The remedy for this evil, where it exists, is a change, less of curriculum than of the angle of view. The same books may be read as now, but with very different results, if, instead of thinking only of grammar and scholarship, we think of their contents, their author, and the civilisation which produced them. But it will be difficult to secure this reform without some change in the Universities.

The University is the key to the whole position, for anyone who wishes to go there is obliged to conform to her standards and demands. The colleges award scholarships and set the papers for them; and a school that wishes to get scholarships is obliged to consider what these papers are like, and to frame its teaching, so that any candidates it sends up can answer them. And unfortunately, the University, both in its classical scholarships and in Honour Moderations, pays little attention to the mental development of boys of which, we

1I can only speak about Oxford, but from what I know of Cambridge classical scholarships, I imagine that my criticisms here would apply to the sister University. The Classical Tripos is very different from Honour Moderations at Oxford and, to judge from Mr. A. C. Benson's criticisms, has evils of its own.

spoke above. It still lays a very predominant emphasis on the linguistic side of Latin and Greek, and teaches and examines in them from an angle of view much more suitable to boys of fifteen than to young men of nineteen. We will consider the point more closely. The examinations for classical scholarships generally comprise papers in Latin (1) and Greek (1), Prose; in Latin (1) and Greek (1), Unseen Translations; in Latin (1) and Greek (1), Verse; and in French and German (1) (the three last are optional; the French and German paper counts for very little, and the verse papers do not affect the result, unless a candidate does particularly well in them). There is also a General Paper and an Essay. Now it is obvious how heavily this scheme of papers leans towards knowledge of the languages and away from knowledge of their literature. Four compulsory and two optional papers are linguistic; one only, the General Paper, gives a boy a chance to shew what he knows of the subject-matter of the classics, and in practice it generally shews that he knows very little, but that his master has recently made him do an essay on the Homeric problem or recent discoveries in Crete, or some other profitable topic that is likely to be set. Nor is it in any case a good test of

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general knowledge of the classics, for only a few of its questions relate to them. That the papers shew this linguistic bias is not because the colleges are attracted to proses and translations, as by a sort of original sin. Partly, no doubt, it is tradition; English education has always been noted for the excellence of its pure scholarship. But partly it is because these methods give, not necessarily the best results educationally, but the safest test of a boy's ability. No one can really cram proses and unseens; but a second-rate, yet very industrious, boy can get high marks on any prepared work by sheer labour. So prepared work is an uncertain guide in a scholarship examination; it may give you the most laborious or the best crammed boy instead of the ablest one. Hence the colleges naturally prefer a test which will better reveal ability and the schools having to follow their lead, there is no chance in present circumstances of reducing the amount of composition. The total result is that the schools have every inducement to specialise on pure scholarship, and hardly any to pay attention to the contents of the classics as well as their form-to say nothing of subjects other than Latin and Greek.

The most satisfactory classical scholarship

examination is that for close Winchester scholarships at New College, where, in addition to the ordinary scholarship papers, the candidates have to do a period of history (generally modern), a divinity paper, and set Latin and Greek books. This is a check on excessive specialisation in classics, and on an undue predominance of pure scholarship. It might well be a model for other similar examinations, though even in it composition has perhaps an excessive place.

But the University's influence is felt through the curricula for its degrees as well as its scholarship examinations. The full classical course at Oxford has two limbs: Honour Moderations, of which the subject is Greek and Latin literature, and "Greats," which includes Ancient History and Philosophy. The degree, in fact, is awarded on three groups of subjects: literature, history, and philosophy. It is an examination characteristic of Oxford, and of which the University is justly proud. The most stimulating and valuable side of it is the philosophy group; the least satisfactory is the literature, though it has great merits and still greater possibilities. Its merits are that the student reads large tracts of great literature, including the

whole of Homer and Vergil, and so becomes familiar with some of the great writers of the world. Its weaknesses are that: (1) he reads most of Cicero's and Demosthenes' speeches (which is as if one read all Burke or all Bossuet and knew nothing about the rest of English or French oratory): they bore him, he has too much to read to think what they mean, and he knows nothing of the rest of ancient oratory. (2) In those books which he reads with attention to grammar and text, exigencies of time do not allow his knowledge of their subject-matter to be properly tested in examination, and he masters the translation, learns some grammatical and textual points by heart, and for the real contents of the books is in much the same state as the hero of Mr. A. C. Benson's House of Quiet. Mr. Benson is writing of Cambridge, but I have omitted any phrases which are not applicable to most men who have just taken Honour Classical Moderations: "I took up the Classical Tripos, and read, with translations, in the loosest style imaginable, great masses of classical literature, caring little about the subject-matter. with no knowledge of history, archaeology, or philosophy, and even strangely ignorant of idiom. I did indeed drift into a First Class, but this was