But, in the first place, it is not proposed to
reduce the school and college curriculum to science alone; and, in the
next place, who can say what are the "impalpable" results of science?
[WORTH OF THE CLASSICAL WRITERS.]
The second branch of the argument relates to the greatness of the
classical writers. Undoubtedly the Greek and Roman worlds produced some
very great writers, and a good many not great. But the greatness of
Herodotus, Thucydides, Demosthenes, Plato, and Aristotle can be
exhibited in a modern rendering; while no small portion of the poetical
excellence of Homer and the Dramatists can be made apparent without
toiling at the original tongues. The value of the languages then
resolves itself, as has been often remarked, into a _residuum_.
Something also is to be said for the greatness of the writers that have
written in modern times. Sir John Herschel remarked long ago that the
human intellect cannot have degenerated, so long as we are able to quote
Newton, Lagrange and Laplace, against Aristotle and Archimedes. I would
not undertake to say that any modern mind has equalled Aristotle in the
_range_ of his intellectual powers; but in point of intensity of grasp
in any one subject, he has many rivals; so that to obtain his equal, we
have only to take two or three first-rate moderns.
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