UNIVERSITY COURIER.
9
learn its peculiar ideas and habit of thought. The Emperor Charles V. declared that a person is as many times a man as he knows different languages. Educators tell us that the study of languages furnishes a drill and culture for the mind which can be given by no other kind of study. This department of study also tends to make us proficient in the use of language, since it gives us drill in the exact use of words and enlarges our vocabulary.
Then there are peculiar benefits to be derived from the study of each language pursued in our colleges. The Latin and Greek, we are told, furnish models of brevity, taste, and elegance in composition, and the style of the classic writers have never been surpassed. But beside this, we acquire from these languages knowledge of a more practical character. We cannot really know our own language without some understanding of the Latin which, to a great extent, forms its foundation. Unless we know the root meanings of words, we cannot know their exact meaning and use.
The knowledge of Greek is of inestimable value to those who study the natural sciences, for a large proportion of scientific terms are derived from that language. A term which seems, to one ignorant of Greek, unintelligible, barbarous to pronounce, and impossible to remember, explains itself at a glance to the classical scholar and is impressed upon his memory.
The modern languages are evidently of great practical use to us if we can learn to speak them with moderate fluency and ease. But in our colleges we can seldom do this. Still we may receive benefit enough from these languages to more than pay for the time and trouble that it cost us to learn them. The knowledge of these languages opens to us a vast field of literature, which would otherwise be inaccessible, for no translation can give a true idea of the original. But, in order to receive great benefit in this direction, we must not stop our study with the end of the college course, but use the knowledge we already have, as the foundation of a more extensive study of those great literatures which, in our college study, we can but glance at.
“MORE BEYOND.”
If philosophy has failed to make any material advancement in later years over the fundamental principles laid down by ancient philosophers, it has the merit of believing that it has something essential, or will at least discover something essential. It is hopeful. Never tiring, philosophy seeks new fields, aims to bring into light new truths, looks ever and constantly into the future. Men are very apt to think that the generation in which they live has arrived at the last of discovery, that they have arrived, not necessarily at perfection, but at such a point as would make it impossible for men to advance. History shows that from time immemorial the human race has advanced in education, philosophy, and moral improvement. Although it has seemed that the thread of progress had been snapped, that man had fallen into ignorance, vice, sin, and was rapidly degenerating into a mere brute, yet some people would gather the broken thread and carry the human family far in advance of any point that it had yet attained.
Bacon, in weighing the past and the present, glancing back over the history of the progress of his own country, became convinced from these investigations that his generation was not perfect but that there was more
beyond. In this spirit he wrote the "Novum Organum." This work was slightly opposed to the accepted philosophy of the day. Yet all through Bacon shows to us, as subsequent ages proved, how pre-eminently superior he was in talent and sagacity.
To-day we are apt to think that we are perfect. Our architecture, machinery, or a thousand improvements seem almost impossible to be excelled. There is no comparison between the rude architecture of years past and our own. Improvement seems to have run riot in every direction. But it would be unfair to future generations to say that degeneration must now set in. It is true that man must either advance or retrograde. Man is a prototype of nations. As man arrives at prime and then decayes so do nations, so does improvement. But we cannot declare that we have arrived at the prime that is for future races to determine.
About one hundred years ago Franklin bottled electricity. That one little bottle united continents, it has placed every part of a nation in communication with every other part. Of no less importance comes the steam engine. The steam struggling to escape from the domestic tea-kettle showed its power to an observant man. The result in commerce, travel, increase in wealth is inestimable. These little discoveries have sent their influence from the highest mountain to the deepest mine. Their influences have done more for mankind than all the learning in the world could have done.
Wealth is the all-powerful motor that turns the machinery of the world. As people increase their riches they make improvements. The wealth of a nation is shown in its general improvement. Fifty years ago men were considered quite wealthy if they could muster ten thousand dollars; to-day it must be one million. Fifty years hence it will be ten million. And we may look for increase in the beauty and elegance of architecture. The improvement, the close approach to completeness in machinery, general advancement of all conditions of life, we may look for.
What is to be the future of learning? There may be advancement in the mode of teaching. But can it be truly said that in learning there is more beyond. Of the books written to-day it can be said that they are but repetitions of what has been said. A future that shows up so bright for the success of other things ought surely to presage a like success for learning. It cannot be that all truths have been discovered any more than it can be that all scientific problems have been discovered. Morality and intelligence are every day broadening and deepening. Men see life in a more earnest light. Knowledge is sought not for itself but for its usefulness to the human race. It is being more widely disseminated than ever before.
SCIENTIFIC NOTES.
Additions to cabinets in natural history during the past two weeks:
A box of beetles from California containing several very rare species new to the collection; also several of the "scarce kind" necessary to complete sets.
A collection of skulls of Kansas mammals from Ellis county, presented by Dr. Louis Watson, brother of the distinguished botanist at Cambridge. The collection is especially valuable for the students in comparative anatomy.