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Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Atlantic Essays, On an old Latin text-book. (search)
e so; but, at any rate, it was not science that he studied. It is for literature, after all, that I plead; not for this or that body of literature. Welcoming science, I only deprecate the exclusive adoption of the scientific style. There prevailed for a long time, in America, a certain superstition about collegiate education. So far as it was superstitious, the impression was foolish, no doubt; but beneath its folly the tradition of pure literature was kept alive. It appears from President Dwight's Travels; that, until about the year 1800, our oldest college prescribed Latin verse-making as a condition of entrance. He also says that at that time the largest library in America held but fifteen thousand volumes. While the means of research were so limited, there was plenty of time for verse-making, but it .would be foolish to insist on it now. Since the range of study is so much widened, the best course seems to be, to give a child the rudiments of various good things, and, whe