The questions involved in the use of "ponies" or litteral translations in the study of any language, are by no means easy to answer. With characteristic liberality, their use is often tolerated and even commended by many of the professors at Harvard. Indeed, when the object of a course is mainly literary and aims less at mere mental drill, it is difficult to see what objection can be urged to their use, and why their use does not result, on the whole, in a saving of time and labor. The traditional college training, with its strict academical customs, of course is very apt to regard with horror any toleration of the use of the ubiquitous "trot," and to set down such a liberty as a moral sin. What seems the most absurd manifestation of this sort of prejudice is the custom in vogue among the professors of Lehigh University, where the text books in use are immediately changed as soon as a "pony" is found. A standard which holds up the antique methods of classical training as the best is, perhaps, driven to this expedient.
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