How would I mend all this?  Well, I would change methods in the first place.  If one wanted to teach a boy French or German effectively, so that he would read and appreciate, one would dispense with much of the grammar, except what was absolutely necessary.  In the case of classics it is all done the other way; grammar is a subject in itself; boys have to commit to memory long lists of words and forms which they never encounter; they have to acquire elaborate analyses of different kinds of usages, which are of no assistance in dealing with the language itself.  It is beginning with the wrong end of the stick.  Grammar is the scientific or philosophical theory of language; it may be an interesting and valuable study for a mind of strong calibre, but it does not help one to understand an author or to appreciate a style.

Then, too, I would sweep away for all but boys of special classical ability most kinds of composition.  Fancy teaching a boy side by side with the elements of German or French to compose German and French verse, heroic, Alexandrine, or lyrical!  The idea has only to be stated to show its fatuity.  I would teach boys to write Latin prose, because it is a tough subject, and it initiates them into the process of disentangling the real sense of the English copy.  But I would abolish all Latin verse composition, and all Greek composition of every kind for mediocre boys.  Not only would they learn the languages much faster, but there would be a great deal of time saved as well.  Then I would abolish the absurd little lessons, with the parsing, and I would at all hazards push on till they could read fluently.

Of course the above improvement of methods is sketched on the hypothesis that both Greek and Latin are retained.  Personally I would retain Latin for most, but give up Greek altogether in the majority of cases.  I would teach all boys French thoroughly.  I would try to make them read and write it easily, and that should be the linguistic staple of their education.  Then I would teach them history, mainly modern English history, and modern geography; a very little mathematics and elementary science.  Such boys would be, in my belief, well-educated; and they would never be tempted to disbelieve in the usefulness of their education.

When I propound these ideas, my colleagues talk of soft options, and of education without muscle or nerve.  My retort is that the majority of boys educated on classical lines are models of intellectual debility as it is.  They are uninterested, cynical, and they cannot even read or write the languages which they have been so carefully taught.

What I want is experiment of every kind; but my cautious friends say that one would only get something a great deal worse.  That I deny.  I maintain that it is impossible to have anything worse, and that the majority of the boys we turn out are intellectually in so negative a condition that any change would be an improvement.