transferred from the few classicists to the many modernists. He does not see how insatiate is modernism. Alas! that it should be so. I do not blame him. Living in the torrent and whirlpool of latterday politics, how few pause to ask whether Oxford and Cambridge should remain checks or become instruments of democracy! Yet this is the real question; and, if the old Universities will not stand firm, there will soon be no ancient tradition to moderate modern liberty. Oxford, Nov. 28, 1910.

FROM The Times, NOVEMBER 22, 1911. I enclose a packet which, as chairman of the Committee for the Preservation of Greek, I have sent to every member of the Convocation of the University of Oxford. It contains (1) a copy of the proposed statute which would permit undergraduates, although they have not satisfied the masters of the schools in both Greek and Latin at Responsions', to become candidates for the Honour School of Mathematics and Natural Science, together with the notice of a consequential statute, which stands adjourned until the proposed statute passes, and which would permit such candidates' to supplicate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts, although they have not satisfied the Moderators in the examination in Holy Scripture in matter which involves a knowledge of Greek'; (2) a letter compiled by the Committee defending its opposition to the proposed statute, which with the consequential statute would permit such candidates to go through their whole academical career without Greek; (3) a card asking every member of Convocation whether he considers Greek a necessary condition for the Oxford degree, and whether he will come to Oxford and vote against the proposed statute on Tuesday, November 28, at 2 o'clock.

I believe, Sir, that when you peruse these docu

ments you will agree that they put members of Convocation in possession of the information required to form their opinions. But Dr. Jackson, the Rector of Exeter College, in your issue of the 18th charges us with serious misrepresentation of the aim of the Statute, with appealing to clerical prejudice and the odium theologicum, and with assuming without reason that the exemption of students of mathematics and natural science from Greek will inevitably be made to apply to all studies in the future. I beg leave, Sir, to defend the Committee, of which I am chairman, from these charges.

1. The Rector appears to think that our letter is a serious misrepresentation of the aim of the statute simply because it did not point out all the alternatives which the proposed statute allows, and among them both Greek and Latin, or Greek without Latin, or Latin without Greek. But all these alternatives are in the copy of the statute which was sent with our letter and has, no doubt, been read by the recipients before writing their answers on the accompanying card. Consequently it was not necessary to point out all the alternatives in our letter. Moreover, as it is most likely and is indeed generally admitted that most candidates will offer Latin without Greek, we were justified in directing our letter to the main point that Greek ought not to be made voluntary.

2. The Rector calls our letter an appeal to clerical prejudice. What it says is that unless the Universities declare Greek to be imperatively necessary, a body of clergy will grow up unable to instruct their people in the interpretation of the New Testament from a first-hand knowledge of the Greek Text'. Dr. Lock, Warden of Keble College, has defended our letter with far more authority than I can boast on this sacred subject. All I need say is that the sentence quoted above from our letter is no appeal to clerical prejudice, but an assertion of the scholarly

M

principle, that a teacher of the tenets of a book ought to understand the language in which the book is written. No doubt, as the Rector says, the Bishops will make every effort to maintain the necessity of Greek for ordination. But it will be a thousand pities if in requiring Greek they lose the services of men of science, who are fast becoming leaders of mankind.

3. The Rector evidently disagrees with the sentence in our letter which asserts that supporters of the present Statute have openly avowed that this change is only a first step intended to lead to further exemptions, until Greek sinks to the place of a mere study for specialists'. He rejoices that the question of extending the option cannot be raised in the future until we have had experience of the operation in the case of students of mathematics and natural science'. These two opposite points of view bring into relief the question whether the proposed statute can be an acceptable compromise.

There are two reasons why the proposed statute cannot be an acceptable compromise. On the one hand, the air is full of demands for exemption from Greek. Students of mathematics and natural science demand exemption; but so do students in the new Honour Schools of Modern History, Jurisprudence, English and Foreign Languages; so do Rhodes Scholars; so do secondary schools, municipal and county schools; so do the poorer students whom the Chancellor, Lord Curzon, wishes to multiply in the University of Oxford without Greek. None of these pressing demands, except the first, is satisfied. by the proposed statute, which merely touches the fringe of the question; nor can all of them be satisfied without the total abolition of compulsory Greek, which is the real point. On the other hand, each of these demands has its advocates, and the whole seven of them have the powerful advocacy of the

Chancellor of the University of Oxford and the Hebdomadal Council. The Chancellor in his Letter to the University in 1909 proposed the entire abolition of compulsory Greek for all classes and studies. The Hebdomadal Council embodied his proposal in a resolution published in its Report on University Reform in 1910. It is true that a statute embodying the resolution to abolish compulsory Greek in Responsions was thrown out in Congregation on Nov. 22, 1910, by 188 to 152. But the proposal of the Chancellor and the resolution of the Council still stand, neither withdrawn nor disavowed. The consequence is that, if the proposed statute satisfying the one demand of mathematics and natural science were passed, then, on the strength of the numerous other demands and with the help of their powerful advocates, one further statute after another would be promulgated, until at last all the demands were satisfied by the entire abolition of the necessity of Greek, and moreover, by the transfer of endowments from classical to other subjects, also proposed by the Chancellor and Council.

Convocation must fight now or never. Its one chance is by rejecting the first statute to prevent the rest; on the ground that in language and literature, in poetry and prose, in art and science, in philosophy, speculative and practical, and especially in that comprehensive view of the relations of nature, God, and man within the universal system of things which is common to Greece, Rome, and Christianity, the achievements of the Greeks are the main causes of modern civilization; on the ground that it is good for the select few to aspire to the highest education, for the thousand who annually go to Oxford, and the thousand who annually go to Cambridge, out of the many millions of this nation, to learn Greek; and on the ground that, as Bacon pointed out, education should consist partly of what we like to

develop our tastes, but partly also of what is good for us to correct our defects.

C.C.C., Oxford, Nov. 21, 1911.

THE PRESERVATION OF GREEK AT

OXFORD

Ποδαπὸν ὅμιλον τόνδ' ἀνελληνόστολον

χλίοντα προσφωνούμεν ;-Aeschylus.

'Greek literature is the one entirely original literature of 'Europe.' (The late Prof. S. H. Butcher, Harvard Studies.) 'All great teachers have been Greek in spirit.' (Ibid.)

'I think, for the sake of mathematicians and science students, 'Cambridge and Oxford should keep Greek, of which even 'a very moderate extent is of very great value.' (The late Lord Kelvin, in The Times, October 28, 1891.)

DEAR SIR,

The following appeal is made to all members of the Convocation of the University of Oxford, in the conviction that if Greek is to be retained as an integral part of an Oxford education, it lies with Convocation to retain it. The reasons given on the following pages-which are shortly stated and not elaborated in detail-appear to us to be convincing. It is our hope that they will seem so to the majority of Convocation. In any case we trust that all who receive this paper will kindly return the enclosed postcard, giving their answers to the two questions now respectfully submitted to them. It is not too much to say that on their decision depends one of the most important problems of the higher education of the present day.

I am,

Yours faithfully,

THOMAS CASE,

President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, on behalf of the Committee for the Preservation of Greek.

November 8, 1911.