grammatical errors and phrases literally translated from French in the works of their rivals, and proposing their own alternative sets of rules. In this climate of academic discord it was difficult for the educational authorities to know what grammatical rules to teach in the few years of primary education available to most Greeks. The matter was settled in 1856 when a royal decree re-affirmed the decisions of 1834 and 1836 and laid down, "As the Grammar of the Greek language... that of the ancient language alone is prescribed" for teaching in primary schools; it was the only consistent set of rules with a status that all could agree on. Meanwhile, although the details were under continual dispute, the drift towards the archaic continued; to men who visualized the language as a magnificent building in need of restoration, the structure would always seem ugly and incomplete until the last piece had been slotted back into place. By 1877 the diplomat and Katharevousa poet could write: ... We are convinced, now that the dative has become generally accepted, that the future, which is already in use among the better writers, will follow it, and that the infinitive, on the increase in many quarters, will follow this in turn, together with the negative particles... This extract is from the introduction to Julian the Transgressor (Ιουλιανός ο παραβάτης: ποίημα δραματικόν), the "dramatic poem" in which Rangavis attempted to re-introduce the long-disused infinitive into poetry. Although this author was an extreme example, his linguistic ambition had been widely shared; Skarlatos D. Vyzantios, well known for his 1835 dictionary of demotic, had written as late as 1862 that "resurrection from the dead of our paternal language is our sweetest dream." Rangavis himself continued to write ever more archaic virtuoso works, notably the "remarkable and futile" Theodora (1884). But in the event, he was to be one of the last archaists in Greek literature—"remarkable and futile" is Mackridge's evaluation. Consequences for language and literacy Almost all of these writers "subscribed to the frequently expressed argument that as long as the (the common people) could passively comprehend a certain usage, then this was sufficient justification for adopting it; the question whether the could actively handle such a usage was usually ignored." (emphasis in the original) (Mackridge 2009 p. 185) In practice, even after fifty years of exposure to them and given several years of Ancient Greek grammar lessons