That
people was the Greek. Except the blind forces of Nature, nothing moves in
this world which is not Greek in its origin." That is a hard saying, but
scarcely exaggerated. Examine the records of our art and our science, our
philosophy and the enduring element of our faith, our statecraft and our
notion of liberty, and you will find that they all go back for their
inspiration to that one small people, and strike their roots into the soil
of Greece. What we have added, it is well to know; but he is the
aristocrat of the mind who can display a diploma from the schools of the
Academy and the Lyceum, and from the Theatre of Dionysus. What tradition
of ancestral achievement in the Senate or on the field of battle shall
broaden a man's outlook and elevate his will equally with the
consciousness that his way of thinking and feeling has come down to him by
so long and honorable a descent, or shall so confirm him in his better
judgment against the ephemeral and vulgarizing solicitations of the hour?
Other men are creatures of the visible moment; he is a citizen of the past
and of the future. And such a charter of citizenship it is the first duty
of the college to provide.
I have limited myself in these pages to a discussion of what may be called
the public side of education, considering the classics in their power to
mould character and foster sound leadership in a society much given to
drifting.
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