OUR DEBT TO GREECE.

Waikato Times, Volume 96, Issue 15033, 2 September 1922, Page 11 (Supplement)

OUR DEBT TO GREECE.

FOUNDATIONS OF KNOWLEDGE. (By “Trident.") A controversy lias for many decades raged among educationists as to the superiority or'otherwise of a “classical” education, which tends more and more lo run in favour of the modernists. This has received a new fillip by the publication of a volume of essays, entitled “The Legacy of Greece,” under the editorship, of Mr R. W. Livingstone, to which Gilbert Murray lias contributed the first paper. A Fine Greek . Scholar.

Professor Gilbert Murray is probably the finest Greek scholar living; he is certainly the most eminent British one. But he is more. He is a poet, and his poetic insight, coupled to his almost uncanny power of entering into and interpreting the Greek ideals, has enabled him lo translate into English verse not only the words, but the very spirit willed animates them, of the three great tragic poets of Greece. Who that lias sread them can fail to thrill to the haunting beauty of his rendering of ihe “Bacchae” of Euripides or read unmoved of the worship of the Bacchanals when

. . . All the mountain felt And worshipped with them, and the

wild things knelt And ramped and gloried, and the

. wilderness Was filled with moving voices and dim stress.

Who is there, again, but he who “hath no music in his soul” who does not feel the magic of the old pagan doctrine so beautifully expressed:

. . .Happy he, on the weary sea, Who hath fled the tempest and won the haven, < . . . But wlio’er can know, as the long days go, That to Jive is happy, hath found his Heaven.

And who that has had the privilege of seeing that most , poignant and tremendous drama, “The Trojan Women,” as translated .by Gilbert Murray, will ever forget it? We would naturally expect, then, from one who has so rich a love and ■knowledge of the Greek authors an almost passionate plea that they should be placed foremost on the scholastic syllabus, and that whatever else must-go, they, at least, must he regained. But this is not so. Professor Murray, it is true, in his presidential address, “Religio Grammaliei: The Special Religion of a Man of Letters,” delivered to the Classical Association a little over four years ago, stated that “any person ambitious of obtaining some central grasp on ihe Grammata (letters) of the human race would always do well to put a good ideal of the study into Greek literature (and) ... if he is a member of our Western civilisation, the reasons for studying Greek and Latin increase and multiply.” This thesis he worked out* in his address with eloquent ability; hut he goes no further. He is never dogmatic on the subject. So long as the student devotes attention to the Greek and Latin authors —particularly the former—and to the history of their respective countries, he may do it, if it tio pleases him, in translation or in whatsoever reliable manner may best suit tlie circumstances of his case. Gilbert Murray himself knows and loves with. Lang “Hie surge and thunder 'of the Odyssey”; but he knows also that it was Horner in translation that inspired Keats’ immortal sonnet. An Incalculable Debt. What we owe to Greece is incalculable, and can never be repaid. It is this indebtedness which forms the theme of the essays in “The Legacy of Greece,” all of which make interesting reading, and all of which ure as sound as they are readable. The thesis of the hook is expressed by the editor in bis preface in these words: “If the Twentieth century searched through Hie past for its nearest spiritual kin, it is in Hie fifth and following centuries before Christ that they would find it.” And as tiiat period synchronises with the palmy days, of Greece, it -follows—if the thesis is proved —that civilisation today and the Grecian civilisation of two thousand years ago are in essence very closely allied. In proof of this proposition arc given, not only Hie article of Professor Murray, buL also the articles of many other eminent scholars and scientists. Thus Professor D’Arcy Thompson, F.R.S., of St. Andrew’s University, and Mr Charles Singer, lecturer in Hie hisl'ory of medicine at University College, prove beyond question that in Hie study of nature the methods of those old Greeks were “often more truly scientific” than those of. any other body of investigators up Lo and inclusive uf the mid-Victorian era. It is only of late years —since Darwin, say—that our methods have approximated to those of Aristole in Hie quest of truth and science. In mathematics, and even in astronomy, the Greeks “laid Hie foundations ol‘ all our present knowledge,” and Sir T. L. Heath, F.R.S., in his essay, proves that “they actually used the methods of the Infinitesimal Calculus.” Primal Importance of Science.

In medicine, in literature, and in the arts, in law, and in political economy, .our debt is also undeniable; but it is in what we technically know as “science” that our legacy from Greece is largest. For Hie Greek spirit was scientific from first to last, “never allowing sentiment or instinct lo usurp the place of reason even in the 'criticism -of public and privale conduct.” Although all I lie contributors to this volume of essays acknowledge this fact in words more or less similar to those quoted above, it is a strange thing that, many of them —but not including Gilbert Murray—advocate the “compulsory classics” system in education, and protest against the growing tendency to regard science as more important Ilian Greek. The i -.reeks themselves never had any (loiit)| about the primal importance of science, it is, of course, obvious (Pal |lie dispute as it exists to-day cudd not. have Worried them, for they were in the fortunate position of having no ancient classic, language to consider. But there can be little doubt that in somewhat the words ot E. B. Osborn ,upun this matter, they would say to us: “What we did and said may matter much to you, but in what language we said it can matter liltle.” As Professor Murray says, ‘•the modern world must always renew its you 111 and strength bv re,gaining touch with Hie Greek spirit.” u *- *oj-it which counts