"I call all teaching _scientific_," says Wolf, the
critic of Homer, "which is systematically laid out and followed up to
its original sources. For example: a knowledge of classical antiquity is
scientific when the remains of classical antiquity are correctly studied
in the original languages." There can be no doubt that Wolf is perfectly
right; that all learning is scientific which is systematically laid out
and followed up to its original sources, and that a genuine humanism is
scientific.
When I speak of knowing Greek and Roman antiquity, therefore, as a help
to knowing ourselves and the world, I mean more than a knowledge of so
much vocabulary, so much grammar, so many portions of authors in the
Greek and Latin languages; I mean knowing the Greeks and Romans, and
their life and genius, and what they were and did in the world; what we
get from them, and what is its value: That, at least, is the ideal; and
when we talk of endeavouring to know Greek and Roman antiquity, as a
help to knowing ourselves and the world, we mean endeavouring so to know
them as to satisfy this ideal, however much we may still fall short of
it.
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