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What Professor Huxley
says, implies just the reproach which is so often brought against the
study of _belles lettres_, as they are called: that the study is an
elegant one, but slight and ineffectual; a smattering of Greek and Latin
and other ornamental things, of little use for any one whose object is
to get at truth, and to be a practical man. So, too, M. Renan talks of
the "superficial humanism" of a school course which treats us as if we
were all going to be poets, writers, preachers, orators, and he opposes
this humanism to positive science, or the critical search after truth.
And there is always a tendency in those who are remonstrating against
the predominance of letters in education, to understand by letters
_belles lettres_, and by _belles lettres_ a superficial humanism, the
opposite of science or true knowledge.
But when we talk of knowing Greek and Roman antiquity, for instance,
which is the knowledge people have called the humanities, I for my part
mean a knowledge which is something more than a superficial humanism,
mainly decorative.


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