But prescription and tradition are tenacious of their privileges. Greek has so long been regarded as the inheritance of philologists, that they are not prepared to resign what was once their exclusive possession, without a struggle. It is useless to point out to them that, if Greek is to maintain its place in modern education, it can only maintain it by virtue of its connection with the humanities, by virtue of its intrinsic value as the expression of genius and art, and of its historical value as the key to the development and characteristics of the classics of the modern world; by virtue, in fine, of its relation to life, and its relation to History and Criticism. The revival, indeed, of the _trivium_ and _quadrivium_ of the Middle Ages would not be an absurder anachronism than it is to draw no distinction between the functions and aims of classical scholarship, when it was, necessarily, confined to philologists and specialists, and its functions and aims at the present day. It has been the obstinate determination on the part of academic bodies not to recognise this distinction, but to preserve Greek as the monopoly of those who approach it only on the side of philological specialism, which has led to its complete dissociation in our scholastic system from what constitutes its chief, almost its sole title to preservation. At Cambridge, for example, it has been expressly excluded from the only School in which the study of Literature has been organized, and an attempt to substitute Modern Languages in its place--for a degree in arts--was only defeated by the intervention of non-resident members of the University. At Oxford a scheme for a “School of Literature,” in which Greek was to have no place, might, not long ago have been carried, and the casting vote of the proctor alone saved the University from this disgrace, and Greek from a crushing blow.[35] But, fortunately for the cause of Greek, there is every indication that a reaction, too strong for academic bodies to resist, is setting in. Scholars are beginning to see that what Socrates did for Philosophy must now be done for Greek, if Greek is to hold its own. Thus, it has preserved, and no doubt may preserve, its esoteric side; but that which constitutes its chief, its real importance--which justifies its retention in modern education--is not what appeals, and can only appeal, in each generation, to a small circle of “specialists”--its philological interest, but what appeals to liberal intelligence, to men as men, to the poet, to the philosopher, to the orator, to the critic. To this end, to what may be described as the vitalization of Greek, all the labours of the late Professor Jowett were directed; and by his means Plato, Thucydides, and Aristotle are brought into influential relation with modern life. What he effected for them Professor Jebb has effected for Sophocles, and not only has this unrivalled Greek scholar placed within