ma,
Pindar, etc. Similar courses on Roman civilization are given at both
Brown and Harvard. There is also a course of fifteen lectures on
"Greek Civilization" at Vermont; "The Culture History of Rome,
lectures with supplementary reading in English," at Washington
University; "Greek Civilization, lectures and collateral reading on
the political institutions, the art, religion, and scientific thought
of ancient Greece in relation to modern civilization," at Wesleyan;
"The Role of the Greeks in Civilization" at Wisconsin.[83]

=Defects of the lecture system=

Whatever success such courses may have, they are open to one
criticism. Most, if not all of them, appear to be primarily lecture
courses, with more or less collateral reading controlled by tests and
examinations. The experience of many, however, justifies to some
extent the belief that college students derive little benefit from
collateral reading controlled only in this way, because such reading
is commonly most superficial. Little mental training, therefore, is
involved in courses such as those just described, and the ideas which
the students acquire in them are chiefly those given to them by
others. And it may reasonably be doubted whether the value to the
students of ideas received in this way is comparable to the value of
those which they are led to discover for themselves. So far, then, as
such courses fail to accomplish the purposes for which they were
designed, their failure may be due wholly to this cause.

=The study of literature apart from its original language=

It is entirely possible to conceive of courses in which no use of the
ancient languages would be required, but in which the students would
acquire by their own efforts a knowledge of the classical literature
and civilization far more extensive and more satisfying than in
courses largely devoted to translating from Greek and Latin. Such
courses would not merely substitute English translations for the
originals, and treat these translations as the originals are treated
in courses of the traditional type; the ancient literature would be
studied in the same way as English literature is studied. For example,
in a course of this kind on Greek literature, in dealing with the
Odyssey the students would discuss in class, or present written
reports upon, the composition of the poem as a whole, and the relation
to the main plot of different episodes such as the quest of
Telemachus, his visit to Pylos an