Foreign masters are well enough for those that go to them
voluntarily with the desire of being taught; it is as teachers in a
compulsory curriculum that their inferiority becomes apparent.
The retort is sometimes made to this proposal--Why omit Greek rather
than Latin? Should you not retain the greater of the two languages? This
may be pronounced as mainly a piece of tactics; for every one must know
that the order of teaching Latin and Greek at the schools will never be
topsyturvied to suit the fancy of an individual here and there, even
although John Stuart Mill himself was educated in that order. On the
scheme of withdrawing all foreign languages from the imperative
curriculum, and providing for them as voluntary adjuncts, such freedom
of selection would be easy.[9]
[ALTERNATIVE OF MODERN LANGUAGES.]
3. Another alternative is to remit both Latin and Greek in favour of
French and German. Strange to say, this advance upon the previous
alternative was actually contained in Mr. Gladstone's ill-fated Irish
University Bill. Had that Bill succeeded, the Irish would have been
for fourteen years in the enjoyment of a full option for both the
languages.
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