CHAPTER V SOME EDUCATIONAL ADVANTAGES OF THE CLASSICS DIE Griechen sind, wie das Genie, einfach; deshalb sind NIETZSCHE. These BUT is not our own literature an adequate substitute for the classics if not an improvement on them? And is there not something to be said for feeding children on their mother's milk, instead of surrendering them to foreign nurses? are obvious and fair questions to ask, and I propose in this chapter to consider the respective educational merits of ancient and modern literature and to put successively the following questions: (a) How does our own literature compare with Greek? (This has been to some extent dealt with in Chapter III.) (b) Is it really better for a nation to be nourished mainly on its own past? (c) What are the general educational advantages claimed for the classics? (d) In what sense can the classics be considered an introduction to modern problems? It is only possible here to glance at these questions and to indicate certain lines of discussion, and it is always to be remembered that from their nature an absolutely definite solution is impossible. Educational problems are not like income-tax papers, where the replies can be precise; we can only give rough estimates and general forecasts. How does our literature compare with Greek? It is ungrateful and rather impious to match against each other the illustrious names of two illustrious literatures. As in religion, so in literature, differences of age or nation do not break the unity or disturb the peace of those who have joined the company of the departed great. But for educational purposes it is instructive to make these comparisons, and therefore, premising that anyone who does not know both Greek and English is the poorer for his ignorance, let us set the armies in array. (Latin for the most part I leave out of account, and no critic can object if I put myself at a disadvantage by meeting him on one leg instead of on two.) First comes Homer, whom we might match if we could combine the simplicity and humanity of Chaucer with the grandeur and art of Milton; as it is we may accept the Poet Laureate's judgment, that he holds an undisputed throne.'1 Passing to the dramatists, we have in Shakespeare a genius beyond comparison, though for educational purposes it would be difficult in English to find anything to match the combination of the three Greeks; we have nothing in tragedy so titanic as Aeschylus, so exquisite in art and plot construction as Sophocles, so curiously modern and human as Euripides (the three combined would be the highest literature man can conceive), nor have we anything so instructive as the development of art and thought which these three afford as they succeed each other in an age of intellectual progress and rapid change. In comedy Aristophanes is unique in the literature of the world, but a 1 He writes of Shakespeare: Whom, when she (England) bore, the Muses lov'd Yea, save one, without peer And by great Homer set, Not to impugn his undisputed throne, The myriad-hearted by the mighty-hearted one. Menander can be had, and not in fragments, if we go to France for Molière. In poetry, especially if the greater abundance and scope of our own literature be considered, English offers at least as much to the student as Greek. In some departments of prose this is not so. Oratory is its least important branch; but here Lord Brougham speaks of Demosthenes' Speech on the Crown as "The Greatest Oration of the Greatest of Orators,” and for sustained perfection our own speakers, with their rather ragged, shapeless speeches and brilliant purple passages, cannot compare with the great Greeks; they did not take the same trouble in writing, and consequently we do not take the same pleasure in reading. An exception should be made of Burke ; no Greek politician has his rich language or profound political wisdom. In history our inferiority is greater. Our historians have lacked either impartiality, or else the style, or, still more important, the imagination, adequate to the momentous issues, tragic events, and commanding personalities of history. We have no one to compare, in their very different gifts, with Herodotus or Thucydides. And neither in our own, nor in any other literature will the historian find a model to match with the latter. Macaulay, Froude, and Green are brilliant partisans. Clarendon Clarendon or Gibbon comes nearest our ideal, but Gardiner speaks of "Clarendon's usual habit of blundering," and Gibbon, though both scientific, eloquent and an artist, is a model neither of style nor of impartiality. His subject is the fate of a bizarre and decadent absolutism, and his work is less like a picture than a great piece of ancient tapestry, where we admire the harmony of colour, the skill of design, the ample and stately pageant which passes under our eyes, but never quite feel as if the figures were human or alive. Byzantium is too remote from our life to excite our sympathy, pity or fear, and we miss the human interest, which Thucydides' story of the rise and fall of a great democracy awakes. I have already quoted the characteristically generous tribute of Macaulay to him. But it is in philosophy that we compare least favourably with the Greeks. Hellenism has influenced the world deeply in every branch of intellectual life, but her greatest influence probably has been through her philosophers. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus and the 'budge doctors of the Stoic fur-all educated |