Hesperian student / (Lincoln [Neb.]) 1872-1885, May 01, 1878, Page 382, Image 10
mm ' 382 BKNB.VTII THE 8UUFACK. Vou vir, '18 BENEATH THE SUIiFAOE. In this ago of scientific development the inventive genius of man lifts been wonderfully displayed. Our commercial industries have never been surpassed. But their perfection has placed bounds to intellectual activity, nml underestimated the value of runner exploits. Wealth and ambition, laying aside their musks, have traveled the earth in every direction. No mountain has towered so high as to impede their progress. No sea has been so boisterous as to wreck their brazen bark. Grand are some of the achieve incuts of the present century, but doplo rable is the loss of those grander achieve mcnls Unit man has before attained. The historian is startled at the marve lous events that he must record. "What" he exclaims, " is the cause of all these mighty works or man? Wheie is the source or this mighty stream or progress ive industry?" Down, twenty centuries beneath the surface of modem civiliza tion is a tleld that every generation since has reaped without sowing, and utilized without due appreciation. I rerer to that land upon whif.h first dawned the elements or a higher civilization, that city which shone the brightest with hu man intellect, and became the home or the eloquent, the learned and the brave. That city is ancient Athens. Here is the fountain of our national and social institutions, the pride of the nine teenth century. Here nre the schools of Letters, of Philosophy and of Law, that to-day far back in the dark cavern gleam out in their ancient splendor to guide us on the way. The influence of the Greek states upon modern civilization is indeed wonderful. No standard literature of the English language is without n tinge or Attic beau, tv. Our best proso writers have i mi luted the Greek biography or philosophy. Our style or poetry is only a modification of the Lyric, the Epic and the Choral ver- .. i t ... ... . scs. i no moacrn uisioriun is uui too ea ger to imitate the style of his predecessor. Tlie poet, witli no thought of excelling, has striven in vain to equal the works of Homeric genius. The rhetoric and logic of Aristotle arc in substance the text books of modern instruction. The per rcction that the Greek attained In litera ture, in the rhetorical art, and in oratory is one of the greatest features of their civ ilization. The drama, the origination and perfec tion of the Greek, has been the model for twenty-four hundred years. In vain have the dramatists or a later day attempted to excel the tragedies of Sophocles and the comedies of AriMophenes. The beauty of their works tills our minds with admi ration. In art, the pre-eminence of the Hellenic race is acknowledged by the whole civi. liz'cd land. Go to Florence, to Naples and sec how much more precious tli..n gold is the statuary chiseled by Attic hands. Go to the Vatican at Koine, the pirate of Athenian wealth, and you will observe that high above the works of mod em genius stands the perfection of Ilel lenic splendor. Here docs the pilgrim age or the modern sculptor terminate, and not until the beaut' of oriental per fection lias passed before his gaze, can he feel his inferiority to those masters that have nourished before him. Greece was indeed an accomplished teacher of art. The Parthenon, the grandest specimen of architecture that the world has ever seen, is to-day the study of the architect from every land. The mighty temple at Ephe sus has crumbled into dust, but a few rel ics of its vanished beaut' have allorded a style of architecture for all subsequent time. Alliens, the home of self-made men has bequeathed to us no principles of legisla tion that were not demonstrated by prac tice and stamped with the seal of success. No mould cast by the ambitious mon arch of the east, could ever be made to fit the liberties of the Greek confederacy