ML 88.74.3 777-2800 HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY 1884 Nov. 17; Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. NOTICE. It is remarkable that no place has been given in the schools and colleges of England and America to the writings of the early Christians. For many centuries, and down to what is called the Pagan renaissance, they were the common linguistic study of educated Christians. The stern piety of those times thought it wrong to dally with the sensual frivolities of heathen poets, and never imagined it possible that the best years of youth should be spent in mastering the refinements of a mythology and life which at first they feared and loathed, and which at last became as remote and unreal to them as the Veda is to us. Classical Philology, however, took its ideal of beauty from Pagan Greece, and it has filled our schools with those books which are its best representatives. The modern Science of Language has again changed the point of view. It gives the first place to truth; it seeks to know man, his thoughts, his growth; it looks on the literature of an age as a daguerreotype of the age; it values books according to their historical significance. The writings of the early Christians embody the history of the most important events known to man, in language not unworthy of the events; and the study of Latin and Greek as vehicles of Christian thought should be the most fruitful study known to Philology, and have its place of honor in the University Course. The present Series owes its origin to an endowment |