uld be found for Latin, it must
be in that of the professional soldier, to whom, if to any one, the
language and literature of the most military people the world has ever
seen, should be of some service. But no! the wise men who framed the
curriculum of West Point, though they knew that the study of the campaigns
of the Romans would be serviceable to their students, provided for their
study, _not_ by the roundabout method of first learning a language which
could never be of any other use, but by the direct method of the study of
those campaigns! Are the pupils of West Point generally found deficient in
intellect? Is not, on the contrary, the fact of having graduated at that
school a passport to the _highest scientific_ and _practical_ employment?

Our duty to the people is clear; let us neither waste the precious time of
our youth on worse than useless studies, nor the money of the citizens on
worse than useless expenditure.

I do earnestly hope that our Committee will give to my observations their
most serious deliberation. Let us come to no hasty conclusion on this
subject: accustomed as we have been to hear constantly repeated such
conventional phrases as that "Latin and Greek are essential to the
education of a gentleman;" that "classical studies are indispensable to a
liberal education;" to hear applauded to the echo orators who have
introduced into their speeches quotations of bad Latin or worse Greek by
audiences of whom not one in one thousand understand what was said. We
have been apt to receive such phrases as embodying truths, without ever
examining their foundations. I respectfully urge the Committee to consider
well before they act, to study the reasons assigned by the great thinkers
I have named for condemning, as, humbly following in their wake, I venture
to condemn, as worse than mere waste of time, the years devoted to Latin
and Greek studies.

Let us endeavor to make the College of this city worthy of the city and of
the state; let us cast aside the trammels of mediaeval ignorance, and
supply to the pupils of the College "the culture demanded by modern life."
Let us in this, the first important matter which has come before our
Committee, act in harmony and without prejudice, for the welfare of the
College and "for the advancement of learning," and so prove ourselves
worthy of the sacred trust we have assumed.

I am, dear sir, very truly yours,

NATHANIEL SANDS,

_Member of "The Executiv