Excerpt from Address Before the Alumni of Bowdoin College: July 8, 1873 When we of' the old time came to college we thought a clas sical culture a desirable accomplishment, and we came that we might acquire it. Very few, I think, of those among us who faithfully pursued, and so - at least partially - achieved the work have since changed their mind or repented their course. And such continued the prevailing sentiment during the whole periodof my connection with the College. But now, after an absence of a score of years, I return to find the air resounding all over the land with the cry down with the Greek, down with the clas sics, down with the mathematics a cry which, like a north east storm, has come drifting backward from the south and west, and has penetrated even to the heart of New England, until the President of the oldest University in the country is reported to have distinctly formulated the sentence for the entire abolition of the Greek, at least, from the course of studies required in college for the regular degrees. It is true the curriculum of the American college has all along included much besides the classics, or the classics and mathematics, physics, philosophy, logic, rhetoric, sciences, arts, history, literature and in our own college, for many years, the study of' the French and German languages and literature has been wisely added yet the basis and backbone of the whole was understood to be classical culture. Those other things have been gradually crowding upon this, and now, in the spirit of Frederic William, the demand is made that it be abolished altogether. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.