A great thanksgiving meeting (postponed till "Summer-time" on account
of the shortage of artificial heat) was held at the Albert Hall last
Saturday to celebrate the dethronement of Greek at Oxford. Mr. H.G.
WELLS presided, and there was a numerous attendance.
Mr. WELLS, while he struck and maintained a jubilant note throughout
his eloquent speech, tempered enthusiasm with caution. The Grecians,
he said, like the Greeks, were wily folk and capable of shamming dead
while they were all the while scheming and plotting to restore their
imperilled supremacy. Indeed he knew it as a fact that some of the
most infatuated scholars actually voted against compulsion, simply to
confuse the issue. Still, for the moment it was a great victory, a
crushing blow to Oxford, the stronghold of mediaevalism, incompetence
and Hanoverianism, and an immense relief to the sorely-tried physique
of the nation. For he was able to assure them, speaking with the
authority of one who had taken first-class honours in Zoology, that
the study of Greek more than anything else predisposed people to
influenza by promoting cachexia, often leading to arterio-sclerosis,
bombination of the tympanum, and even astigmatism of the pineal gland.
(Sensation.)
Mr. PEMBERTON BILLING, M.P., speaking from the seat of an aeroplane,
said that he had found the little Greek he remembered from his
school-days not only no help but a positive hindrance to his advocacy
of a strong Air policy. The efforts of the Greeks as pioneers of
aviation were grossly exaggerated and, speaking as an expert, he
denounced these literary fictions as so much hot air. There were at
least forty-seven thousand reasons against Greek, but he would
be content with two. It didn't pay, and it was much harder than
Esperanto.
Mr. WILLIAM LE QUEUX in a most impressive speech said that he was
no enemy of ancient learning. Egyptology was only a less favourite
recreation with him than revolver practice. But Greek he could never
abide, and he was confirmed in his instinct by the fact that at all
the sixteen Courts where he had been received and decorated Classical
Greek was practically unknown. It was the same in his travels in
Morocco, Algeria, Kabylia, among the Touaregs, the Senussis and the
pygmies of the Aruwhimi Hinterland. He never heard it even alluded to.
Nor had he found it necessary for his investigations into the secret
service of Foreign Powers, the writing of spy stories, the forecasting
of the Great War or the composition of cinema plays. He had done his
best to procure the prohibition of the study of Greek in the Republic
of San Marino, and he was inclined to trace the present financial
crisis in that State to his failure. (Cheers.)
Mr. BERNARD SHAW struck a somewhat jarring note by the cynical remark
that it would be a very good thing for modern sensational authors if
Greek literature were not only neglected but destroyed, as some of the
Classical authors had been guilty of prospective plagiarism on a large
scale. He knew this as a fact, as he had been recently reading LUCIAN
in a crib and found him devilish amusing. (Uproar and cries of
"Shame!")
A moving letter was read from Lord BEAVERBROOK, in which the great
financier declared that, in arriving at the peerage at the age of
thirty-seven, he had found his inability to read HOMER freely in the
original no handicap or hindrance. He pointed out the interesting fact
that Lord NORTHCLIFFE, who reached a similar elevation at the age of
forty, had never composed any Greek iambics, though his literary style
was singularly polished.
It was felt that any further speeches after this momentous
announcement would inevitably partake of the nature of an anti-climax.
The Chairman happily interpreted the feeling of the meeting by hurling
a copy of _Liddell and Scott_ on the floor of the platform and dancing
upon it, and the great assembly soon afterwards dispersed in a mood of
solemn exultation to the strains of a Jazz band. As Mr. WELLS observed
in a fine phrase, "We have to-day extinguished the lights in the
Classical firmament."
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[Illustration: _Demobilised One (to massive lady about to make her
exit),_ "EXCUSE ME WOULD YOU MIND TREADING--ACCIDENTAL-LIKE--ON THAT
MAN'S TOES? HE USED TO BE MY SERGEANT-MAJOR."]
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