Greek and Latin excluded must be a hollow sham. Economic interests are apt to look after themselves ; culture and humanism cannot be rammed down unwilling throats.

But the action of Curators in promoting or neglecting the needs of our Faculty is conditioned by a very clear principle. Any public institu- tion supported by public money must be directed not to benefit sectional interests, but what is generally recognized to be the public good. The principle that Museums exist to benefit education at all is only now coming into general recognition in England ; and it is quite clear that only those educational objects which appeal to the public mind can

A New Era for Public Museums 231

reasonably expect to engage the attention of Museum Trustees and Curators.

Hence if Classical teachers have not yet made up their own mind about what amount of help they hope or desire to obtain from public Museums, they can hardly expect the Curators to make it up for them ; or rather if teachers of Classics intend to convince Curators that their wants are worth attending to, they have first to convince themselves, and then the public. The main object of this paper is to provide them with a few suggestions on the subject from the point of view of one who is both a teacher of Classics and a strong believer in the educational value of Museums.

I would submit, therefore, that our claim must be pressed, not so much on behalf of our- selves and our pupils — though we, too, are entitled to be considered at least as one among the important educational faculties — as on behalf of a wider community.

While still in the earlier stages of museum reform we should do well to insist upon those aspects of Classical study which are likely to make a fairly wide appeal to all persons of ordinary intelligence. These will include, perhaps, illustrations of ancient industry and the history of art ; matters arising out of recent epoch-making excavations or other remarkable discoveries of our own time ; and, above all, existing vestiges of the Roman occupation of Great Britain, especially if they are found in the neighbourhood of particular Museums.

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Besides, all exhibits may be divided into two classes — those that are attractive in them- selves on account of their appeal to the eye, and those that are attractive to students on account of their associations. We should commence chiefly with the former class ; later on, when our claims are better understood, perhaps we may be able to get something of the latter. Unless we succeed in popularizing Classics to the extent that a healthy interest in the art and civilization of Greece and Rome is spread abroad, reaching the parents of our schoolboys (and I suppose I ought to add our schoolgirls), we can never succeed in reviving the deeper sort of Classical learning. So that the policy I am venturing to recommend in regard to Museums will have the two-fold object of influencing the families of students, and of actually promoting study by making it attractive and easy.

Before offering detailed suggestions, I may consider a possible objection. If schools and colleges are themselves, as I have urged, to be supplied with loan collections of Classical material, why should we trouble ourselves about the larger Museums at all ? Could we not be independent of them ? Or at least let us decide once for all what is the best method for teachers of Classics to adopt, so that there will be no frittering away energy or duplicating of our appliances.

Certainly it is very desirable that there should be no overlapping in regard to Museums,

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as to other educational institutions. But neither would there be. In the first place we must remember that a large proportion of our schools and colleges must always be out of reach of public Museums, or least of those larger ones which alone are likely to carry out a Classical programme. Again, from what we have already laid down, it should be fairly clear that the sort of material included in a travelling collection would be radically different from the larger and more showy objects which we advocate as suitable for public Museums. The circulating things would consist largely of books, diagrams, photos, slides, small casts, portable objects, such as pottery fragments, and above all numismatic exhibits (coins and their reproductions); whereas the Museums would show rare and more elaborate and expensive objects — though, let it be observed, not ordinarily things of the highest value such as you would see in London, Paris, Rome, Berlin, Boston and New York.

Lastly, if there is going to be co-ordination there can be no clashing. Curators and teachers would both combine to provide the small circulating exhibits, just as they will be in consultation in regard to the larger per- manent ones. Under such a system, neither would stir without the other ; and common sense would dictate that in such a case there would be no duplication. There is plenty to be done, as those who have so worked together can aver. Personally I know cases where this

234 Part II— The Classical Revival

system works admirably, and it is the only sensible system. I have expressed a belief that if educationists would throw themselves into the work of assisting Museums to the best of their power, they would, as a rule, find Curators more than ready to meet them half way. But so long as they are left severely alone by the literary and historical side, it will be no great wonder if they devote their time, their resources, and their influence to assist those who appreciate them, I mean the votaries of science and natural history.

It is fully time that I should give a few detailed if rather rough suggestions as to what we ought to demand. In doing so I hope it will be clear that I am suggesting what I think would be the most ideal arrangement and not what I think would be found generally prac- tical in its entirety here and now. I will merely indicate the sort of material which will be useful to teachers of Classics in the case where a Museum (say an important one in a large city) would try the experiment. In smaller Museums something less ambitious, but still quite useful, might be attempted. But I repeat, nothing can be done or attempted unless and until teachers show a willingness, rather a strong desire, to reciprocate to the utmost of their power by also making experi- ments on their own part.

1. ANCIENT SCULPTURE. — Let us consider the case of Sculpture first, because casts of Greek and Roman statues and reliefs are the

A New Era for Public Museums 235

one solitary item usually provided by Museums or thought of in regard to the wants of classical students. Yet I should not place emphasis upon these exhibits as benefiting ordinary students, as distinct from the general public, for whom I daresay they are, if well chosen and arranged, suitable enough. Even for students I do not say they are useless, but for two reasons I think they are comparatively unimportant. First of all, though laying great stress upon some study of ancient art in connexion with Classics, I think the study of sculpture, especially of statues in the round, is the least important of the great branches of art. It is a difficult and technical subject and probably does not appeal to the young, unless owing to special associations such as regards athleti- cism or something similar. But there is another reason. In the case of sculpture, if one wants to bring it forward, photography, with the lantern of course preferably, will make a working substitute more than in the case of other branches of art such as we are going to consider.

2. POTTERY (including Terra Cottas, Lamps, and other Clay Exhibits). — This branch of antiquities is very important for the ordinary student. Photographs are of some use, but they are for obvious reasons unsatisfactory. The vases must be seen for their beauty, for their general technical and archaeological in- terest, and for the information they give us about ancient life. They are difficult to obtain,

236 Part II— The Classical Revival

so much so that the only chance of having a sight of them is practically in larger Museums, where they will be generally admired and appreciated. The same is true of Roman (Samian) pottery, though in a less degree. I think pottery is so important, that I have always advocated the circulation, not only of slides and photographs of vases (which, by the way, are not so easy to obtain as is desirable), but of fragments, which are portable and not of high intrinsic value. But these are of course not enough. If in any given Museum the students could see even a small number of representative vases, e.g., a single Panathenaic Amphora, and a very few good Cylixes, they would be much better able to understand photographs and even fragments. This, to my mind, is the department in which it is absolutely necessary that the Museums should furnish aid to the teaching faculty. But it is also true that even the average classicist, who has not been interested in archaeological aids, will find much difficulty in preparing himself for giving pottery demonstrations to his class.

3. ANCIENT GLASS, FAIENCE, STONE, MARBLE, AND OTHER FABRICS. — We need not say so much here. Glass is rather fragile for a circulating Museum ; but there are many little things of this class which could be ob- tained by a public Museum with slight trouble and expense, relatively speaking. Such things, I mean, as specimens of Roman Mosaic,

A New Era for Public Museums 237

perhaps fragmentary, but all the same very interesting for students to see (especially when reinforced by the lantern), scale-weights, loom- weights, sling-stones, various kinds of stamps, scarabs and other seals, perhaps a few gems, or impressions of gems, and a multiplicity of things used in the daily life of the ancient peoples. Here a little trouble would effect wonders.

4. METAL WORK. — This deserves a word by itself. It comprises all varieties of offensive and defensive armour, including daggers and knives ; locks and keys ; pins and needles ; rings, torques and bracelets ; many little in- struments for medical and other purposes — mirrors and strigils should be very interesting, and such things can be by degrees acquired fairly easily.

5. CASTS AND REPRODUCTIONS. — So far we have considered originals only. But a very important section of museum objects will consist of reproductions, especially casts, which are the easiest of all things to obtain. A Museum consisting wholly of casts is a mistake, because it misses the appeal to sentiment which real objects must necessarily make to the sympathetic student. But a combination of originals with reproductions is not merely feasible, but it is by far the best method ; though of course it is a great mistake to mix them in the same case, except occasion- ally for purposes of comparison, and then they should be carefully distinguished by labelling.

17

238 Part II— The Classical Revival

In the Greek and Roman room at the Dublin Museum there are (rightly to my mind) so many cases of reproductions that recently every case, in addition to the ordinary de- scriptive labels inside, has been marked with a label on the outside, stating that it is a case of Originals or of Reproductions respec- tively.

Casts will include inscriptions and inscribed objects, not necessarily for epigraphic study, but to give ordinary students a general familiarity with the appearance of inscriptions, and a knowledge of some specially interesting ex- amples of classes of inscriptions or even in- dividual inscriptions. In their ordinary hand- books of history and antiquities they see printed copies of these things ; but the casts, which should be when possible coloured in facsimile, give a very different effect, awak- ing, as they undoubtedly are wont to do, con- siderable interest among thoughtful students. Many other classes of casts could be mentioned of things illustrating almost every branch of ancient life and often of ancient art, especially the drama. When once the principle of utilizing casts is established, it will be found easy enough to extend it in any required direction. Even miniature models of statues and busts, though intended more for orna- ment than serious extension of knowledge, may be quite useful in giving some concrete idea of unattainable originals.

The manufacturers have carefully reproduced

A New Era for Public Museums 23D

a large and important series of metal objects of the highest utility. Strange to say they belong to the very earliest or to the latest phase of ancient culture.

In many University and public Museums one sees copies of the rhytons, cups, swords, dagger-blades, headbands, and various gold ornaments of Minoan and Mycenean culture executed from the designs of M. Guilli^ron, to whom students of the prehistoric periods are immensely indebted for the light shed upon their subject by his marvellous insight and ingenuity. These are things which everyone interested in the origins of European civiliza- tion ought to see. Possibly some of them can be put into circulation ; but there are the large reproductions of frescoes, reliefs, and other instances of Minoan art which can only be be seen in a public Museum.

The class of reproductions in metal of later objects of art, to which I referred, are fine vases, cups and dishes of the Roman imperial period. Among those which can be obtained are many Pompeian antiquities of great beauty ; and more particularly the finds of Hildesheim, Berthouville, and Boscoreale. These things are executed with the utmost skill, and many of them are extremely beauti- ful, and are well worth a position in any Museum.

The importance of casts and reproductions may be gathered from the fact that even in the British Museum, where there is such a

240 Part II— The Classical Revival

wealth of original material that there is hardly space to exhibit it properly, a large number of reproductions are on view, and a whole room, of considerable proportions, is devoted to the exhibition of casts. And a most interesting room it is.

6. MODELS, with Printed Illustrations and Photographs. — It will hardly be necessary now to devote much space to the subject of models and prints or photographs, save to point out that this might be made a department of almost unlimited scope and of the highest utility. Occasionally the simplest and cheapest things may be very effective. For instance, a a few days ago I saw hanging in a frame near other Classical exhibits a most striking picture of the great Altar of Zeus at Pergamum (restored). On looking nearer I saw that it was merely a print taken from an ordinary illustrated newspaper ; and I very much wished I could have seen it before giving a lantern lecture on the subject over which I had spent a good deal of trouble in collecting views, but got nothing giving such a clear impression of the whole.

7. NUMISMATIC SPECIMENS. — This branch of the subject is so important, that I think it well to put it in a separate section. Although these archaeological aids are the ones which can best of all be catered for by means of circulat- ing collections, especially as they should be shown in class (and not merely to advanced students but beginners), yet there is no reason

A New Era for Public Museums 241

why public Museums should exclude coins and electrotypes from their scope. All Museums which recognize our claims to their aid should do something to procure specimens, if possible to be exhibited under glass ; but they may also be stored away for the inspection of students. The importance of electrotypes is well illustrated at Newcastle Gatehouse Museum, where is shown a set of facsimiles of the important Corbridge find of Imperial gold coins — the most important ever made in Britain — and the possession of which as treasure-trove was successfully contested by the British Museum as representing the Crown. This instance brings me to my last section.

8. ROMANO-BRITISH ANTIQUITIES. — This subject has been alluded to above, and here it is only necessary to point out that in this regard every important Museum in Great Britain can do something to help us. Here we are on common ground with all who think that patriotism is worth the attention of the educator, and that love of our native land goes hand in hand with some intelligent knowledge of its past. Museums do recognize this principle, and if they trouble to inquire they will find that upon the whole no epoch of our history is more suitable for museum illustration than the long period of Roman rule. The antiquities belonging to it are just so difficult to acquire, that teachers will need the aid of large Museums to show to their classes anything of importance. Samian sherds and

242 Part II — The Classical Revival

a few small things they may be able to get hold of ; but things worth seeing are rare enough to make it the duty of our Curators to be on the look-out for this class of material. And for all they do they will earn our sincere gratitude, while no single being will dare to question their right to do it.

APPENDIX No. 1

REPORT ON MUSEUMS IN RELATION TO THE HUMANITIES

The following Report was drafted by the author (see p. 210) at the request of a Committee of the British Association (Education Section) on " Museums in Relation to Education," for assistance in drawing up their General Report. The publication of the latter has been somewhat indefinitely delayed, owing to the war; and pending its appearance, the author requested and obtained the sanction of the Chairman, Professor J. A. Green, to incorporate his Report in this volume.

BRITISH ASSOCIATION INQUIRY ON MUSEUMS IN RELATION TO EDUCA- TION.

Classical Study and the Humanities.

Prof. H. Browne and Dr. Clubb, Secretary, were directed by the Committee to draw up and circulate among Curators and educationists a Special Question- naire on the utilization of Museums in Classical and other literary and historical education ; and Prof. Browne was empowered to do what had been already done on the Scientific side by Mr. Bolton, Secretary, and Dr. W. M. Tattersall, namely, to visit America and inquire for the Committee into the educational work of Museums in that country as related to Humanism.

This Report embodies the information so obtained.

243

244 Museums and Humanities — (A Report)

PART I— REPORT ON BRITISH SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES

The Questionnaire was directed both to Curators of Museums and to educationists, with a common covering letter which stated that the inquiry, while specially referring to Classical schools and colleges, is also intended to apply to the Humanities in general ; that is to say, it covers the teaching of History and Literature, Antiquities (local and national), Art and Sociology, in a word, all education, other than scientific, which is capable of illustration in Museums. Those addressed were asked kindly to give the Committee the benefit of their experience and advice in any form found convenient and to consider the following remarks and queries merely as suggestive.

1. The principle that co-operation between Museums and centres of education ought not to be confined to Science, as distinct from History, Literature and Art, appears fairly evident. Moreover, while it must be admitted that the principle has not met largely with practical recognition in the past, the conviction appears to be growing that in the future Classical (and other literary) education will incline to adopt reformed methods, which will both add to its efficiency and render it more attractive and democratic.

2. In considering what can be done towards pro- moting such reforms, it is needful to bear in mind : —

(a) As regards finance, nothing can be done for which

there is no proportional public demand.

(b) The resources of individual Museums vary so

enormously that it is difficult to propose de- tailed suggestions which could be of wide application.

(c) The whole question is at present, and may be for

a considerable time, in a tentative stage. Changes would have to be experimental and gradual.

Part I — "British Schools and Colleges 245

3. Suggestions in general might be under the following heads : —

(a) The strengthening, where feasible, of Classical (or

Archaeological) sections in public Museums generally.

(b) Direct assistance to Teaching in Museums — whether

by the ordinary Staff, by Demonstrator-Guides, or by teachers to their own students.

(c) Indirect assistance outside the Museums — whether

by cheap supply of replicas, photographs (in- cluding postcards), slides ; or by circulation among schools and colleges of small cabinets containing suitable exhibits.

THE FOLLOWING QUERIES WERE ADDRESSED TO CURATORS

ONLY.

1. Have you in your Museum —

(a) A Classical Section (including, of course, Romano-

British Antiquities) ?

(b) Medieval and Recent History Sections (local or

otherwise) ?

(c) A general Archaeological Section ?

(d) A special Art Section ?

Kindly outline the general plan of arrangement of such Sections, describing any outstanding features.

2. Please furnish what information you can as to —

(a) The direct use of these collections by teachers.

(b) Their popular value to the ordinary visitor.

3. Are lectures given by demonstrator-guides or others

on these Sections ? Do you think more could be done in this way if educationists were anxious to co-operate ?

4. Can you supply casts or any other form of replicas of

objects in your Museum ? Have you illustrations of exhibits, for public use, in the form of photo- graphs, picture postcards or lantern slides ? Would you be prepared to supply them if there was a prospect of demand ?

246 Museums and Humanities — (A Report)

From Museums in Great Britain, 39 replies were received, as follows : —

PUBLIC MUSEUMS.

London. — British Museum, Director, and

Heads of three Departments . . 4

Guildhall, and Horniman Museums . . 2

The Provinces. — Cities or large towns . . 18 County Museums (not all public in strict

sense) ..... 3

Scotland. — Glasgow and Dundee ... 2

29

ACADEMIC MUSEUMS.

University. — Oxford, Cambridge, Aberdeen,

London, Liverpool .... 5

University Settlement. — Manchester . . 1

Public School. — Eton, Harrow, Winchester,

Rugby ..... 4

10

The following is an analysis of the replies : —

/. Public Museums. — London.

SIR FREDERIC KENYON, K.C.B., Director of the British Museum, wrote as follows : —

" With the general principle, that Museums can usefully co-operate with teachers, I heartily concur ; but the circumstances of the British Museum are so different from those of the ordinary provincial Museum, that I fear my experience will be of little use to you. This especially applies to the question of the extent to which the Staff of the Museum should take part in the instruction of the visitors. In the ordinary Museum, where accessions are not very frequent, and where the Museum is not a centre of scientific research, I take it that the duty of in- terpreting the collections to the public comes next

Part I— British Schools and Colleges 247

after the actual custody and arrangement of the objects in the Curator's scale of duties. At the British Museum, on the other hand, not only are acquisitions, and questions connected with acqui- sitions, so frequent as to make a large demand on the time of the Staff, but the Staff are expected to be experts of the first rank in their respective subjects, and their time must be devoted very largely to study and research, and to the composition of catalogues and guide-books, which are authoritative contribu- tions to the literature of the subject.

" Under these circumstances, I think it would be wasteful to require the Staff to take any considerable part in the oral instruction of visitors. Their contri- bution will be the arrangement and labelling of the collections, and giving information to the official guides ; besides, of course, being ready to assist in- quirers who need expert advice as distinct from general information. The latter function falls to the official guides, on whose usefulness I need not dilate.

" The next point that I ought to make is that in a place like this the official guides cannot deal directly with all the local schools. When the experiment was new and applications few, our guides used to take round classes of school children from time to time ; but the more the custom grows of sending classes to the Museum, the less is it possible for the guides to deal with them. What they can do is to instruct the teachers ; and arrangements have been made with the London County Council whereby classes of teachers attend our guides' lectures, and thereby qualify themselves to bring their children to the Museum and give them useful instruction.

" These are, I think, the two main points to be remembered in considering the part which the British Museum can play in this great educational move- ment. In the provincial Museums the conditions are very different, and different methods will no doubt be appropriate ; but for these you will get better advice from those who are more intimately associated with them."

MR. ARTHUR H. SMITH, Keeper of Greek and

248 Museums and Humanities — (A Report)

Roman Antiquities, sent in a reply to the circular, relating mainly to his own Department.*

Mr. Smith's attitude towards any effort which can be made to vitalize Classical teaching by Museum work is, it is unnecessary to say, most sympathetic. He, however, does not wish " to state the obvious nor yet to speak for the Museum as a whole, which would be to invade the province of the Director."

As to the Educational activities of his own Department, he states that it is used by teachers in University, Secondary, and Elementary work. With regard to the last, he adds : " I do not know whether the children profit much by it."

As to Demonstrator-Guides^ he says, " there are two, who give regular lectures, which are well attended."

As to Casts and replicas, he refers to " the casts and electrotypes, illustrated catalogues, publications de luxe, photographs, postcards, and lantern slides, which can be obtained at the Museum."

It is, of course, well known that in this respect the Trustees have recently done good work.

MR. G. F. HILL, Keeper of the Department of Coins and Medals, in replying to the Questionnaire, refers to the exhibition of coins or electrotypes in cases, and states that " a special exhibition, illustrating the coinage of Great Britain, is in contemplation."

With regard to educational use of the Department he remarks : " Teachers can visit the exhibitions in the same way as the ordinary public ; but the direct use of the unexhibited collections has to be limited to very small parties." He adds, " the public does not take much interest at present in the collections, but would do so if they could be better exhibited, as they will be after the war."

With regard to Demonstrator-Guides he remarks : " The Official Guides have hitherto avoided this Department. When the new exhibition is ready- some time after the war — they will have to deal with it. More could certainly be done, but not by the Staff of the Department, which is undermanned."

* This information Is valuable, and none the less welcome because our circular was drafted mainly with a view to provincial Museums.

Part I — British Schools and Colleges 249

To the question about replicas, he replies : " Casts and electrotypes can be supplied, but at present, and until the new scheme gets under way, only in small quantities and through the private maker. There are a few postcards and lantern slides. Materials for more could be supplied if the demand were certain."

GUILDHALL MUSEUM, LONDON. — Mr. Bernard Kettle, Curator, refers, in his reply, to the fine collection of Roman Antiquities of London ; it is visited by school parties, and teachers frequently ; on application, the Museum Clerk acts as lecturer ; per- mission is granted to make casts ; postcards are sold.

HORNIMAN MUSEUM (Forest Hill, S.E.). — Mr. Harrison says there are no Classical exhibits, but refers to the prehistoric section ; teachers use this collection for demonstrations and classes ; official guide also ; probably more could be done if educa- tionists were anxious to co-operate ; lantern slides are in use for Museum lectures.

II. Public Museums in the Provinces.

From public Museums in the Provinces, 23 replies were received, as follows : —

1. Have you a Classical Section ?

Museums which have a relatively important

Classical Section .... 6

Museums with Classical Section, but unim- portant ..... 8

Museums with Romano-British exhibits only 8

Museums with no Classical Section . . 1

23

2. Use of Collections by Teachers or by Demonstration-

Guides ?

In answering this and other queries, it is not always apparent that Curators are restricting their replies to the sections in question. The following, however, is

250 Museums and Humanities — (A Report)

a summary of the replies. (Note. — There may be overlapping here) : —

Museums in which a University Professor gives

demonstrations . . 1

„ „ schools visit ... 12

,, ,, schools are now commenc-

ing to visit . . 3

,, ,, visiting parties are assisted

by Curator or Assistant 9

,, „ regular lectures are given

by the Staff . . 3

,, ,, outside lecturers are regu-

larly invited . . 1

„ ,, there is a Demonstrator-

Guide 1

„ „ there is a demand for De-

monstrator-Guide . 1

„ ,, there is no use for Demon-

strator-Guides 2

3. Do you think that more could be done if Educationists were anxious to co-operate?

Replies strongly affirmative . . . . 11

,, affirmative (but appear to hesitate) . 4

,, in the negative .... 2

No direct reply given ..... 6

23

4. Are replicas and photographs supplied ? (Note. — Replies may overlap.)

Affirmative . . . . .14

,, (only in contemplation) . . 2

Negative . . . . . . 5

No clear answer ..... 2

More could be done if demand increased . 12

Part I — British Schools and Colleges 251

///. Academic Museums.

From these Museums, 10 replies were received, 6 from Universities, as follows : —

ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM, OXFORD. — The Assistant- Keeper : "The Archaeological collections (Classical) are used for demonstrations in connexion with lectures under University course. . . . We can supply casts, as the Staff includes an expert restorer-formator. Casts and electros can be supplied, but such objects to be of value must be of the best work, and there- fore cannot be cheap. . . . Photographs are supplied when asked for ; the Antiquarium owns the negatives ; new negatives have to be paid for."

PROFESSOR PERCY GARDNER, Lrrr.D., Keeper of Cast Galleries, etc. : " I think that the first requisite is that the teacher should be familiar with the monu- ments. I do not think it possible to give directions which will enable teachers to use materials which they have not thoroughly digested. A man who is at home among Greek and Roman monuments will find them of use at every turn in his teaching ; but mere sets of slides or photographs, arranged by an institution, with text, will do little good. In my experience it requires great practice and patience before students (and especially boys) learn what to look for in an object of antiquity. Teachers, too, expect often a more direct bearing upon the text of historians than the monuments afford."

FITZWILLIAM MUSEUM, CAMBRIDGE. — The Director : ;t This Museum has a Classical section, but there is an independent museum of casts from the antique ; we have also many medieval objects — local antiquities, however, being elsewhere." " The Museum is some- times visited by the local school of art. No lectures are given by Demonstrator-Guides or others; possibly more could be done if teachers were anxious to co- operate ; there is no general supply of replicas."

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON (Museum of Egypt- ology).—Prof. W. F. Petrie, Litt.D. : " Visits and inquiries of teachers are frequent ; many visitors

252 Museums and Humanities — (A Report)

come, but the collection is intended for students only." " Lectures are not given in the Museum by Demonstrator-Guides or others ; we do not supply replicas, as we have neither time nor money for arranging such supplies."

LIVERPOOL UNIVERSITY (Institute of Archaeology). — Prof. R. C. Bosanquet, replying to the question, " What methods do you adopt ? " wrote : " The University teaching collection includes many objects which can be brought into the class-room ; a selec- tion is always on view in the class-room. The class is frequently taken into the Cast-room, and Uni- versity classes on certain subjects are held in the Galleries of the public Museum, by permission of the Museums Committee."

" What features in the collection do you find most valuable ?" "A few good casts rather than many. When the original was in bronze, bronze the plaster. Supplement with originals ; terra cottas and small vases are always obtainable."

UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN (Museum of Anthro- pology) : " Teachers from School of Art and Board Schools make much use of our collections ; and the ordinary visitor shows much interest. We do not give regular lectures in the Museum."

FROM FOUR PUBLIC SCHOOL MUSEUMS.

The queries were not primarily intended for School Museums, but some interesting information has been kindly supplied by Curators.

1. At each of these Museums there is a Classical Section of some value — that at Winchester being noted as small ; at Harrow the absence of Romano- British exhibits is remarked.

2. The Museums are not used in school work, with the exception of Rugby, where " the Curator acts as Guide-Demonstrator whenever a party visits the Museum."

ETON. — " Unfortunately the collections are of little use for school teaching purposes."

Part I — British Schools and Colleges 253

HARROW. — " As far as I can judge, no use whatever is made of the Museum by Classical or Historical teachers."

WINCHESTER. — " The direct use of the Museum by teachers is not as great as might be wished — mainly lantern slides are used."

3. On the other hand, there is evidence that these Museums are not wholly devoid of utility to students of Classics : —

ETON. — " The Memorial Buildings Museum is not used for teaching purposes, but individual study can be encouraged. The feature I find most valuable consists in the coins, chiefly."

HARROW. — " The collections are of great value to a small minority of boys with a scientific, archaeo- logical, or artistic bent. For the rest it is a place where one takes one's people when showing them round."

" Once on a time a Classical form-master tried the experiment of taking his form (of small boys) to the Museum once a week in school time, and showing them pictures. The then Headmaster soon put a stop to that."

WINCHESTER. — " On a Sunday morning there is generally someone present to talk with boys indi- vidually about the exhibits. The boys, or a few of them, learn a great deal from the collections."

RUGBY. — " We are always willing to lend photo- graphs, and to give facilities for taking them."

4. To the query as to methods of making Museums more useful to teachers the Curator at Winchester replied as follows :—

" By making Greek and Roman life real by models, dolls, etc., showing the wearing of different garments, armour, etc. Models should show houses, forum, tombs, distaff, loom, etc. Clear descriptions should be appended, and classes occasionally given in Museum. Art should be mainly left to individual students, a curator being there to explain exhibits at certain times. Lectures in Museum and with lantern- slides are also of great value." is

254 Museums and Humanities — (A Report)

THE FOLLOWING QUERIES WERE ADDRESSED TO EDUCATIONISTS ONLY.

1. Do you make use, for teaching purposes, of the col-

lections in any public Museum containing —

(a) A Classical Section ?

(b) Medieval and Recent History Sections (local or

otherwise) ?

(c) A general Archaeological Section ?

(d) A special Art Selection ?

2. If so, will you suggest to the Committee —

(a) The methods you adopt ?

(b) The features in such collections you find most

valuable ?

3. Generally, will you kindly submit to the Committee

your views as to the development in public Museums of Sections as above and as to methods of making them —

(a) Of direct use to Teachers ?

(b) Of use for facilitating and encouraging the study

of Classics or the Humanities ?

4. Are you of opinion that Teachers would welcome and

give practical support to efforts on the part of Curators to be of service to literary education ?

From Educationists in Great Britain and Ireland, 56 replies were received as follows : —

Board of Education — J. W. Mackail and

A. E. Zimmern ..... 2 Other individual replies ....

The Universities and University Colleges . 20

Higher Colleges for Women and for Men . 4

The Public Schools 15

Secondary Schools, boys and girls . . 13

56

Part I — British Schools and Colleges 255

THE FOLLOWING IS AN ANALYSIS OF THE REPLIES.

/. Individual Replies.

BOARD OF EDUCATION. — J. W. Mackail, LL.D. (formerly Professor of Poetry at Oxford) : " No development in the work of Museums is possible at present. After the war it will be a matter of national importance to re-organize the Museums, so as to make them active and not passive institutions. They might be of great use towards facilitating and encouraging the study of Classics or the Hu- manities by being linked up with the educational system, and worked as (1) teaching, (2) circulating organizations. This applies to provincial Museums more than to the great national Museums. Teachers require to be educated up to this ideal, and trained in its application, before they can help effectively to carry it out. One of the most important functions which a local Museum can fulfil is to organize classes of teachers, held in the Museum, for the purpose of learning how to study such collections and how to impart thereafter the capacity and desire for such study to their pupils. To start work in the schools without preliminary training of the teachers will lead to many mistakes and much disappointment.

" For this purpose, one or more sections of a Museum should be systematically strengthened, and the co-operation of the local educational authorities and the various guilds and associations of teachers invited.

" When a foundation has been thus laid, it should be regarded as part of the regular duty of the Museum

(1) to produce replicas, slides, etc., at a cheap price ;

(2) to form small collections for circulation of objects chosen by a joint committee of the Museum officials and the teachers concerned, with the help of expert advice from some central advisory body.

" The work of Demonstrator-Guides with casual collections of visitors may prove to be largely a waste of labour. This work should be concentrated on regularly formed classes, first of teachers, and

256 Museums and Humanities — (A Report)

thereafter of a teacher and his or her pupils. There should be short courses, not merely detached visits. The particular collection (Classical or other) in the Museum should be so arranged and set out as to facilitate this. The Governing Body of each Museum should have an educational sub-committee, including some actual teachers, charged with the direction of this special work."

A. E. ZIMMERN, M.A. (formerly Fellow and Tutor of New College, Oxford), to the query, " How should public Museums develop their collections so as to make them of direct use to teachers ? " he replied : " By getting into personal touch with teachers and infecting them with the Curator's own interest and enthusiasm. By making the collections as accessible as possible, and using every opportunity of showing the connexions between them and other branches of study."

" Would teachers welcome the efforts of Curators ? " " Yes, if it were put to them in a way that appealed to their imagination."

A. PURSER (formerly Chief Inspector of Education, Ireland, now Curator of the Loan Collection of Classical Association of Ireland) : " My own view is that the use of Museums, etc., must begin with the teachers. Until they are well acquainted with the exhibits and what may be learnt from them, there is little use bringing in pupils or classes. As a rule, the collections are too large and miscellaneous for be- ginners, even for teachers. A special selection on historical lines and limited to a few typical specimens from each period should be made for educational purposes."

II. Replies (20) from the Universities and University Colleges.

OXFORD. — Professor of Classical Archaeology ; * Balliol College; New College ; Magdalen College.

* Prof. Gardner, who also replied as Curator.

Part I— British Schools and Colleges 257

CAMBRIDGE. — The Public Orator. GLASGOW. — Professor of Greek. ABERDEEN. — Professor of Greek. DURHAM (3). — Professor of Greek.

Armstrong College, Professor of Classics.

Professor of Modern History. LONDON (University College) (3). — Professor of Latin.

Professor of Ancient History.

Assistant in Egyptology. LIVERPOOL (2). — The Vice-Chancellor.

Professor of Classical Archaeology. LEEDS. — Professor of Classics. SHEFFIELD. — Professor of Greek. NOTTINGHAM. — Professor of Classics. READING. — Professor of Classics. ABERYSTWYTH. — Professor of Greek.

It is much to be regretted that limits of space will not allow of our recording these valuable replies at length. All that is possible is (1) to attempt in a very inadequate way to tabulate the views expressed in them, and (2) to quote a few extracts which seem to be of exceptional interest.

1. Do you make use, for teaching purposes, of collec- tions in any Public (or University) Museum ?

Replies in the affirmative .... 11

„ in the negative .... 5

No clear reply given ..... 4

20

3. Will you submit views as to the development of collections for facilitating the study of Classics or the Humanities ?

Replies distinctly favourable ... 10

„ favourable, but with limitations . 3

„ unfavourable (1 doubtful) . . 2

No clear reply given ..... 5

20

258 Museums and Humanities — (A Report)

4. Are you of opinion that teachers would welcome efforts of Curators to be of service f

Replies strongly affirmative ... 10

„ affirmative, but with reservations . 2

„ negative ..... 1

„ neutral or doubtful . . 7

20

PROF. G. A. DA VIES (Glasgow), under 4 : " Yes, but the results would probably be disappointing for some time, and faith and perseverance would be needed."

PROF. J. HARROWER (Aberdeen) : " I agree with Prof. Percy Gardner, in his address of fourteen years ago, that the attempt directly to illustrate Greek and Roman Literature by works of art and antiquities, even when made by trained archaeologists, can never come to much." Later he wrote : " I think, perhaps, what I object to most is exaggerated expectations re- garding what archaeology can do for the enlivenment of Classical study. ... I don't want archaeology taught in schools as a separate science. ... I am rather hopeless about good coming of the proposal to utilize public Museums."

PROF. A. H. CRUIKSHANK (Durham) : " It is more important (given certain conditions) to concentrate the attention of the pupils on the important details of grammar and the acquisition of a good English style than to dissipate their energies on vague interest."

PROF. I. WIGHT DUFF (Armstrong College), under 3: " I believe the development of such collections would greatly help (a) teaching, by making it more realistic ; (b) the study of ancient books, by recreating their original environment."

PROF. CASPARI (London), under 3 : " A continuous and representative series of average objects is often

Part I— British Schools and Colleges 259

more useful than a few outstanding objects, e.g., a series of ordinary Attic vases than a few choice specimens."

A. MURRAY (London), under 4 : " I have lectured in schools and colleges throughout the United Kingdom and always find the teachers most anxious to increase their knowledge by means of Museums."

SIR ALFRED DALE (Liverpool), under 1 : " The study of Classical literature should be combined with that of antiquities. To do this effectually, Museum collec- tions (not necessarily elaborate) are essential. I have had a definite conviction of this for many years, and have tried to give effect to it."

PROF. R. C. BOSANQUET (Liverpool), under 4 : " At any rate, the younger men would welcome efforts on the part of Curators to be of service to them."

PROF. RHYS ROBERTS (Leeds), under 3 : " Two of our younger Classical Lecturers (both of them now absent on active service) have done much to stimulate local interest in archaeological study."

PROF. F. GRANGER (Nottingham), under 3 : " The Exhibition of objects should be supplemented by collections — systematic, of course — of photographs."

III. Replies (4) from Colleges of Higher Studies (three for women, one for men).

BEDFORD COLLEGE (London University). — Reply is generally hopeful ; advocates " isolated " collections, especially for children ; thinks teachers would welcome help from Museums ; complains of lack of time in teaching.

LADIES' COLLEGE (Cheltenham). — College possesses museum, which is used only very occasionally for teaching ; reply thinks more could be done if there were co-operation.

260 Museums and Humanities — (A Report)

ALEXANDRA COLLEGE (Dublin). — The Lady Prin- cipal writes : " It is of the greatest importance that students visit Museums in connexion with such subjects as History and Geography."

HOSTEL OF THE RESURRECTION (nr. Leeds). — The Warden writes : " We have no museum of our own and being some miles from a town of any size, we do not use a museum."

IV. Replies (15) from Public Schools.

(H. signifies written, or countersigned, by Head- master.)

Eton 2, Harrow, Winchester, Westminster, Christ's Hospital (H) 2, Merchant Taylors (H.) 2, Wellington, Rugby (H.), Birmingham (H.), Epsom, Liverpool College (H.), Stonyhurst.

1. Do you make use of any collection in Public Museum ?

Affirmative (simply) ..... 2

„ (occasionally) S

Negative (simply) ..... 6

,, (but have some local exhibits) . 3

Doubtful . 1

2. What methods do you adopt; what features are most valuable ?

" Slides of Hellenic Society "... 1

" Lectures given by outsider from a Museum " 1

" Loans from Realien Committee " 2

" Use of British Museum Collections " . . 2

„ „ especially for inscriptions 1

„ „ especially exhibit of Greek

and Roman Life . . 1

" A Museum of Casts " (only projected) 1

No direct reply ...... 6

Part I — British Schools and Colleges 261

8. Views as to development of collections for facilitating study of Classics.

" Every big school should have its own Museum." " One coin in the hand is worth twenty in the case.'* " Regret that nothing is done or likely to be done here — least of all now, on account of expense."

" Not all teachers of literary subjects have know- ledge of Art or Archaeology sufficient for profitable use of collections."

" I regret to say I have not made much use of any collection, so cannot answer."

"Archaeology is rather a subject for the Univer- sities, not much use for schoolboys."

" The great difficulty is getting cheap replicas." " Greek (and Roman) coins offer one of the most hopeful means of getting ancient history into con- nexion with Art."

4. Are you oj opinion that teachers would welcome efforts oj Curators to be oj service?

Replies strongly affirmative (in 2 cases implied) 8

,, affirmative, but with limitations . 3

„ negative ..... 1

No reply given ..... 3

F. Replies (13) jrom Secondary Schools.

These included

Grammar Schools .... 5

Endowed „ (Boys) 3

Preparatory „ .... 1

Girls „ .... 4

1. Do you make use oj Collections in Public Museums ?

Affirmative (simply) ..... 5 „ (occasionally — one made use of Realien Committee Loan for

one year) .... 3

Negative (three add " No Museum available ") 4

No reply ...... 1

262 Museums and Humanities — (A Report)

2. What methods do you adopt — what features most valuable ?

" Museum authorities have kindly lent me one or two objects for exhibition in school."

" A problem or aspect of history cropping up in school work can be treated best by sending a boy to discover what he can about it in the Museum."

" Real Museums (not stuffed bird sections) are badly needed in provincial towns."

" Realien to be really useful should be on the spot. When a thing is mentioned that needs illustration, a picture, a cast, a model, should be produced then and there."

" I do not think visits to Museums are profitable to higher forms — a good deal might be done by supply- ing cheap replicas to schools."

" Museum objects which are permanently on view in or near the class-room are the most effective."

" Small, personally conducted visits of boys to Museums, without arranging help from Curators."

** It is an awkward business to take a number of small boys through London."

" When peace comes we want a few practical and cheap things, with a leavening of originals."

4. Are you oj opinion that teachers would welcome efforts of Curators to be oj use ?

Replies affirmative strongly (in one case

implied)

,, ,, (with some restrictions) . 2

Negative . . • • • none

No direct reply ...... 4

Part II — American Museums 263

PART II— REPORT ON AMERICAN MUSEUMS.

Professor Browne's visit, which lasted for four weeks, extended to States of the East and Middle West. His observations were rapid and somewhat summary, nor do they claim to be in any sense complete. The following Report, however, is in no case based merely upon printed matter, but upon personal inquiry. It is supplemental to that of the Secretary (Mr. H. Bolton) and Dr. W. M. Tattersal, from which it was already clear how much is being done in American Museums on the scientific side ; and in particular how many loan collections of slides and cabinets for teaching science are in circulation in the United States.

/ — General Remarks.

I approached the inquiry into Classics mainly from the side of the teaching institutions, but also inspected several important Museums. The Universities I visited were Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Chicago, Johns Hopkins, Pennsylvania (very inadequately), the North Western University (Evanston), the State Universities of Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan. I had conversation with the President of the (examin- ing) University of New York ; visited the Catholic University of America, and the Jesuit Universities of Georgetown, Fordham, Detroit and Marquette (Mil- waukee), Vassar College, and several High Schools. In addition to Museums in these institutions, I visited the Public Museums of New York, Brooklyn, Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia.

My general impression regarding Classics may be summed up as follows : —

(a) In the Museums of Universities and of

great cities much is being done to promote visual instruction in the Humanities.

(b) In the schools of America (as in our own)

there is still much to be desired.

264 Museums and Humanities — (A Report)

II — Museum of University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia).

This Museum is peculiarly interesting, perhaps unique ; inasmuch as, belonging to the University, it is fully utilized by the teaching staff and it also serves as a Public Museum for a large and populous city. Its teaching activities are great. A new audi- torium for lectures, which took three years to erect, is now completed. Being shown a picture of this hall crammed with girls from High Schools, I asked what subject was being taught, (thinking it was some- thing about insect life or aeroplanes). It was on the " Life of Women in Ancient Rome," of course with lantern illustrations. I was also informed that lectures relating to Classical topics form a large proportion of those given in the Museum or in schools by the Museum Staff, viz., something between 33 per cent, and 40 per cent. I considered these facts very encouraging from the Classical standpoint, and a member of the staff (Mr. Luce, Jr.) told me that good results follow, not merely from the courses given in the Museum but also from those supplied in the schools. The latter frequently hold the attention of the students for periods of 1 J hours — a sure proof of their worth. Much of the success obtained by these methods is due to the work done by the ** Philadelphia Society for the Promotion of Liberal Studies," and by a local Classical Club which is affiliated to the " Classical Association of the Atlantic States."

/// — Museum of Fine Arts (Boston).

Here again I found much encouragement. The work of instruction is carried on extensively ; and Mrs. Scales, Docent in charge of all instruction given to schools in the Museum, assured me that for this purpose no part of thebuilding is more used than the Classical galleries. It is an interesting feature of the Docent instruction that it is frequently given by persons not on the Museum Staff, who lend their

Part II — American Museums 265

services free and whose assistance is gratefully acknowledged by the Museum in its Report.

From the statistics supplied, it is evident that the faculty and students of Harvard are among those who make use of the Museum. With regard to schools, in a period of three months it is noted that 30 schools in all made 77 visits under the Docent's instructions, and 53 schools made 97 visits under instruction from their own teachers.

Subsequent to a prolonged conversation with me, the Director, Dr. Fairbanks, put into my hands a written summary of his experience and views which, on account of its importance, I append : —

"MY DEAR PROFESSOR BROWNE,

"May I summarize part of our conversation as to the educational work of an Art Museum ?

" (1) The purpose of the Art Museum is to help people to see objects of Art, not to compete with school or University.

" (2) As for the general public, its task is to furnish information by labels, catalogues, etc., which will make its exhibits intelligible. If it can go further in this same direction by furnishing oral comment, the visitors are often grateful. The aim of our * docent ' system is to furnish a guide, who can help the visitor to see one or another work of Art by discussing it with him as one student with another.

" (3) As for the schools, our instruction is for teachers rather than for children. Classes in history and literature in the Secondary schools are usually brought by a teacher. The Museum instructor, how- ever, ordinarily is asked by the teacher to join the class and assist in interesting the children.

" (4) Younger children are not ordinarily brought here for instruction but for pleasure. The Museum instructor tells stories which start from some work of art (e.g., the scene on a Greek vase) ; lantern slide views are shown with the story. Children are taken to see the painting or vase itself, and often are given

266 Museums and Humanities — (A Report)

a postcard reproduction of it when they go. The object is to connect the work of Art naturally with their life and thought — not to * teach them Art.'

" With cordial interest in your undertaking, " I am,

" Faithfully yours, " (Signed), ARTHUR FAIRBANKS.**

(A word may be added to the above note of Dr. Fairbanks, and it is this. In the more important Museums of America, the Docents are by no means the sort of guides with which the idea used to be associated. They are not merely well qualified to give instruction, but are frequently of high academic distinction.)

IV — Metropolitan Museum (New York).

The importance of the educational activities of this great Museum may be grasped from the fact that the Secretary, Mr. Kent, devotes most of his time to it, and that it fully occupies five other persons, two of whom are regular Docent instructors for schools and the public. In his Report for last year, Mr. Kent says " this year has seen our best work done." During the year lectures in the Museum were attended by 11,666 persons. Many of these courses were for teachers or for High Schools and Elementary school children. They were not merely illustrated by lantern slides, but after the talks the children were shown objects in the galleries, appertaining to the subjects treated of.

Among those chosen for children were the Iliad and the Odyssey ; but I am not able to state to what extent Classical topics are included generally in the Museum instruction. It is well known to English scholars that the collections of Greek and Cypriote pottery, of gold ornaments, and of archaic sculpture, are of the highest importance ; and the Director, Dr. Edward Robinson, will eagerly co-operate with any efforts to bring his Museum into close touch with the promoters of the Classical revival. It is

Part II — American Museums 267

interesting to know that the relation between this Museum and Columbia University (situated in the same Park of New York City) is close ; on occasion of an Art extension lecturer of the University giving a course of 16 lectures in the Museum, it was found necessary to divide the hearers into three sections.

(There is, of course a private Classical collection at the University of Columbia. When there I was told by a lady professor that it is of great importance and well used. I much regret, however, that circum- stances prevented my inspecting it, as I had hoped to do.)

The Department in the Metropolitan Museum for lending slides during the past year issued no less than 34,219 slides, as follows : —

For use in the Museum . . . 5,366 N.Y. City . . . 19,247 outside N.Y. City . 9,606

The Report of the Museum adds : " Many of those using the slides say that they had previously no idea that so much was being done to help people to know what the Museum and the world of Art have for them."

The slides are sent to country villages and academies as well as to Colleges and Art Associations.

V — Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore).

The Classical collection in the old building is in every sense a teaching Museum, situated so as to be of the utmost utility, being in a central hall out of which the class-rooms open and also the library of Classical books. (In the new building, to be im- mediately occupied, this arrangement will be adhered to.)

Like that of the University of Pennsylvania, this Museum by no means confines its activity to the needs of University students. Naturally it cannot be kept open as a public Museum, but it offers to all neighbouring Classical schools facilities for increased efficiency in teaching. Teachers are generously

268 Museums and Humanities— (A Report)

encouraged to bring their classes to inspect the cases in the hall, and hardly a week goes by without some school availing itself of this privilege. Members of the Faculty travel to educational centres, carrying not merely slides but objects selected from the University Museum, in illustration of their lectures. As a teaching collection in every way admirable, this is due to the initiative of the venerable Professor Gildersleeve. Besides important gold ornaments, epigraphy is well represented, and there is a quite good series of pottery (including signed black-figure and red-figure vases) with bronzes illustrative of ancient life, and Greek and Roman coins which are fully utilized in ordinary class-work.

VI — State Universities and Others.

University of Michigan.

With the Classical Museum at Johns Hopkins must be classed the thoroughly practical collection at Ann Arbor (Michigan). This is important in itself, having been arranged by Prof. Kelsey, who acquired in Rome a notable series of inscriptions, along with other useful material. It is not as yet adequately displayed, but it is none the less useful for teaching purposes, and is very fully utilized by the Staff. No one has done more than Prof. Kelsey for promoting in America a Classical revival on rational lines, and he and his assistant, Miss Butler, are anxious to do some- thing for schools remote from Museums, by sending them, on loan, such duplicate material as can be spared. The day I visited the Museum I saw a consignment dispatched to a school which had asked for help. Although no regular system of such loans has been inaugurated, Michigan University will be among the first to co-operate in any such plan.

University of Illinois.

At Urbana, a Classical teaching Museum on an ample scale has lately been inaugurated through the enterprise of Professor Pease, who received a con- siderable grant for the purpose. The fact that this

Part II — American Museums 269

University is not within easy reach of a large Museum has conditioned the character of the collections. I noticed a very fine series of Minoan replicas from Athens, other important reproductions including complete casts of the old and new Ludovisi sculptures, which are nowhere else (as I think) juxtaposed. This Museum is likely to be further developed on admir- able lines, and is in itself an object-lesson of what can be carried out by personal initiative.

Chicago University.

Here there is an extremely large and fine collection of slides, photographs, and archaeological printed material. The Museum exhibits are at present very inadequate and out of proportion The City Art Institute contains, indeed, a collection of Greek vases, etc., which, though small, is quite good ; but is a long distance from the University. I was accord- ingly informed by the Professor of Greek that an effort will shortly be made to provide the Classical students with exhibits suited to their needs.

Harvard and Yale.

I say nothing relating to these ancient Universities, because it goes without saying that both seats of learning are properly equipped for Classical study.

Catholic University of America (Washington).

This is a young but growing institution, and will be probably soon ranked among the greater American Universities. Up to the present, circumstances have not allowed the Classical section to develop, at least on lines of visual research. I learned, however, that a Museum is in contemplation, and will probably be erected at an early date. In this case the Professor of Classics (who happens to be from Ireland) will see to it that due provision is made for himself and his students.

At Georgetown University, there is a series of Roman and (I think) of Greek coins : but that they are actually used to any extent in teaching did not appear. 19

270 Museums and Humanities — (A Report)

My impression, received in the Catholic colleges which I visited, is that there is a strong desire to improve the standard of Classical teaching, together with some apprehension as to the possibility of keeping it up in any force. There appears to be, as generally in American schools, an absence of appliances for visual instruction in Classics which is keenly felt ; in some cases inquiries are on foot as to possible methods of remedying the defect.

Vassar College.

This was the only college for women which I was able to visit. There I saw a very good teaching collection with plenty of coin-electros and other useful things. Some of the professors also have private collections for helping on their class-work. I believe that Classical education is here prosecuted with enthusiasm.

University of the State of New York (Albany).

The Regents of this University (which is in fact an important organization for registering and ex- amining schools — with influence beyond the borders of the State) are pioneers in spreading the means for visual instruction in schools. They have made a generous provision for lending slides, photographs, and wall-pictures, and although much valuable material was destroyed by a fire on the Capitol in 1911, already a new collection of some 69,000 lantern slides has been acquired. In the first half of 1915, 207,682 slides were lent. The Trustees announce that arrangements can be made through any Public Library of the State, for teaching establishments to derive benefit from the slides. The regulations are extremely favourable to the borrower (a brochure explains the rules for borrowing slides, Visual Instruc- tion Handbook). The Regents boast that they do more than any other State in this matter. Assuming this to be true, it must also be remembered (as is proved by this and Mr. Bolton's Report) that other Universities and organizations are doing much in the same direction. It is not clear how far Classical

Part II — American Museums 271

schools are benefited by these arrangements ; but it is evident that, were the demand forthcoming, the Regents at Albany would not be wanting. From the paucity of Classical sets listed, it may be concluded that teachers of Latin and Greek in the State of New York are not very anxious as to visual instruction, or are possibly unaware of the uncommonly good offer made by the Regents.

VII — The Great Mass of Classical Schools.

A large number of schools and colleges are not within immediate influence of the Universities and great Museums ; even those of them which use slides and photographs must be innocent of all object- teaching of a tactual or tri-dimensional kind. There can be little doubt, however, that in the near future steps will be taken to reach the younger students of Latin and Greek in a more direct and psychological manner than is possible at present. As in the United Kingdom, the difficulty, not only of getting material but of learning to use it is very great. Still facts are stubborn things, and they will drive forward the reluctant. In one of the greatest centres of American life, I learned reliably that in no High School of the city are more than a dozen boys at present learning Latin and Greek ! On the other hand, there is in New York a Catholic High School where 1,400 boys will shortly be learning both ; and there is at least one in Massachusetts with an equal number. How far the children like this is a further and very apposite question. Some authorities, both in England and America, believe that Classical schools may be kept up by a sort of compulsion. But that could be only for a time. There is undoubtedly a feeling among teachers in both continents that the ground is slipping from under their feet, and that a radical reform is imperative before it becomes too late.

Till — The Archaeological Institute of America.

This report would be incomplete without a reference to the work being steadily carried out for Classical

272 Museums and Humanities — (A Report)

extension by the Archaeological Institute, which, though it embraces other branches of research, is specially directed to promote knowledge of the ancient cultures. Moreover, any effort to extend help to remote Classical schools by circulating cabinets is practically certain of obtaining the support of the Institute.

Hitherto its activities in popularizing the Classics have been mainly directed to providing lectures. The Secretary, Dr. Mitchell Carroll, summarized for me the complete activities of the Institute, as follows : —

1. Support accorded to the Archaeological Schools

of Athens, Rome, Jerusalem, and Santa Fe (Mexico).

2. Publication of Journals, including Art and

Archceology, which has a large circulation.

3. Local Branches, 45 in number, arranged in

four geographical sections, in which the Institute has helped to provide, during the past twelve months, for at least 200, and perhaps 250 lectures.

4. Summer Schools of Archaeology from which

great good has accrued. In the School to be held this year arrangements are being made for holding a two-days' Conference of Teachers on Classical Education, and the methods of making it more widely accepted.

Here is clearly an existing organization which is in a position to give active support to the Classical Associations of America, so soon as they take prac- tical steps to provide material requisite for improved Classical teaching. We can learn something from America already, and it is not unlikely that in the near future we shall learn much more.

(Signed), HENRY BKOWNE. June, 1916.

APPENDIX No. 2

SUGGESTED CATALOGUE OF EXHIBITS FOR A CIRCULATING MUSEUM, WITH ESTIMATED COST

The following catalogue is intended to suffice for a circle of about fifty schools or institutions, and supposes that each loan would last for about one week on the average. Ordinarily, in practice^ a selection would be made; theoretically, any school or schools that wished to see all the exhibits could, on a principle of rotation, have one set of slides PLUS one other exhibit, including some loans of books, each week of a school year of forty weeks. Though not herein provided for it might, however, be found desirable in part to duplicate the sets of slides. To do so should not be difficult or very expensive.

A.— LANTERN SLIDES.

We naturally begin with this branch of the work. Slides supply by far the most important kind of visual instruction : they are, moreover, expensive, because to be of real advantage they must be used in considerable numbers. They are not, however, very subject to depreciation as a rule — breakage, which ought not to be frequent, being, of course, made good by the actual borrower and covered by a system of insurance.

They will be loaned in sets, and to determine even the average number of slides in the sets is a matter of great difficulty, so much depends upon the subject and the method, time and place of using them. I think, for ordinary school purposes, the sets should hardly ever be more than about 40, and often a set of 20 or 30 will be most useful. On the other

273

274 Circulating Museums

hand, when used for extension work (especially when dealing with topographical subjects) it may be necessary to go as high as 80 or even 100, but never, I think, beyotid. Let us, then, strike a working average, and suppose that the forty circulating sets will each contain ordinarily not less than 30 nor more than 50 (possibly sometimes 60) slides.

The sets may be classified as follows : —

1. TWENTY TOPOGRAPHICAL SETS. Prehistoric subjects :

Troy and the Troad 1

Gnossos and Crete ..... 1

Fortress and Tombs of Mycenae ... 1

Tiryns, Pylos and Orchomenos ... 1

Tombs of Etruria ..... 1

Excavations in the Roman Forum . . 1

6

Greek Subjects :

The Acropolis and its Temples ... 1

Athens, Eleusis, and Attica generally . . 1

Sparta, with Corinth ..... 1

Delphi, with Olympia ..... 1

Syracuse and Sicily generally ... 1

Asia Minor* 1

Other Greek sites 1

Latin Subjects :

Imperial Rome ..... 1

Ancient Gaul . . . . . • 1

Roman Occupation of Britain . . . 1

Carthage and North Africa . . 1

Pompeii .... 1

Ostia with other Italian sites . . 1

6 The Hellenistic World . . 1

20

* Including, of course, Pergamum.

Suggested Catalogue of Exhibits 275

2. TEN SETS ON ANCIENT ART.

Pottery — Minoan, Greek (2), Roman . . 4

Prehistoric Art and Antiquities . . 1

Architecture ...... 2

Sculpture (including Roman portrait series) . 2

Ancient Paintings and Mosaics ... 1

10

3. Six SETS ON GENERAL ANTIQUITIES

(Greece and Rome).

Warfare ...... 1

Education and Athletics .... 1

Religious ritual, altars, votive offerings, etc. . 1

Drama of Greece and Rome ... 1

Domestic Antiquities .... 1

Tombs and Sepulchral Rites ... 1

6

4. THREE NUMISMATIC SETS.

Greek Coins ...... 1

Roman Republican . . 1

Roman Imperial .... 1

8

5. TOWN PLANNING among the Ancients . 1

The above sets would number forty in all.

It is obvious that the list given could be inde- finitely extended, especially in the direction of architectural and monumental sculpture. But the list as suggested would probably be quite good and practical for ordinary school needs. On page 235 I gave reasons for the opinion that sculpture is not relatively a very important subject for younger students. For Extension work, sets on sculpture might be found more useful, but probably photo- graphs would do as well, and therefore better. A set on Trajan's Column might well be added.

Now as to cost. Taking an average of 50 slides {this is probably too high) for each of the 40 sets we get a total of 2,000 slides. They should not cost more than £125 to £150, cases included.*

* But see note on p. 280.

276 Circulating Museums

B.— PHOTOGRAPHS, WALL PICTURES, ETC.

The photographs should be also in sets of, say, about 25 to 40, and should be kept in specially designed boxes with outside cases for transmission. For individual instruction they will be simpler to use than the lantern ; and even for class work they may be at times more convenient. As with slides the number and choice of subjects will vary greatly. Some of the sets may correspond with the slides as listed ; or some may be different. A set on Attic Grave Reliefs ; also of special kinds of Attic vases ; or of special groups of sculpture, e.g., the Pergamene or the Panathenaic Frieze, or Tanagra Statuettes might be serviceable. Probably, 10 sets would be a fair number if considered as supplemental to a generous supply of slides.

But it is very difficult to lay down fixed lines for the use of mounted photographs, as this is particularly a case where much experiment will be needful before any circulating museum could be said to be equipped in the best degree. By the way, postcards are not to be always despised — everything can be turned to account — but they might be thought infra dignitatem as material for circulation.

As to the cost, it should not be relatively very great. The half-tones in the series of Bulle referred to on page 178 (Der Schoene Mensch) would be prac- tically almost as good as photographic prints. Pre- sumably these are not now procurable in England or America. If such half-tones are used, they should be mounted like photographs on cartridge paper and circulated in specially prepared portfolios.

Taking such photos or reproductions as costing, (mounting and arranging in boxes or portfolios, in- clusive), at most Is. 6d. each, the cost of 10 sets, according to my calculation, should be at most somewhere near £25.

As to wall-pictures there are many series, also chiefly German, of course. Some of these are poor ; but there is a set by A. Pichlers, Vienna, containing 33 plates, many of which are extremely good. They

Suggested Catalogue of Exhibits 277

cost about two shillings each, and can be had separ- ately— are not suitable for framing. At least three sets (containing each a dozen, more or less) should be, if possible, procured. Other similar exhibits could be put in circulation.*

We should therefore have in this section :

Sets of photographs or half-tones . . 10

Pichlers' wall-pictures, when procurable . 3

Other similar sets of diagrams, say . . 2

15

C.— EIGHT NUMISMATIC CABINETS.

These are, perhaps, the most important of all the circulating exhibits, and also the most troublesome to provide. The cabinets must be specially designed — trays small and not too shallow (with good side flanges) — each containing from 15 to 24 specimens ; and each cabinet usually about 6 trays. The originals have been found to average under 2s. 6d. a piece — the electrotypes cost about the same. Thus, allowing £3 for the cabinet itself, the cost of each will be about £15 to £18, or something over.

I. Cabinets of ORIGINALS (bronze, with some silver).

Greek coins of Hellas, of Asia Minor, and of the West 3

Roman coins, Republican (including

Roman o-Campanian), and Imperial . 2

II. Cabinets of ELECTROTYPES, gold, electrum, silver. Earlier Greek issues, and Later ... 2

III. Casts of Roman and Italian Aes Grave . 1

8 The cost may be computed at about £130.

* The preparation of a series of pictures, suspended during the war, was undertaken by G. Bell and Sons, under direction of the Hon. Sec. of the Archaeological Aids Committee.

278 Circulating Museums

D.— SIX CABINETS OF SMALL ANTIQUITIES.

Minoan Replicas ..... l

Pottery Sherds — Prehistoric, Greek, and

Roman ...... 3

Bronze objects illustrating domestic life —

Strigils, razors, bracelets, etc. ... 1

Other various things — lamps, writing materials,

stamps, iron implements, etc. ... 1

6

The cost per cabinet should be less than the coins, and I estimate the total cost at about £60.

E.— EPIGRAPHICAL EXHIBITS.

This is a subject which has never been practically dealt with, as far as I know, but it seems capable of being made interesting to young students and, if so, very useful. They should be told something about various kinds of writing and shown the more im- portant scripts, beginning with Egyptian, Cuneiform, and Cypriote, then Minoan, and early Greek, Etruscan, and Roman, with some account of the origin and growth of their own alphabet.

Inscriptions of the ordinary sort are, of course, too large for circulation as casts. But there are a few quite small inscriptions ; and for the important and interesting ones showing the development of writing, squeezes could be easily provided. Students would thus be prepared by a suitable degree of familiarity with the subject, for coming across original inscriptions in Museums or elsewhere.

Besides this, I have stated already that there are a large number of small inscribed objects of which replicas could be taken. There is the Phsestos Disc ; the spear-butts presented as votive-offerings by vic- torious armies at Olympia,* and supplied from Berlin in facsimile ; and other similar exhibits.

* See above, p. 200.

Suggested Catalogue of Exhibits 279

Again, small collections of Ostraka, papyrus frag- ments, jar-handles, vase-bases, and such-like objects could be easily acquired, and would be portable. These would illuminate Classical study from various points of view.

The cost of this important exhibit would be ex- tremely small — almost nominal. Let us be on the safe side and estimate it at £10.

F.— ILLUSTRATED BOOKS.

There are a number of illustrated handbooks and other publications on Archaeological subjects, especi- ally numismatic books, some of which are too ex- pensive or not sufficiently needed by the ordinary teacher to induce him to purchase them. A few of these might be lent to schools with exhibits or perhaps separately. Again, there are others which are so cheap and attractive that, if known, they would certainly be acquired by schools, and in this way great good could be done by putting a few books of this class into circulation (without, of course, undertaking the functions of a regular lending library). Even to circulate a list of such books would be useful.

Without going into details here, the following books, written in English, deserve special mention among many others: Hill's Greek Historical Coins, and Roman Historical Coins ; Walter's Handbooks of Greek Art and Roman Art ; Mrs. Strong's Roman Sculpture; Baedeker's Guides to Greece, South Italy and Sicily, and Central Italy ; Burton Brown's Ex- cavations in the Roman Forum ; Fowler and Wheeler's Greek Archaeology ; British Museum Guide to Greek and Roman Life (Is. 6d.). More expensive works could be circulated, as found practicable.

The cost of this section need not be great; but undoubtedly, as experience points the way, such a collection would tend to increase in size and utility.

280 Circulating Museums

SUMMARY REGARDING COST.

From the above it will appear that the provision of slides, if included, will be a notably expensive item in the scheme. In some localities this will not be necessary, as they may be obtainable in other ways, but they are included for completeness. The estim- ated initial outlay for a circle of 50 schools is, therefore :

£

40 Sets of Slides* 130

10 Sets Photographs, with cases . . 25

5 Sets Wall Pictures and Diagrams . . 10 8 Numismatic Cabinets .... 130

6 Cabinets of Antiquities .... 60 Collection Epigraphy, say . . 10 Books, say ...... 10

£375

Thus the capital required would be £375. If the subscription was fixed at £l Is., which is quite moderate, the interest would be £52 10s., or nearly 15 per cent. About 10 per cent, might be required for depreciation, and the rest could do for interest, but there would be no margin for a sinking fund. Hence the scheme does not appear to be a purely commercial one, but capital would have to be pro- vided from some benevolent source, whether public or private ; or else the subscription must be raised beyond the guinea. (This seems undesirable, inas- much as the borrower will have to pay cost of transit and insurance for every exhibit.)

When working out the scheme for America I calculated the initial expense at a higher rate. I thought it might reach $2,800. On the other hand, I thought in America a two guinea subscription (or $10) would not be considered excessive, which would leave about 10 per cent, for depreciation in addition to 10 per cent, for sinking fund and interest.

* It is not impossible that many schools could command sets of elides or negatives. They ought to be willing to pool them, and this would reduce the cost. In Ireland this was done with good results.

Suggested Catalogue of Exhibits 281

Naturally, any financial scheme must be only regarded as tentative and approximate to the actual cost. Besides, experiments clearly could be made, and indeed have been made, on a more modest scale. The A.R.L.T. scheme provided for 30 schools only, and the material was both inadequate and partly provided without cost to the Association. It is quite obvious that when it is feasible a large circle is more economical than a smaller one, inasmuch as it provides exhibits on a better scale, and also gives to them a more constant circulation. They are not wanted, as a rule, in each centre of tener than annually, and there is no reason why they should be kept for longer than a week upon the average. In Ireland a sum of money was raised by an appeal to the aca- demic public and the response was, relatively speak- ing, generous ; and this should be quite possible in England and America upon a larger scale. The ex- periments referred to would have been much more definite in their results had not the war intervened and upset our calculations.

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