278. This experiment will not, however, be long continued; since, with the large majority of pupils, the difficulties accumulate so rapidly as to lead unavoidably to the admission that the burden cannot be assumed merely for the sake of incidental advantages. Moreover, the customary view, handed down from the time of the Reformation, of the relation of the classical languages to the sciences, and to the needs of the age, is undergoing a change more and more apparent from decade to decade. The labor implied in the study of the ancient languages now pays only where talent combines with the earnest purpose to achieve the most complete scholarship. This remark is prophetic of the enormous increase of instruction in the sciences since Herbart’s day, yet Latin has also enjoyed a phenomenal increase in popularity in American schools. According to the Report of the National Commissioner of Education the increase of enrollment in high schools for the years between 1890 and 1898 was 84 per cent, while the increase in the number of students pursuing Latin was 174 per cent.[37] This surprising growth in the number pursuing an ancient language can hardly be accounted for by increased stringency in college entrance requirements in Latin, but must rather be ascribed to a growing conviction among the people that the study is indispensable in secondary education. That this must be the case is seen by the attendant circumstances. In the first place, Latin has become an elective in nearly all high schools; in the next place, many rich equivalents are offered, both in science and in modern languages; and finally our system of universal elementary education has sent large classes of persons into the secondary schools that have never previously been there. Yet the number of students electing this study grows by leaps and bounds. =Note.=--(1) The assertion is often heard that the ancient languages supply a permanent standard by which to judge of the progress and the decay of modern languages; also that the ancient classics must be regarded as furnishing the models for purity and beauty in style. These and similar contentions are undeniably correct, and carry the greatest weight, but they are unpedagogical. They embody the absolute requirement, but not that which younger pupils need for _their_ culture; and the large majority of those who are fitting themselves for official positions cannot afford to make themselves guardians of language and style. They must take language as it is, and acquire the manner of expression which is adapted to the world of affairs. Those higher cares belong to authors, but no one is educated for authorship.