chapter xv: the study of greek and latin literature peculiarly useful in democratic communities

what was called the people in the most democratic republics of antiquity, was very unlike what we designate by that term. in athens, all the citizens took part in public affairs; but there were only 20,000 citizens to more than 350,000 inhabitants. all the rest were slaves, and discharged the greater part of those duties which belong at the present day to the lower or even to the middle classes. athens, then, with her universal suffrage, was after all merely an aristocratic republic in which all the nobles had an equal right to the government. the struggle between the patricians and plebeians of rome must be considered in the same light: it was simply an intestine feud between the elder and younger branches of the same family. all the citizens belonged, in fact, to the aristocracy, and partook of its character.

it is moreover to be remarked, that amongst the ancients books were always scarce and dear; and that very great difficulties impeded their publication and circulation. these circumstances concentrated literary tastes and habits amongst a small number of men, who formed a small literary aristocracy out of the choicer spirits of the great political aristocracy. accordingly nothing goes to prove that literature was ever treated as a trade amongst the greeks and romans.

these peoples, which not only constituted aristocracies, but very polished and free nations, of course imparted to their literary productions the defects and the merits which characterize the literature of aristocratic ages. and indeed a very superficial survey of the literary remains of the ancients will suffice to convince us, that if those writers were sometimes deficient in variety, or fertility in their subjects, or in boldness, vivacity, or power of generalization in their thoughts, they always displayed exquisite care and skill in their details. nothing in their works seems to be done hastily or at random: every line is written for the eye of the connoisseur, and is shaped after some conception of ideal beauty. no literature places those fine qualities, in which the writers of democracies are naturally deficient, in bolder relief than that of the ancients; no literature, therefore, ought to be more studied in democratic ages. this study is better suited than any other to combat the literary defects inherent in those ages; as for their more praiseworthy literary qualities, they will spring up of their own accord, without its being necessary to learn to acquire them.

it is important that this point should be clearly understood. a particular study may be useful to the literature of a people, without being appropriate to its social and political wants. if men were to persist in teaching nothing but the literature of the dead languages in a community where everyone is habitually led to make vehement exertions to augment or to maintain his fortune, the result would be a very polished, but a very dangerous, race of citizens. for as their social and political condition would give them every day a sense of wants which their education would never teach them to supply, they would perturb the state, in the name of the greeks and romans, instead of enriching it by their productive industry.

it is evident that in democratic communities the interest of individuals, as well as the security of the commonwealth, demands that the education of the greater number should be scientific, commercial, and industrial, rather than literary. greek and latin should not be taught in all schools; but it is important that those who by their natural disposition or their fortune are destined to cultivate letters or prepared to relish them, should find schools where a complete knowledge of ancient literature may be acquired, and where the true scholar may be formed. a few excellent universities would do more towards the attainment of this object than a vast number of bad grammar schools, where superfluous matters, badly learned, stand in the way of sound instruction in necessary studies.

all who aspire to literary excellence in democratic nations, ought frequently to refresh themselves at the springs of ancient literature: there is no more wholesome course for the mind. not that i hold the literary productions of the ancients to be irreproachable; but i think that they have some especial merits, admirably calculated to counterbalance our peculiar defects. they are a prop on the side on which we are in most danger of falling.