the ice, resplendent in the vigor of its own coloring, was a garden of grass, moss, and wild flowers-a veritable oasis in an ice wilderness. Fruitless would be the effort to depict the beauty of this scene, so wholly magical and weird did it present itself to the eye and mind. The long tufts of grass were twelve to sixteen inches in height, and all about were a wealth and profusion of flowers which would have done justice to the landscape of the full tropics.

Thus, in its quiet mood, does the Greenland glacier reveal itself in a form wholly different from that which the imagination paints it so different, in fact, that one is tempted to ask, Does it conform to the conditions of existence which have made glaciers

elsewhere? It unmistakably does, and these conditions have shaped all the forms of glacier, from the tiniest to the largest, from the quietest to the most wicked, to which the region has given birth. Probably all the forms of glaciers that exist in the world are represented in Greenland, and none are found there which might be said to embody a type of structure that is unknown elsewhere. Such as they are, they are but the remains of far more extensive ice sheets which, at no very distant period back in time, plowed far into the ocean deep, shaped much of the contours of the existing land surface, and perhaps even carved a relief of mountain and valley. The traces of past glaciation are everywhere apparent on the barren or uncovered shores, and troughs or water channels, thousands of feet in depth, bight deep into the

areas of continuous drift. How vast, manifestly, have been the changes which marked the landscape during and since the period of greatest ice! The period of recession seemingly still continues, but how far the results of this recession will extend can not be told.

The insignificant development of the ice cap, in its relation to the large glacial streams which radiate off from it, is so striking a peculiarity in some parts of Greenland as to have suggested the suspicion that many of the existing glaciers are merely relics of the great Ice age. Bessels, the accomplished scientist of the Polaris Expedition, indeed, gives voice to this feeling in explanation of the by no means insignificant glaciers of Herbert and Northumberland Islands, lying somewhat north of the seventyseventh parallel of latitude, which descend from an ice cap of eighteen hundred to two thousand five hundred feet elevation. It did not appear to him probable, or even possible, that the comparatively feeble accumulation of snow which is found at this elevation could originate ice streams of the dimensions. which are there found. The facts, however, show that there is no real basis for this interpretation. The snow covering of these islands belongs to themselves, and, feeble though it be, it is quite competent to explain the associated phenomena. Many of the "hanging glaciers" of Herbert Island, which descend over slopes of some thirty to thirty-five degrees, are so attenuated in their upper parts as to be almost extinguished before reaching the summer ice cap; yet basally they rapidly increase in dimensions, so that before they finally terminate they measure not less than forty to fifty feet in thickness. The slowly accumulating snows descend over the first-formed layers, whether by sliding or otherwise, and help to build up the base while they thin out the top. In all essential respects these hanging glaciers are identical in structure with the larger streams, and it is only in their narrow connection with the ice cap that they at all differ. I am indeed convinced that some of the minor glaciers have been formed without the assistance of any ice cap or of the accumulated snows of a névé basin; for such streams, which are seemingly not very numerous, the designation of ravine or couloir glaciers might, perhaps, be advantageously used.

Briefly recapitulated, the glacial phenomena of Greenland are the phenomena of all other glacial regions; they are not illustrative of new forces and involve no explanations that have not already been made familiar through the teachings of other countries.

PREPARATION FOR COLLEGE BY ENGLISH HIGH

THE

SCHOOLS.*

BY JOHN F. CASEY,

MASTER IN ENGLISH HIGH SCHOOL, BOSTON, MASS.

HE times in which we live are in many respects unlike any which have preceded them. New professions have arisen, old ones have lost their prominence; we live more in the present and less in the past. Recent investigations and discoveries in pathology and bacteriology have done much to increase the respect for and confidence in the practitioners of modern medicine, and have made of modern surgery almost a new science. Quacks may be as numerous as ever, but they rely for patronage upon the ignorant and credulous. The legal profession has taken no backward steps. But with those who undertake the formation of opinions, both spiritual and temporal, the condition of affairs is in many respects different. All the great questions relating to the welfare of the modern intellectual, social, and political world are now being brought up for discussion, and the traditional answers to them are no longer convincing or satisfactory. In the lack of respect for authority, which is so marked a characteristic of the present time, no person's mere dictum is obeyed, or accepted as true, unless he has the power to enforce or the ability, through knowledge, to establish the truth of his statements.

Journalism to-day does much of what was wont to be done by the clergyman and the schoolmaster. While there is no diminution in the respect paid to the sacred office of the preacher, his teachings upon doctrinal points are received cum grano, and each one for himself modifies pulpit teachings according to his own views. The world has become more liberal and tolerant. Material of which martyrs were wont to be made is becoming less and less abundant. The parson is no longer the chief source of supply of ideas, social, moral, and political, and is no longer ex officio chief man of the parish.

So, while the teacher of secular learning holds as teacher a higher place than ever before, yet, when he undertakes to act as adviser and tries to lay out a course of studies, his dictum does not obtain that confidence which it used to obtain. There arise doubts as to the soundness of the advice given, and suspicions that time and labor may be wasted through misdirection.

In elementary schools, and in technical and professional schools, the ends to be attained and the methods of attainment

* An address delivered before the Massachusetts Association of High and Classical School Teachers.

are comparatively clear and well defined. But the higher institutions of learning, which claim to train youth to engage to advantage in the struggle of life, to compete with their associates, and not only to carry off the prizes, but also to be examples of intelligence and refinement-these institutions, which claim to give what is expressed by the terms culture or a liberal education, find to-day a by no means unanimous agreement as to the best method of producing these results. Many a graduate, while thoroughly loyal to his alma mater, in looking back upon his college studies and considering their effect upon himself, has doubts as to the efficacy of some of his courses there, and questions with himself whether, were he to begin life again, he would, could he mold fate to suit himself, go over the same courses again. The advanced student of to-day knows pretty well what kind of instruction he wants, and will go where he can get it. The old, wellworn, and somewhat narrow path trod by his fathers does not satisfy him, and his demand for a change has brought about discussions which, if they have not yet found any practical solution, have at least changed and enlarged the prevailing view of the meaning and aim of a liberal education.

In the attempts at readjustment of the traditional college curriculum the principal attacks have been made, and it seems to me wisely, against the position of Greek in that curriculum. Individually, I have no feeling against Greek in its proper place. I suppose I do not know very much about the language, having like most graduates dropped the study as soon as possible in the college course, and having had little to do with it since. But for that very reason probably I prize what little knowledge I may possess of the subject in inverse ratio to the amount I have. And yet I can not but feel that if one half of the time I spent in studying Greek had been devoted to the study of my own language and the other half to physical labor, sawing wood, for example, I should have been happier at the time, should have had a better physical development, and very probably should never myself have realized the deficiency in my mental equipment.

Greek and Latin were prominent studies in the early European universities because these universities were ecclesiastical corporations; and when Christianity was first established by law the services of the Church were conducted throughout the western part of Europe in the language of those countries at the time, which was a corrupted Latin. After the Roman Empire was overthrown and Latin had ceased to be the language of any part of Europe, the reverence of the people still preserved the established forms and ceremonies, and the church services were still conducted in Latin. This necessitated the study of that language by the priests, so that, from the beginning, Latin made an essen

tial part of a university education. Both Greek and Hebrew were introduced later, when the Reformers found the original text more favorable to them than the Latin translations.

Greek and Latin thus introduced into the college course have maintained their prestige unshaken almost to the present time, and, having taken such high rank in the college course, the fitting schools have been compelled to arrange their courses to meet the demands of the colleges; so that till quite recently the curriculum of most secondary schools was composed mainly of three studies, Latin, Greek, and mathematics. An English teacher of classics of the present time, speaking of the head master of the school which he attended as a boy, says: "The doctor was a noble type of the old-fashioned English head master. He had a loathing for all scientific study, was utterly ignorant of modern languages, English literature of the day to him was non-existent, his lectures smacked of the last century with their long modulating periods and pauses Ciceronian. All information, historical, antiquarian, geographical, or philosophic, as connected with the classics, he regarded with contempt; any dunderhead, he considered, might cram that at his leisure; but it pained him to the quick if a senior pupil violated the Porsonian pause or trifled with a subjunctive. A word in your ear, doctor,' said an Oxford examiner once to him, 'your captain, yesterday, could not tell me where Elis was.' 'I looked horrified,' said the doctor in repeating the circumstance. 'I looked horrified, of course, but on my word I did not know it myself.' From his point of view a boy's chief aim in life was evidently to spend years in studying etymology, syntax, and prosody, and still other years in trying to write Latin verses, a thing which Cicero himself could not have done well."

6

The classical craze never obtained so strong a foothold in this country as in England, and it might be difficult to find, especially at the present time, any head master in America to whom the above description would apply, and yet I have known some, a composite photograph of whom would show many of the old doctor's prominent characteristics. Dr. Gardner, for many years the head master of the Boston Latin School, one of the largest and best fitting schools in this country, was not a mathematician, and whether or not well versed in modern languages, including English, he never wasted much time in teaching those subjects to the boys. But woe to the boy who did not know his Latin grammar from cover to cover; who could not write his Greek accents as readily as cross his t's in English; who had forgotten one of the irregular verbs; or who could not detect an Ionic or Doric form long before he knew why it was used, or whether or not anybody ever used it except on special occasions for special purposes!

VOL. XLVL-2