ANCIENT GREECE

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 124, 29 May 1922, Page 3

ANCIENT GREECE

OFFERS CLOSE PARALLEL TO OUB ...... ■ ;;'■•■;■ TIMES:;"',., < „

"In spite of many differences;" '•'writes R., W. Livingstone, -in- "The Legacy of Greece," "no age' has bad'elos.qr affinities with ancient Greece than our-own;- none ha3- based its deeper life* so" largely on ideals which the Greeks brought.-into the world. .. . Again and again;- as' W.e'study Greek' thought aha literature, behind the veil woven by - time and - distance, the_face that greets us is our own. " .'. For-tKieso' reasons we, are-to-day in a positionI,' as noi other age has been, to understand ancient1 Greece, to learn ■ the lessons that it teaches, and, in studying the ideals and fortunes', of mein with whom- we have bo much 'm\ common,'to gain a fuller powet .of-., understanding and • estimating ■".pur own." ••'■": "' ■ ■•' :-;:-

Time'was when no man dared call himself educated without the "humanities,"' that is, 'tho classics. Followed a reaction, with loud cries- of;p "What's,"thp use7" Greek civilisation,!in. nianjvquarfers, was proclaimed totally dead, and the classical domain of , education , denounced as an' example of conspicuous waste of time. But classical scholars/are not so, dull as they are painted.- 'Aroused to the; need ,of ■ showing. tho wo^th,,of, .studies; that wore ■ once taken for granted and then dismissed as useless, they "have a strong -case' to present, and in "The Legacy of Greece" they present it with vigour. ;" ■'.''.'.'. With tho exception of Henry Ford,' almost anyone wheii challenged ; will-admit-that no one can know very little about the present without knowing a very considerable lot- about: the past. Sir Gilbert Murray opens'fire in "The Legacy!- of Greece" with a brief for "The Value of Greece to the Future of the1 World,"'and ' he is followed by Biiientists,-- historians, and students of,. politics;-who' show * that the Greek elements in ourscientific-'and social thought, .as well' as-in-the more familur realms of literature, art,- pbilo- ' sophy, and;religion, .are still vital, e. After reading this collection- of -tisti- . mony he is an impervious modernist in-' i deed who dares to say, "What's H«cub*i to me?"-. •-■•,. .-...'..■