LOUVAIN AND GREEK.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue LXVIII, 15 October 1914, Page 2

LOUVAIN AND GREEK.

| It has been ingeniously stated that the ancient University of Louvain has Hot always enjoyed a reputation1 for 'eminence in. every province of learning. . In ilie Vicar of Wakefield, I George Primrose, the eldest son, has i a very Goldsmithian tour on the Conj tinent. He was deluded by a friendly sea captain into the belief that if he drossed to Amsterdam he would find ; many of the Dutch easer to learn English. But on arrival, after having paid his passage with half his "movr j ables," he made the not very startling j discovery that if he were ever to teach j the Dutchmen English, it would .be necessary that they should first teach him Dutch. He then moved on to Louvain,. having heard that there were not two men in the whole university . who understood Greek, which he was ' qualified to teach. But he was again doomed to disappointment. The Principal of the University turned him down iri the following style: "You see me, vounp: man; I have never learned Greek, and I don't find that I have missed it. I have had a doctor's cap and gown without Greek; I have ten thousand florins'a. year without Greek;' I eat heartily without Greek, and, in short, as I don't know Greek, I do not believe, there is any good in it." It would seem that once upon a time there really was an onenino; for "cultuve.".. O-eripsnv or otherwise, in the old Belgian University.