Ohio University Monagraphs. It is the purpose of the officers of the Ohio University to issue occasional monographs by members of the Faculty and others, the general character of which may be seen from the first number, entitled Methods of Inducing Introspective Power," by Professor Pierce, and from that which here follows. These monographs are not intended to bring forward any new or strikingly original views, but rather to discuss questions of interest to intelligent readers of every class, especially to teachers; to stimulate thought, and to provoke further inquiry. It will be the aim of the professors who have this matter in charge to avoid too great technicality on the one hand and mere platitudes on the other. It is intended to publish two more papers on Greek Education; one on the Functions of Music, and one on the Influence of Athletics. Some Aspects of Greek Education. EVER By CHARLES W. SUPER, President and Professor of Greek. VER since the revival of learning there has been manifest in all parts of the civilized world a remarkable interest in the culture of the ancient Greeks. Not only has there been a natural curiosity to know the internal affairs of so remarkable a people; but there has also been a persistent and well directed effort to ascertain, as far as this was possible, to what extent the intense intellectual activity of the fifth century before our era was related to that age in the history of the world, and how far it was the native product of Greek genius. Historians have likewise sought to discover to what extent the intellectual development of this era was fostered of set purpose by the leaders in public opinion in Greece. The progress of a people or a nation is measured by its system of instruction; and as the people of modern times have taken a greater interest in all that relates to popular education, there has been a growing desire to look more carefully into Greek pedagogy in order to ascertain if possible whether it contains anything of stimulus or warning for our own times. Probably no one familiar with the facts would deny that the audiences that listened to the speeches of Pericles, or were present at the trial of Socrates, or took sides in the bitter forensic contest between Demosthenes and Aeschines, were the most intelligent ever assembled for a like purpose. Nevertheless the society they represented had in it the seeds of decay that soon grew into vigorous life and destroyed the social organism in which they had planted themselves. In our day the teachers of pecple, those to whom is entrusted the instruction of the rising generation, are held to be largely responsible for its morals and its patriotism. Does this same responsibility attach to the teachers of the ancient Greeks? Did these enlightened commonwealths fall into political disintegration because their teachers were faithless to their trust, or failed through ignorance to point out to to their fellow-citizens the way of safety? Or did this misfortune come upon them because no such state-constituted guardians existed whose duty and privilege it was to hold up persistently the true aim of human life? Our own times have called into existence a large number of special works on the pedagogy of the ancient Greeks, from the bulky volumes of Grasberger to the brief monographs whose name is legion. For the last four centuries, at least, the Greeks have been our schoolmasters, and the inquiry is certainly pertinent, Who were the teachers of the Greeks? The search after the mysterious influence that made the Greeks a unique people is like the quest after many of the still undiscovered secrets of nature. We can describe results, set forth the proximate causes, but there remains always a residum that defies our closest scrutiny. National traits and talents are something for which no adequate explanation has yet been found. Anthropological psychology is a historical, not a mathematical science; its data can not be used for predicting the future. The adept can exhibit the HOW of certain phenomena, not the WHY. A nation's history is, no doubt, in a large measure the result of the physical conditions in which it lives, but not wholly. The same soil and the same atmosphere have frequently nourished, and still nourish, nations of widely different mental characteristics. So national traits often change- slowly, it is true-where physical conditions vary but little, if at all. Sometimes the great thinkers of a nation are the acme and culmination of its spiritual forces. This is true of the age of Pericles, of Augustus, of Elizabeth, of Louis XIV. Sometimes they stand out like intellectual monuments amid the general abasement, which serve only to show that the spirit of their countrymen is not wholly dead. Such was the age of Milton in his almost solitary grandeur, and in a less degree that of Goethe and Schiller. The coryphaei of Italian literature. form, for the most part, a hapless procession as they pass before our mind's eye; and even the brighest intellects of ancient Greece seemed to be oppressed at times with the feeling of their loneliness. The student of the history of education can hardly avoid being impressed with the fact that the men who have made the largest figure in the history of the world's thought are the product of times when the State did bu little for the enlightenment of the masses. There may be but slight connection between the two conditions, but we constantly find them existing side by side. In England the age of Shakspere is a conspicuous example; and it is true of British thought in general that it is not the product of educational forces that reached down to the masses. Goethe and Schiller lived at a time when Germany was dotted with uni |