“Granted, granted,” broke in Hardman, impatiently poking the fire. “You can't say anything about Germany too severe to suit me. Whatever she needed to keep her from committing the criminal blunder of this war, it is certain that she did not get it. The blunder was made and the price must be paid. But what I say now, as I said at the beginning, is that Latin and Greek are dead languages. For us, for the future, for the competitions of the modern industrial and social era, the classics are no good. For a few ornamental persons a knowledge of them may be a pleasing accomplishment. But they are luxuries, not necessaries. They belong to a bygone age. They have nothing to tell us about the things we most need to know--chemistry and physics, engineering and intensive agriculture, the discovery of new forms and applications of power, the organization of labor and the distribution of wealth, the development of mechanical skill and the increase of production--these are the things that we must study. I say they are the only things that will count for success in the new democracy.” “That is what _you_ say,” replied Professor De Vries dryly. “But the wisest men of the world have said something very different. No democracy ever has survived, or ever will survive, without an aristocracy at the heart of it. Not an aristocracy of birth and privilege, but one of worth and intelligence; not a band of hereditary lords, but a company of well-chosen leaders. Their value will depend not so much upon their technical knowledge and skill as upon the breadth of their mind, the clearness of their thought, the loftiness of their motives, the balance of their judgment, and the strength of their devotion to duty. For the cultivation of these things I say--pardon the apparent contradiction of what _you_ said--I say the study of the classics has been and still is of the greatest value.” “What did George Washington know about the classics?” Hardman interrupted sharply. “He was one of your aristocrats of democracy, I suppose?” “He was,” answered the professor blandly, “and he knew more about the classics than, I fear, you do, my dear Hardman. At all events, he understood what was meant when he was called 'the Cincinnatus of the West'--and he lived up to the ideal, otherwise we should have had no American Republic.