knowledge arid and unattractive.

I would try all sorts of experiments. I would make boys do easy
precis-writing; to give a set of boys a simple printed
correspondence and tell them to analyse it, would be to give them a
task in which the dullest would find some amusement. I should read
a story aloud, or a short episode of history, and require them to
re-tell it in their own words. Or I would relate a simple incident,
and make them write it in French; make them write letters in
French. And it would be easy thus to make one subject play into
another, because they could be made to give an account in French of
something that they had done in science or history.

At present each of the roads--Latin, Greek, French, mathematics,
science--leads off in a separate direction, and seems to lead
nowhere in particular.

The defenders of the classical system say that it fortifies the
mind and makes it a strong and vigorous instrument. Where is the
proof of it? It is true that it fortifies and invigorates minds
which have, to start with, plenty of grip and interest; but pure
classics are, as the results abundantly prove, too hard a subject
for ordinary minds, and they are taught in too abstruse and
elaborate a way. If it were determined by the united good sense of
educational authorities that Latin and Greek must be retained at
all costs, then the only thing to do would be to sacrifice all
other subjects, and to alter all the methods of teaching the
classics. I do not think it would be a good solution; but it would
be better than the present system of intellectual starvation.