Many people who would welcome an opportunity to get on nodding terms with Greek are repelled by the austerity of the traditional Greek Course. They want to be able to read, not to write, Greek. The long apprenticeship of translating sentences from English into Greek is for them a tedious irrelevance that stands between them and their limited objective. Many, it is to be feared, turn away sorrowfully from the prospect, and are the poorer in consequence. [from the Preface]

Isolationism we hope is dead and buried for ever. No one believes now that it is possible or proper to withdraw from the world of his fellow human-beings, confining his interest to his country-men, his habits of thought and his own language. Suppose that this view is denied. We will return with another question. Does it pay to be an Isolationist in time? Is it possible, in other words, to believe that the achievements of the age in which we happen to live alone merit our attention? Is it right to allow greatness to the twentieth century only? Unless this insular view is taken, one must concede that humanity has had its great moments before today, and that these are as well worth our study as we hope our own will be worth posterity's. [from the Introduction]