of the Athenians, for these same traits appear in the tragedians". It takes three fixed points to determine the position of a circle, and in my opinion Professor Murray needs the following three points: a people who did not have these revolting customs, a people who had also control of the poems of Homer, and, not least, the absence of these customs from these poems. Now, as he has no one of these points, it is waste labor to criticize the size or the shape of his circle.

The conclusion reached by Mr. Lang is that the Iliad and the Odyssey are, in the main, the work of a single poet, and that they describe a coherent culture, a culture which existed for a brief period not far from 1200 B. С.

The range and grasp of the book are remarkable, and show not only command of the most diverse literatures, traditions, myths, and customs, but an expert knowledge of the questions involved which might abash a specialist.

When Mr. Lang wrote his first book on Homer he was wellnigh alone in his belief in the unity of Homeric authorship, but times have changed in fifteen years, so that now he has as companions such men as Arthur Evans and T. W. Allen in England, and Ludwich, Drerup, Muelder, and Rothe in Germany. In fact what was then only a heresy may now be considered the orthodox belief.

The annual Christmas festival of the Jamaica High School, which took place on Friday afternoon, December 23, was in many respects the most successful the school has ever known. The features were a musical program of exceptional excellence, and the Latin Play, in the production of which the school stands preeminent among the secondary schools of this country.

The Latin Play, which was first given in 1906, and repeated in 1909 and this year, was received with much enthusiastic appreciation by faculty, students, and alumni, and is deserving of detailed description. It is one of the mystery plays of the early twelfth century, Herodes sive Adoratio Magorum, and was so highly esteemed by Queen Victoria that she left money to the famous Winchester Public School to ensure its annual production. Eighty-seven characters took part, twenty-five with speaking lines, and sixty-two who as chorus sang Latin verses. Prologue was a welcome in Latin, followed by an explanation in English of the value of the play, both religious and educational, and a brief synopsis of the action for the benefit of those who did not know Latin.

The

The play is intensely dramatic in its conception. Jamaica departs not at all from the original idea of the old monkish author, but has introduced some verses from the ancient Christmas song Adeste Fideles, to be sung by the chorus and has taken advantage of all the best traditions of art to create a gorgeous spectacle. The wealth of color in the costumes of the girls, the realistic make-up of the boys, the dignity of the action, and the very sound of the sonorous Latin lines, make upon the audience an impression that is not soon lost.

As its title indicates, the play deals with Herod and the three Wise Men, chiefly, but it begins with the shepherds and angels, with an archangel bidding the shepherds "Fear Not", and a band of lesser angels singing the Gloria. The chorus, singing, enters as the angels leave, and all still singing go towards the cave and disappear to worship the unseen Child. In the old monkish days there was a manger, a child, and the animals. After the shepherds go the Wise Men (Magi) come-following Ben Hur these in Jamaica are Greek, Arab, and Hindu. To the Magi enter first Jewish men and women, then Herod with his suite. Herod's group is the most glowing in its tints and sparkling in its jewels. The number is seven, and the old story of Herod's command to the Wise Men, that they shall tell him where the Royal Babe is to be found, is graphically depicted. When Herod goes, more men and women, all singing, appear, and all follow the Wise Men, who in turn follow the star, to the entrance of the cave. The shepherds re-enter, the Wise Men go to adore the Royal Babe, the crowd surrounds the shepherds to ask what they have seen, but as all turn once more toward the cave the archangel again appears to announce "that all is fulfilled that was declared by the prophets". The Wise Men start to go to Jerusalem, but are forbidden by the angel to seek Herod. Finally, all the characters come upon the stage, sing ing for the last time the Adeste, and then go off, their song gradually dying away in the distance. The archangel, as silence falls, blesses the audience with uplifted hands, the epilogue is pronounced, and the play is over.

A statement appeared recently in one of the papers that DeWitt Clinton High School was the first to produce a Latin play. This is an error, for this play was first produced at Jamaica High four years ago. The pupils in Jamaica High show a considerable interest in the Classics. This is now the sixth year that the Senior Elocution Class (elective) has read the old Greek dramatists in good translations, and just for amusement the Greek Club has given scenes from Frere's Birds of Aristophanes, and scenes from Plumptre's Agamemnon of Aeschylus. EDWARD C. CHICKERING. JAMAICA HIGH SCHOOL, New York City.

A CORRECTION

Professor E. D. Wright, of Lawrence University, Appleton, Wisconsin, has called my attention to a sad blunder repeated in THE CLASSICAL WEEKLY 4.83 from my edition of the Aeneid. Professor Wright says: "You quote from your Aeneid, 'A light syllable is one whose vowel is short, by nature or position'. Is a vowel ever short by position? Does position ever change a short vowel into something else?" I am distressed at this blunder. The fact that I can see exactly how I made it in the first place does not at all relieve my disgust at not having noted the error myself, often as I have read the sentence since it was first written. As a matter of fact, in my teaching I have long proceeded in quite a different wav, defining first heavy syllables, then 'common' syllables, and finally remarking that all other syllables are light. The whole purpose of my use of the terms heavy and light for syllables, and long and short for vowels, as well as my discussion of pater in THE CLASSICAL WEEKLY 4.83. is to bring out precisely the point that Professor Wright makes, that nothing ever changes a vowel inherently short into anything else, though the syllable may be treated as heavy, let us say by 'position'. C. K.

THE CLASSICAL WEEKLY is published by the Classical Association of the Atlantic States, weekly, on Saturdays, from October to May inclusive, except in weeks in which there is a legal or school holiday, at Teachers College, 525 West 120th Street, New York City.

All persons within the territory of the Association who are interested in the literature, the life and the art of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, whether actually engaged in teaching the Classics or not, are eligible to membership in the Association. Application for membership may be made to the Secretary-Treasurer, Charles Knapp, Barnard College, New York. The annual dues (which cover also the subscription to THE CLASSICAL WEEKLY), are two dollars. Within the territory covered by the Association (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, District of Columbia) subscription is possible to individuals only through membership. To institutions in this territory the subscription price is one dollar per year.

Outside the territory of the Association the subscription price of THE CLASSICAL WEEKLY is one dollar per year.

Enlarged

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For Secondary Schools.

The vocabulary of Caesar's complete works, Cicero's orations and Vergil's Aeneid Books I-VI grouped according to frequency of occurrence and so arranged that the English meanings, which are on separate pages, not visible at the same time, may be brought line for line into visible parallel columns by means of a simple folding device.

The new edition includes tables of forms, thus providing in vest pocket compass a complete summary of the essential forms, vocabulary, and syntax of high-school Latin.

H. F. Scott and C. H. VAN TUYL, University of Chicago High School PAPER, 120 pp. $.30

An unpretentious yet effective prose book for second year. Based on the first sixty-two chapters of Caesar, with the principle of syntax stated in the lesson.

The authors have kept ever in mind that the Caesar pupil is only a beginner. They have not attempted to cover the entire field of high school prose.

There is an appendix of forms and an English-Latin vocabulary.

SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY

VOL. IV

A year ago, at the meeting of The American Philological Association, it was voted to continue the Commission on College Entrance Requirements for the discussion of such new problems as might come up in connection with the report then presented. During the year the response of the Colleges and the Universities to the recommendations of the Commission has been unexpectedly gratifying. At the recent meeting of the American Philological Association at Providence, the Commission took into consideration the new questions that had been submitted, and after some discussion came to the conclusion that these questions were hardly of sufficient importance to justify formal action at this time, and that, inasmuch as the general acceptance of the recommendations gave assurance of that uniformity in the requirements which had been the chief object sought in the creation of the Commission, it had no reason for further exist

Two quotations from recent numbers of the Nation, bearing dates of December 29, 1910 and January 12, 1911, seem worthy of space here:

Now that statistics have demonstrated the connection between high marks in college and success in life, one is prepared to meet with the further paradox that Greek is the best training in the world for a scientific career. Nothing short of this is the contention of a writer in The Classical Journal, who cites a Dartmouth professor's statement that the boys selected to assist in the science courses are almost uniformly those who offered Greek in preparation and no science; and that of an Amherst biologist who has found the same type of boy best equipped for work in his department. This is interpreted to mean that the Greek boy, before the end of his college days, has outstripped the science boy in his own field. All of this is in line with the privately expressed opinion of an eminent astronomer that Greek offers better training than science because it is generally better taught; scientists of first and even of second quality are apt to be too much engaged in research or otherwise to enter the classroom, whereas the best among the Hellenists devote themselves to teaching because there is nothing else for them to do with their talents. If there is here the suspicion of a fallacy, the argument itself is a sign of the times. An article in the Popular

No. 15

Science Monthly, attacking the classics, moreover, endeavors to reopen the battle of the books by asserting the intellectual and artistic superiority of the moderns over the ancients. The return of the debate to the realm of literature is almost refreshing; civil strife among the books is even at its worst preferable to the more modern warfare between them on the one side and the allied frogs and mice of the science laboratories on the other. Indeed, the time seems almost ripe for some reactionary to startle the world with an argument that the study of the classics is good in itself.

"The cause of the classics is equally the cause of the modern languages. The modern languages cannot flourish in an atmosphere where Latin and Greek are asphyxiated". Such, or something like them, were the words addressed to the Modern Language Association by that scholastic recluse, that narrow-minded pedant, that dry-as-dust, ignorant of the affairs of this progressive world, the Hon. Edward M. Shepard. And he actually went on to pronounce the study of the humanities to be the most effective bulwark against the disintegrating power of commercialism. It is not surprising that the assembled professors should assent to the latter proposition; they have traditionally a sour-grapes attitude toward money, of which, poor souls, they have so little. But the applause which greeted Mr. Shepard's insistence on the essential interdependence of ancient and modern letters was neither perfunctory nor born of prejudice. It suggested that the teachers of the modern languages are more and more giving serious thought to the fate that hangs over divided houses. If this is the case, those who, with Mr. Shepard, believe in the high mission of the humanities in modern life may well take heart.

C. K.

THE CLASSICS AND CITIZENSHIP 1

Whether classical literature is to retain its merited position in the educational institutions of America is a question which concerns most vitally the intellectual life of this nation and upon the final disposition of which depends, to a very large degree, the character of American citizenship.

The higher institutions of learning, perhaps, are to a degree responsible for the unpopularity of the Classics, since they dictate the exact terms upon which an applicant may enter college. Under such conditions the student gets only a few months with three or four different authors. And it is against this dictatorial attitude that the schools of our country should register protest.

Another reason, I believe, why the popularity of I What is printed here is but part of an address on this subject.

the Classics is continuously on the wane is the application of the elective system. Certainly this system should be tolerated, to a certain extent, since no one line of study is best adapted to a harmonious development of the mind. But the All-roads-lead-to-Rome idea, that it makes no difference what a youth studies provided he studies in the right way, has deceived a multitude of people. It is of supreme importance what a youth studies in those formative and plastic years. As a rule, he is too uncertain, too unsettled in his habits and modes of conduct to think soberly and to select for himself the subjects which afford the greatest intellectual discipline. As an inevitable result of this almost unlimited freedom of selection the higher institutions of learning every year are sending out men who, with all their vast storehouse of specialized knowledge, are devoid of any real culture and the true philosophy of life.

There may still be a few half-educated pedagogues who would remove Latin and Greek from our educational scheme, but the real center of the opposition lies in the home. Parents oppose the teaching of these subjects to their children, who themselves do not like it, chiefly because the recitation is not made interesting for them. Inventiveness, in my opinion, is one of the assets indispensable to the competent, successful instructor. Under the present formal, monotonous method of teaching the few students who make any progress at all in Classics do so not by the aid of the instructor, but in spite of him. If we would create a revival of interest in classical literature-and this is a task peculiarly our own we must arrive at a new method of presentation, a new way of teaching.

In the last few decades we have been inclined to n'ace the greatest stress possible upon the practical I'fe. The development of the intellect has not occupied so prominent a place in the thought-life of the nation as it once did. The prevailing thought of this age and generation is to provide oneself with those resources whereby one may enjoy the pleasures of an independent life. The spirit of acquisition, of material accomplishment, permeates the life of the American people today, and it is just this very spirit which shows a tendency to work havoc in the intellectual life of this nation.

Not infrequently is it urged that a girl especially should not study Latin or Greek. For her training the more practical branches are suggested, such as history, mathematics, chemistry, etc. The average woman may recognize H2O or NaCl, when she sees them in her kitchen, but her knowledge is very apt to stop there. If she must be trained and developed along practical lines only, if her only mission is to keep a house tidy or to prepare a wholesome table. what matters it to her what NaCl stands for, or what important events are locked up in the archives of history! When we leave those cultural, refining influences out of her education, it appears very much like preparing her for a life of servitude in the home. We must remember that hers is a nobler mission than this; that she has been placed here as man's help-mate, and not as his servant; that in her care and under her influence a future generation is born and fostered. We must make her a cultured, refined, intelligent specimen of womanhood, if we would maintain our dignity as a nation and our pride as a liberty-loving people.

If we would be a living, moving people, we cannot afford to neglect those influences which will furnish us an intelligent citizenship. The Classics bring to us such influences; they furnish us deeper sympathies and a more real appreciation of our own literature; they broaden our intellectual horizon and bring before our minds the very foundations of modern speech and thought. The only limitation to success in our country is that of capacity. If a man has been inspired by the spirit of past ages; if he has sat at the feet of their statesmen. orators, poets and philosophers; if he has revelled in the legends that gather around the names of their ancient heroes, how much richer and fuller will his harvest be than that of his fellowman without such a foundation!

It has been said that this is an age of thought, an age of reason. But might it not be called an age of materialism-an age when men, in the blind pursuit of material accomplishments, forget the deeper, richer treasures at their disposal, forget the nobler refining elements of the truly useful and successful life?

There always comes a time in the experience of every business man when the cares of the material world are cast aside. Then comes the time for him to seek pleasure in another direction. How fortunate is that man whose training has fitted him for something more than the wine-shop, the gamingtable or the prize-fight, who can taste the greater pleasures that await him in his study, who can feed his own mind and enrich his own life upon the illimitable resources which abound in the literatures of past ages. Edmond, Oklahoma.

C. S. WARREN.

THE CLASSICS AND SCIENCE

At the Classical Conference held at Ann Arbor in April, 1909, there was a Symposium on the Value of Humanistic, particularly Classical, Studies as a Training for Men of Affairs. Among the interesting contributions to this Symposium is an excellent letter from the Hon. James Bryce, who has written and spoken well and often in support of the Classics. Valuable also is the paper of Mr. Charles R. Williams, Editor of the Indianapolis Star, who presents many cogent reasons for belief in the value of the study of Greek and Latin.

I am, however, most interested in the article of Dr. Harvey W. Wiley on The Value of the Study of Greek and Latin as a Preparation for the Study of Science. Dr. Wiley sent a questionnaire to one hundred prominent scientific men, teachers and others, in the United States, in order to elicit information respecting their attitude toward the promotion of classical learning and their estimation of its value. Thirty-five replies were received, of which fourteen were favorable and seventeen unfavorable to the study of Latin and Greek. Four favored the study of Latin but not of Greek. Three thought a fair knowledge of the classical languages of no value as a basis for scientific studies; four thought such knowledge of very little value.

It is amazing to learn that nine of the thirty-five men of science think a knowledge of Latin and Greek is of no use in any science. Eight thought such knowledge would have no influence upon the style and expression of scientific writers; three thought the influence of such knowledge would be injurious.

One is furthermore astounded to discover that three prominent scientists think that a knowledge of Latin and Greek hinders the acquisition of a modern language and three think it is of no help, while two regard English as the best language to study as a basis.

Five are of the opinion that no special pleasure may be obtained from Latin and Greek Classics and five think that there is much more gratification to be obtained from an acquaintance with the great works in modern languages.

As a typical illustration of the attitude of those opposed to classical learning Dr. Wiley quotes a letter received from a Professor in a New England University:

It seems to me little short of ludicrous that anybody at the present age of progress should make an endeavor to reintroduce classical philology, particularly at a time when at such venerable seats of learning as Oxford and Cambridge determined efforts have been made to get rid of this incubus. How is it possible for anybody to fail to realize that the trend of science is ever toward mathematics, that in the next generation the demand for mathematical equipment and the need of it will be increased tenfold? How is it possible to ignore

a

the fact that this is the direction in which specialization should be made, beginning at an early age, for the burden is continually heavier, and that this is precisely the direction in which nothing is being done. As for philological work, let us have English, French, German, Italian, etc., which not only have the same cultural value, but open to their possessors a world of life and learning and science. I can't answer your questions for they put me in a temper.

a

What shall we say of, or to, a scholar and teacher who calls the Classics an incubus, who thinks the modern languages have exactly the same cultural value as the Classics, and that the modern languages are to be preferred to the Classics because they open a world of life and learning and science? Further what are we to think of a man of science who, when asked for his serious opinions and judicious arguments, replies, "I can't answer your questions for they put me in a temper"! As Horace asks, Quid facias illi? Truly we can only say, as Matthew Arnold does with regard to the incorrigible and benighted Philistine, "He must die in his sins". It was my privilege, as an undergraduate, to study rather extensively, for Classicist, in certain sciences. While pursuing these studies I was constantly surprised and gratified to observe how much my Classics helped me both in mastering and in remembering scientific nomenclature (which is SO largely, of course, of Greek and Latin origin) and also how much assistance they gave me in the preparation of clear and accurate reports on all that I studied. Further it was impossible not to notice that my fellow students who were ignorant of Latin and Greek, or poorly grounded therein, were groping in profound darkness amidst the scientific terminology. To them every writer in science was truly a Ἡράκλειτος σκοτεινός. In the written and spoken language of these students there was a deplorable poverty of vocabulary and an incredible inability to express themselves with precision and clearness. It was then, too, that I discovered that my best teachers in the sciences had studied the Classics and that the scientific literature which was clearest in presentation of thought and most admirable in style was produced by writers who had had the benefit of a classical education.

I have been emphasizing only the practical side of the question and showing that it pays the future man of science to lay a broad foundation, especially in the Classics, both because of the assistance such foundation gives in the acquisition and mastery of the sciences and also because of the substantial help which Latin especially gives in learning modern languages. I say nothing, in the present connection, of the inestimable value to the student of the humanistic training which prevents that very narrow-mindedness of which the specialist in science is so often the unfortunate possessor, which grievous fault the correspondent quoted above so lament