iliiiliii SKRKfiLEY. CAUFORfillAi AMERICAN TEACHERS SERIES EDITED BY JAMES E. RUSSELL, Ph.D. DEAN OF TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY THE TEACHING OF LATIN AND GREEK IN THE SECONDARY SCHOOL BY CHARLES E. BENNETT, A.B. AND GEORGE P. BRISTOL, A.M. PROFESSORS IN CORNELL UNIVERSITY amerufftt JEtncftev^ ^tviti The Teaching of Latin ^hd Greek in the Secondary School BY CHARLES E. BENNETT, A.B. AND GEORGE R BRISTOL, A.M. PROFESSORS IN CORNELL UNIVERSITY New Impression LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 91 AND 93 Fifth Avenue, New York LONDON AND BOMBAY 1903 c c c c « • • .,^\ ^\ ? • « \>>^ ^ V EDUCATION DEPT? Copyright, 1899, By Longmans, Green, and Co. First Edition, May, 1901. Reprinted, March, 1903. UNIVERSITY PRESS . JOHN WILSON AND SON • CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. TO BENJAMIN IDE WHEELER IN FRIENDSHIP AND ESTEEM C. E. B. G. P. B. 440S4 Editor's Preface Secondary education is no new thing. Human soci- ety has always granted commanding positions to men who were qualified by natural ability and special train- ing to lead their fellows. With advancing civilization the need of specially trained leaders became increas- ingly apparent; schools were eventually established to meet this need. Such institutions, however rudimentary their course of instruction, were essentially secondary schools. Thus the schools of the grammarians and rhetoricians were calculated to develop leadership in the forum at a time when oratory was a recognized power in the political life of Greece and Rome. Later in the Middle Age the Church became the dominant social force, and gave rise to cathedral and monastic schools for the education of the clergy. With the founding of universities, however, the secondary schools took over the preparation of promising youths for professional study in the interests of Church and State. And this function has continued to be the chief characteristic of secondary education until the present time. The modern elementary school, on the other hand, is of comparatively recent growth. In a certain sense every man is educated, but historically the education of Vlli EDITOR'S PREFACE the masses comes for the most part through custom and tradition and the ordinary experiences of Hfe. Schools for the people and formal instruction are not required until there is universal recognition of individ- ual worth, such as the worth of the human soul which inspired Luther to found the elementary schools of Germany, or the worth of the citizen and his political rights under a representative government which led to the public schools of America and England. The recognition of such rights by a democratic society obvi- ously leads to a complete school system in which the line of demarcation between its various divisions, as ele- mentary, secondary, and higher, is arbitrarily drawn. The ideals which determine the growth of educational systems never remain long fixed ; they change from age to age to conform to the development of the political, economic, and spiritual Hfe of a people. The mediaeval school system was quickly overthrown in Protestant countries by the combined influence of the humanists and the reformers. And the Protestant schools, in turn, held undisputed sway only so long as their reli- gious ideals found popular support. Within the last hundred years another transformation has been effected in the educational ideals of the western world, and new school systems have been evolved under the direction of the State for the purpose of promoting civil order and social stability. The social mind has come to recognize the fact that the Church is no longer able to shape society as it once did ; and it also recognizes that each generation is under moral obligations to im- prove its cultural inheritance and transmit it unentailed. EDITOR'S PREFACE IX Hence the resort to the strongest force in modern society for the accomplishment of this purpose. The process of sociaHzing the individual — of making him an efficient, intelligent, loyal member of society — has no mean significance. The end in view is one of the greatest of human needs ; and it is equally the concern of every parent and every citizen. School reform, however, never amounts to complete revolution. The organization and administration of school systems may be revolutionized by ministerial rescript, as in Prussia during the Napoleonic wars, or by act of Parliament, as in England within the past thirty years, or by the adoption of a constitution, as in many American states, but the instruction of children cannot be reached by legal enactment or popular vote. The average teacher will consistently conform to the letter of the law and as persistently violate its spirit. The result is that long after new ideas are distinctly enunciated, even after they are generally accepted by intelligent persons, the strangest confusion often per- vades the class-room. Teachers are naturally conserva- tive; they can teach only what they themselves have learned, and the traditions of the profession combined with their own acquired habits incline them to teach as they themselves have been taught. Thus the prevailing means and methods of instruction do not always con- form to the accepted standards of education, and reform is halted midway in its course. Great progress has been made in recent years, but the results which show up so well on paper are not in all respects satisfactory. We have state school systems X EDITOR'S PREFACE well organized and thoroughly equipped ; we have, too, institutions in great variety serving ends of their own choosing. The growth has been in two directions, from the top downward and from the bottom upward. The colleges have dipped down into the lower strata and given rise to preparatory schools largely patronized by the favored classes of society ; the common schools, imbued with more democratic sympathies, have ex- panded into public high schools in which social distinc- tions have no place. The preparatory school aims to send its pupils to college ; the ways and means of best attaining this purpose are conditioned by what the col- lege wants and what it will accept. The American high school, in its effort to serve all classes, purports to be a school preparatory both for college and the ordi- nary avocations of life. One class in the community expects it to complete the educational structure begun in the common schools ; another class expects it to lay a substantial foundation for further academic training. Thus the confusion resulting from the natural conserva- tism of the teacher is worse confounded by conflicting social interests. In all the field of education there are no problems more difficult to solve than those pertaining to the work of the secondary school. What is the aim of secondary education? What is its function in modern society? What knowledge is of most worth? What means and methods produce the best results? Such questions as these come to every secondary teacher and demand an answer. The most encouraging sign of the times is the growth of a teaching profession pledged to EDITORS PREFACE xi study these problems intelligently and to find some rational solution of them. The •* American Teachers Series," the first volume of which is herewith presented, will review the principal subjects of the secondary school curriculum. The pur- pose is to discuss the educational value of each subject, the reasons for including it in the curriculum, the selec- tion and arrangement of materials in the course, the essential features of class instruction and the various helps which are available for teachers* use. These books are not intended to correct the faults of ignorant teaching ; they are not put forth as manuals of infallible methods. They are merely contributions to the pro- fessional knowledge necessary in secondary education. They are addressed to teachers of liberal culture and special scholarship who are seeking to make their knowledge more useful to their pupils and their pupils more useful to the State. JAMES E. RUSSELL. Teachers College, Columbia University, Contents THE TEACHING OF LATIN IN THE SECONDARY SCHOOL Page Introduction — Historical Position of the Study of Latin IN Modern Education i Chapter I. The Justification of Latin as an Instrument of Secondary Education 6 II. The Beginning Work 50 I. The Beginner's Book 51 II. Pronunciation 66 IIL The "Inductive" Method 80 IV. Reading at Sight 85 V. Unseen Translation 103 VI. What Latin Reading should Follow the Elementary Work? 106 in. What Authors are to be Read in the Secondary School, and in what Sequence? in 1. What Author should be Read First ? in II. Should Cicero Precede or Follow Virgil ? .... 119 III. Should Virgil's Eclogues be Read in the Secondary School ? 121 IV. Sallust 123 V. Ovid 124 VI. Five-year and Six-year Latin Courses 124 XIV CONTENTS Chapter Page IV. Conduct of the Secondary Work in Latin ... 131 I. General Points on which Emphasis should be Laid . 131 a. Translation 131 b. Subject Matter . .^ 133 c. Grammar 134 d. How Scientific should a School Grammar be } 141 e. The Grammar a Book to be Studied and Learned 144 II. Special Points to be Emphasized in Connection with the Different Latin Authors Read in the Secondary School 150 a. Caesar 150 b. Cicero 151 c. Virgil's JEneid 153 V. Latin Composition 158 Two Ways of Teaching it 158 The Purpose of Studying Latin Composition .... 160 Defects of the Newer Way 161 VI. Latin Prosody 175 Difficulties of Reading Latin Verse . 175 * Ictus ' not Stress 177 Points in which our Pronunciation of Latin fails to se- cure Quantitative Accuracy 182 VII. Some Miscellaneous Points 191 a. Roman History lOi b. Comparative Philology 195 c. Etymology 196 d. Illustrative Material 197 Books 197 Maps 201 Photographs and Casts 201 VIII. The Preparation of the Teacher 202 Concluding Note 213 CONTENTS XV THE TEACHING OF GREEK IN THE SECONDARY SCHOOL Page Introduction — The Aim of Greek Study in the High School 217 Chapter I. Pronunciation 225 Theory and Practice 228 Accent in Pronunciation 232 Pronunciation of Proper Names 234 II. The Beginning Work 240 The Two Methods 240 The First Paradigms 242 The Development of Syntax 247 The First Reading 253 III. Xenophon and Other Prose Writers — The Greek New Testament 256 The Conducting of Recitation 257 Omissions in the Anabasis 261 Further Prose Reading 263 The Greek New Testament 267 IV. Homer 271 The Problem of Selection 274 Reading of the Text 274 Interpretation of the Text 278 Translating Homer 282 English Versions of Homer 284 Homeric Language 292 What Portions to Read 294 V. Greek Composition 298 Object of Composition 300 Articulation of Clauses 301 Suggestions for Practice 305 XVI CONTENTS Chapter Page VI. Geography and History 30S History Part of Work in Greek 309 Importance of Correct Maps 310 Division of History into Periods 314 Modern Greece, Land and People 319 VII. Mythology and Art 321 Greek Mythology in English Literature 324 Greek Art 326 Materials for Illustration of Greek Art 328 The Teacher and his Work 330 Appendix 331 Index 333 Map of the Greek World Facing page 311 THE TEACHING OF LATIN IN THE SECONDARY SCHOOL BY CHARLES E. BENNETT, A.B. PROFESSOR OF LATIN IN CORNELL UNIVERSITY The Teaching of Latin in the Secondary School INTRODUCTION HISTORICAL POSITION OF THE STUDY OF LATIN IN MODERN EDUCATION BIBLIOGRAPHY. Paulsen, F. Geschichte des gelehrten Unterrichts auf den deutschen Schulen und Universitateu vom Ausgang des Mittelalters bis zur Ge- genwart. Leipzig. 1885. Second ed., 1897. Dettweiler, P., in Baumeister, A., Handbuch der Erziehungs- und Unterrichtslehre fiir hohere Schulen. Vol. iii. Didaktik und Methodik der einzelnen Lehrfacher, Erste Halfte, III. Lateinisch, p. 7 ff., 'Die geschichtliche Entwickelung des lateinischen Unterrichts.' It ^ is a sufficiently familiar fact that, whatever con- siderations now determine the retention of Latin as an instrument of the higher education, its „ ,^. . . 11 , , Position of place was not ongmally secured as the re- Latin in the suit of conscious deliberation and choice, but ^'^^^^^^^ purely as the result of irresistible historical circum- stances. The political, ecclesiastical, and literary con- ditions of the Middle Ages made the study of Latin indispensable to every person of station. Latin was the language of the Church, of the State, of law, of scholars, of the professions. It was studied there- fore in the monastic schools with the object of ac- 1 In this introductory chapter I have drawn largely upon the treat* ment of Dettweiler above cited. I ^;. '■,/ I ;/; \ I INTRODUCTION iqurnfi^,' ^ 'pi;aG'tical; mastery of the spoken Idiom for actual use. Pupils were trained in the preparation of letters and such other documents as the necessities of the political and ecclesiastical life of the day de- manded. Latin was not only the medium of instruction in the schools, but was also the medium of all conversa- tion. The Latin authors read served merely the pur- pose of increasing and improving the pupil's knowledge of the language and his facility in its employment The content of the Latin writers was practically disre- garded throughout the entire period of the Middle Ages. This conception of the function of Latin natu- rally determined the method pursued in teaching. As the Latin vocabulary was confessedly inadequate for the needs of the day, it became necessary to add new words, coined to cover new conceptions. These were incorporated in special vocabularies, which pupils com- mitted to memory. Mechanical oral reading was also extensively practised, — often before the pupils were capable of understanding what was read. Intended to serve merely mechanical purposes, Latin was studied exclusively in a mechanical way. Yet, irrational as the method seems to us, we can hardly deny that it was entirely consistent with the purposes which the study was at that time intended to subserve. Nor can we feel surprise that, with this conception of the function of Latin, there should have prevailed a low and almost barbarous standard in the employment of the spoken and written idiom. With the humanistic revival of the fourteenth and fif- teenth centuries there manifested itself an altered and The Human- ^ loftier conception of Latin study. This new istic Revival, conception was a natural and inevitable result of the fundamental spirit of the humanistic movement. While throughout the Middle Ages all intellectual life INTRODUCTION 3 had culminated in the ecclesiastical ideals of the scho- lastic philosophy, the new movement placed man, human capacities, human achievements, and human aspirations in the foreground. The great works of classical anti- quity were recognised as of vital importance in under- standing and solving the new problems. This conception of Latin as an instrument of educa- tion speedily wrought a revolution in methods of teach- ing. Hitherto both form and content of the Latin masterpieces had been neglected. Now both began to meet recognition. The great Latin classics were read and studied for their vital bearings on the intellectual life and aspirations of the new era. They were no longer primarily a means of acquiring a familiarity with the disjecta membra of the barbarous idiom which had till recently prevailed. Along with this appreciation of the substance of Roman thought went an appreciation for the form in which it was expressed. The spirit of the day was anti-barbarous to a degree. Correctness and elegance of diction came to be a passion with the Latinists of the time. This tendency naturally went too far, and we notice the beginning of an arbitrary exaltation of the Ciceronian manner of speech as the sole example worthy of imitation, — an attitude which unfortunately, despite frequent and vigorous protest, is still widely prevalent to-day. It is essentially this humanistic conception of Latin study which has prevailed in modern education since the Renaissance, flhe special details of devel- Latin in opment for Germany may be found pre- Recent Times, sented by a master hand in the work of Paulsen above cited. So far as I know, no such presentation of the historical stages of Latin study in any other European country is yet available. Probably in no other would 4 INTRODUCTION such a history have the interest or the historical and pedagogical significance afforded by the experience of the German schools. In the United States, Latin, as a study of the sec- ondary education, naturally started with purely English In the United traditions. These traditions fortunately were states. humanistic in the best sense. Still, for a long time Latin was thought to be peculiarly a study for boys who were preparing for college. In the earlier history of this country this meant that Latin was thought to have educative importance primarily for those looking forward to activity in the church, in letters, in the law, in medicine, or in teaching. During the last generation in particular a different attitude seems to be manifesting itself The number of students of Latin in our second- ary schools has in recent years been increasing out of all proportion to the number of students who go to college. Unless this phenomenon be attributed to an unaccount- able infatuation, it admits to my mind of but a single interpretation : Latin is now recognised as an important element of secondary education for the average pupil, whether he be intending to go to college or not. It is perhaps unfortunate that the present tendency to- wards a larger study of Latin in our schools cannot be traced to any recent sober discussions of the value of Latin ; in fact it is not a little surprising that this rapidly increased recognition has occurred in the face of the most vigorous assaults upon the classics which this country has ever witnessed. Yet experience is the great teacher, more convincing than all the argu- ments of the academicians. Is it too bold to say that the experience of those who have studied Latin and of those who have seen the positive results of the study upon others, is after all the ultimate reason which is at present so potent in winning increased recognition INTRODUCTION 5 for Latin? Whatever the cause of the existing con- ditions, they are with us. That they may be permanent is to be hoped. That there is abundant justification for their permanence, it will be the aim of the following chapter to show. • . t • > CHAPTER I THE JUSTIFICATION OF LATIN AS AN INSTRUMENT OF SECONDARY EDUCATION BIBLIOGRAPHY.i Ijaurie, S. S. Lectures on Language and Linguistic Method. Cam- bridge University Press. 1890. Chapter i. and particularly Chapter vii. Chapters on the Aims and Practice of Teaching, edited by Frederic Spencer. Cambridge University Press. 1897. Chapter ii., Latin, by W. L. Paton. Fouillee, Alfred. Education from a National Standpoint. London, Arnold. New York, Appleton. 1892. Handbuch der Erziehungs- und Unterrichtslehre fUr hohere Schulen, herausgegeben von A. Baumeister. Munich. C. H. Beck'sche Ver- lagsbuchhandlung. 1898. Didaktik und Methodik der einzelnen Lehr- facher. IIL Lateinisch, von P. Dettweiler. Boyesen, H. H. ; Brandt, H. C. G. ; Sachs, Julius ; Mackenzie, James C. ; and others, in Proceedings of the First Annual Convention (1893) of the Association of Colleges and Preparatory Schools in the Middle States and Maryland. Published for the Association. Philadelphia. 1894. pp. 38-64. Paulsen, Friedrich. Geschichte des gelehrten Unterrichts auf den deutschen Schulen und Universitaten. Leipzig. 1885. Veit & Comp. Particularly " Schlussbetrachtung." pp. 755-784- Harris, W. T. On the Function of the Study of Latin and Greek in Education. Journal of Social Science. 1885. Harris, "W. T. A Brief for Latin. Educational Review. April, 1899. Peck, Tracy. Discussion in School Review. 1893. PP- 593 ff- Shorey, Paul. Discipline vs. Dissipation. School Review. 1897. pp. 217 ff. Collar, "W. C. ; Burgess, Isaac ; Manny, Frank. Proceedings of the National Educational Association. 1896. pp. 563 ff. Bennett, C. E. Latin in the Secondary School. School Review. May, 1893. Spencer, Herbert. Education, Intellectual, Moral, and Physical London, Williams & Norgate. New York, D. Appleton & Co. 1861. 1 Only the more important recent literature is here cited. THE JUSTIFICATION OF LATIN 7 Bain, Alexander. Education as a Science. London, Kegan Paul & Co. New York, D. Appleton & Co. 1881. Planck, H. Das Recht des Lateinischen als wissenschaftlichen Bil- dungsmittel. Stuttgart. Schulprogramm. 1888. Schmeding. Die klassische Bildung in der Gegenwart. Berlin. 1885. Frary, R, La Question du Latin. Paris. 1890. James, Professor Edmund J. The Classical Question in Germany. Popular Science Monthly. January, 1884. Barnett, P. A. Common Sense in Education and Teaching. Chapter viii. London and New York. Longmans, Green, & Co. 1899. Jebb, R. C. Humanism in Education. (Romanes Lecture for 1899.) London. Macmillan & Co. 1899. Eliot, C. W. American Contributions to Civilization. New York. The Century Co, 1897. The question as to the educational worth of any study must always be a pertinent one. This is particularly true in the case of Latin, which has not only The Question for generations occupied a commanding place ^^°'® ^*- in the curriculum of American secondary education, but in recent years has even been winning enormously in- creased favour among us. Despite the extensive litera- ture on the subject, it has seemed necessary, at the beginning of this volume on the teaching of Latin in the secondary school, to examine afresh the title of Latin to the present respect it enjoys, and to state anew the reasons why it is of value in secondary education. Lest there be any misconception as to the subject of the chapter, it is desirable to emphasize at the outset that the value of Latin as a college study does not here enter into consideration. That question, interesting and im- portant as it is, seems to me entirely distinct from the question as to the value of Latin in the secondary school. At all events it is to the latter that the present discus- sion will be confined. The fundamental importance of the examination pro- posed hardly needs to be urged. For obviously the general method of instruction to be followed in teach- ing Latin must depend largely upon the results that 8 THE JUSTIFICA TION OF LA TIN the study is capable of achieving, and the teacher who fails clearly to apprehend the goal to be attained must necessarily pursue but a groping course in imparting instruction. The recent increase, too, in the number of pupils studying Latin in our secondary schools makes it of increasing importance to get clearly before our minds the functions and purpose of the study. The Statistics of the Commissioner of Education for the United States show that in the eight years prior to 1898 the number of pupils studying Latin in our secondary schools had increased 174 per cent, while the total en- rolment of pupils in the secondary schools for the same period had increased but 84 per cent. In other words, the study of Latin has increased more than twice as rapidly as has the enrolment of the secondary school. No thoughtful person can fail to be impressed by these figures. If Latin is not of basal importance in the secondary curriculum, then large numbers of students are making a prodigious error in pursuing the subject; and the sooner we understand this, the better for our civilization. If, on the other hand, the increase is the result of wise choice or even of wise instinct, we must, while rejoicing at the greater recognition Latin is secur- ing, at the same time admit our own vastly increased responsibility for its wise direction and promotion. Before considering the special reasons that exist in favor of studying Latin, let us first consider the function of lane^uae^e in general as an instrument of Educational j . Function of education. gSS^*^ '^^^ function of education is confessedly to prepare pupils to be useful members of society. To make them such, it is essential that they be taught to understand as fully as possible the nature and character of the national hfe — social, civil, political, religious — in which they are born or in which their lot THE JUSTIFICATION OF LATIN 9 is cast. To a certain extent, also, it is essential that they learn to apprehend the nature and character of the larger life of the race. What now is the instrument best adapted to the attainment of this end? It is language. As pointed out by Laurie {Lectures on Language and Linguistic Method, chapter i,), language is the supreme instru- ment in education, i. e. the higher education, because of its universal nature. It promotes intellectual dis- cipline and brings intellectual power, because the study of language brings us at every turn face to face, as nothing else does, with subjects and questions of in- tellectual concern and intellectual interest. Language deals with ideas, it touches perpetually on problems of the relations of man to man, of man to society, of man to the State. Its analysis demands refinement and nicety of thinking. So long then as ideas are impor- tant, and so long as the underlying conceptions which reflect the national life of a people are important, the supreme value of the mastery of these through language study will continue to be recognised. By the study of language is meant the study of one's own language ; but, as will be pointed out later in this chapter, this study of one's own language is achieved incomparably better by the indirect method of studying another language. Only so can the necessary processes of comparison be effectively instituted. To this it has often been objected that the Greeks, so con- significance spicuous for their brilliant civilization and of the Neglect 1 . M • 1 • 1 of Language their permanent contributions to the intel- study by lectual life of subsequent ages, studied no ^^^ Greeks. language but their own. An excited partisan,^ in the heat of discussion, once went so far as to assert, " Grant- 1 Professor E. L. Youmans in the Popular Science Monthly for December, 1883, p. 270, b. lO THE JUSTIFICATION OF LATIN ing the unapproachable perfection of Greek literature, and that the Greeks surpassed the world in philo- sophical acuteness, the invincible fact remains that they expended no effort in the study of foreign languages, and common sense declares it was because of it'' Obvi- ously, if " common sense " declared anything so absurd, it should explain to us why the Hottentots or the Eski- mos or the hordes of other barbarians who likewise know no language but their own, have not been similarly eminent for their contributions to human thought. As to the Greeks, it will probably always be impos- sible to account for the achievements of that wonderful people on the basis of their system of education. What they accomplished seems rather the result of an inex- plicable national endowment. Their fine aesthetic sense, their keen speculative capacity, are as difficult to ac- count for as the unique genius of the Romans for political organization, for government, and for law, or the profound sense of moral obligation to a higher power so impressively formulated by the Hebrews, — as difficult to. explain as the rise of a Charlemagne in the eighth century or an Alfred in the ninth. Great as the Greeks were by endowment, they certainly were not great for their attainments. With all their highly devel- oped aesthetic sense and their subtle speculative acu- men, they were manifestly deficient in the capacities which it is the function of modern education to develop, namely, a just understanding of the problems of society, an understanding which shall secure and promote the stability of the social and political organism. Had the Greeks been as well educated as they were highly gifted, it is likely that their own national life would have run a longer and a more glorious course, and that their great legacy to posterity would thus have been immensely increased. THE JUSTIFICATION OF LATIN II At all events, the fact that the Greeks, despite their neglect of language study, nevertheless attained a cer- tain national greatness in some directions, cannot be cited as disproving the educative value of such study for us to-day. What, now, are the reasons for studying Latin in the secondary school? What are the effects of the study upon the pupil that are at present so potent Reasons for not merely in maintaining its status but in studying extending its vogue? These reasons are several, and I shall enumerate them in what seems to me the order of their importance. First and foremost, I should say Latin is of value be- cause it confers a mastery over the resources of one's mother tongue.^ This mastery comes as the direct and necessary result of careful daily translation, — a process involving on the one hand a careful consid- jj-aining eration and analysis of the thought of the in the author read, and on the other a severe and ^"^^*^ laborious comparison of the value of alternative Eng- lish words, phrases, and sentences, with the consequent attainment of skill in making the same effective as vehicles of expression. No one, I think, will undertake to deny that the results here claimed are actual ; and it actual, it can hardly be denied that they constitute an important justification for the study of Latin. Training in English, then, as the result of careful translation from Latin is here set down as the first and most important reason for studying Latin. To my own mind this reason weighs more than all others combined, 1 This is not meant in the narrow sense of a mere understanding of the meanins^s of words ; it is the mastery of ideas of which words are but the symbols, and the assimilation of these into one's own intellectual life, that I have in mind. 12 THE JUSTIFICATION OF LATIN though several other excellent reasons for the study of Latin will be discussed later. Let us examine more in _Ajiaiysis of detail how translation from Latin gives such the Process, admirable training in English. Translation is a severe exercise. The lexicon or vocabulary tells the meanings of words, and the grammar states the force of inflected forms ; but it is only after the pupil, provided with this equipment, has attacked his Latin sentence with a view to translation that the real struggle begins. His vocabulary may have given him a dozen or even twenty meanings under a single verb or noun, and the pupil must reflect and nicely discriminate be- fore he can choose the right word, the one just suited to the context. Further, his Latin sentence may be long, complex, and periodic, entirely different in struc- ture from anything we know in English ; such a sentence must be broken up and so arranged as to conform to our English mode of expression ; or the Latin sentence may have one of those Protean ablative absolutes, — an idiom that our English style practically abhors. Every such ablative absolute has to be examined with care prior to an English rendering. It may express time, cause, concession, condition, attendant circumstance, means, or what not, and must be rendered accordingly. Again the Latin sentence may secure by its arrange- ment of words certain effects of emphasis which English can bring out only by the employment of very different resources. For the purpose of further illustration, let us take the opening lines of Nepos's Hfe of Miltiades, and note the problems that suggest themselves to the pupil's mind as he endeavours to secure a passable translation for the Latin. The text runs as follows: Miltiades, Cimonis filius, Atheniensis, cum et antiquitate generis et gloria majorum et sua modestia tinus omnium maxime floreret. THE JUSTIFICATION OF LATIN 1 3 eaque esset aetate ut non jam solum de eo bene sperare, sed etiam confidere cives possent sui talem eum futurum qualem cognitum judicarunty accidit ut Athenienses Cher- sonesum colonos vellent mittere. Probably the first stumbling-block to the pupil will be the proper rendering for modestia. The vocabulary gives ' moderation,' * modesty,' * temperance,' * humility,' ' discretion,' and the question is, which one of these represents the idea that Nepos is trying to convey. The pupil has to pause and consider. Reflection shows that ' humility ' will not do, and ' modesty ' is no better. These qualities hardly constitute a title to eminence. The pupil, therefore, turns to ' moderation ' or ' tem- perance.' The latter of these will hardly answer his purpose; it has an unfortunate acquired connotation suggesting predominantly an abstinence from strong drink. Nor will 'moderation' satisfy the pupil's sense of the demands of his native tongue, for we hardly speak of a man eminent for his moderation. Of the five words given for modestia, therefore, the last only, * discretion,* will answer in the present passage. The pupil then passes to the following words : unus omnium maxime. Their literal translation is easy, * alone of all especially ; ' but this is jargon, and clearly must be bettered in some way. By reflection, the pupil comes to see that * alone of all ' may be rendered by our * beyond all others/ or some other equally idiomatic phrase. But here a new problem presents itself, how to join * especially ' with ' beyond all others.* Possibly after a few trials the boy hits upon the device of rendering * far beyond all others.* Whether this phrase or another be chosen, however, may depend somewhat upon the rendering selected for floreret ; in fact at each point in a translation the ren- dering must be regarded as possibly only temporary; one's selection of words and phrases will often require 14 THE JUSTIFICATIOAf OF LATIN modification as a result of the rendering chosen for other parts of the same sentence. The pupil meets no further special difficulty until he comes to qiialem cog- iiitum judicanmt. Literally, * such as they judged him known.' In and of itself, the participle may mean * if known,* ' though known,' ' when known,' * since known.' All these possibilities, however, must be weighed be- fore a safe decision can be reached as to the actual meaning here. But I need not dwell further on the details of the process we are considering. Every teacher knows what it is ; he knows that it is serious work, often slow work, but he knows what it means to the pupil who submits to it. He knows that such a pupil is gaining a mastery over the resources of his mother tongue. Positive knowledge, except to a very limited degree, he is not gaining ; but he is learning what words mean ; he is learning to dif- ferentiate related concepts ; he is acquiring sense for form and style, and if he be so fortunate as to be en- dowed with any native gifts of thought himself when he reaches maturer years, he has that indispensable equip- ment of the educated man, — the capacity to say what he says with directness, clearness, precision, and effect. There has been a great outcry in recent years about the importance of English, and it has been one with which I think the body of thoughtful men have in large measure sympathized. All have cheerfully acknowl- edged the great importance of an ability to use one's native idiom with skill and power. It is because I sym- pathize so heartily with this sentiment that I enter this defence of translation. It is because translation from Latin to English seems to me such a stimulating, vitaliz- ing exercise, and so helpful to the student who would attain mastery of his own language, — it is because of this that I find full justification for the study of Latin. THE JUSTIFICATION OF LATIN 1 5 Perhaps I approach this subject with prejudice, but I can never forget the inspiration of my own early Latin training, nor ever fail in gratitude to the teacher who first suggested to me the boundless resources of our own language, who by his own happy and faithful ren- derings of Cicero and Virgil stimulated a little class of us to do our best to make our own translations show truth, and strength, and literary form. Can we afford to underrate the value of such discipline? How many a lad has felt his heart kindle and his ambition rise at some happy rendering by mate or teacher? And with what persistence these little niceties of phrase cling to us and influence us? Language is subtle. We cannot explain its charm by any philosophy. But it is the key to literature, and our own language must ever be the best key to our own literature. How finely Barrie has put this in his story of Tommy ! Who that has read that unique description of the essay-contest can have done so without feeling the profound truth it contains? You remember the scene in the old Scotch school-house, — how Tommy and young McLauchlan had been given paper and pen and set to work to write on '' A Day in Church" in compe- tition for the Blackadder Prize, and how at the end of the time allotted Tommy had brought himself to scorn for the lack of a word. ''What word?" they asked him testily ; but even now he could not tell. He had wanted a Scotch word that would signify how many people were in church and it was on the tip of his tongue, but would come no farther. " Puckle " was nearly the word, but it did not mean so many people as he meant. The hour had gone by like winking; he had forgotten all about time while searching his mind for the word. Then the friends who had been waiting in confident 1 6 THE JUSTIFICATION OF LATIN expectation of Tommy's victory begin their reproaches. His teacher, Cathro, is the first. " What ailed you at 'manzy'?" hecries/'or" — . "I thought of *manzy/" replied Tommy, wofully, for he was ashamed of himself, ''but — but a manzy 's a swarm. It would mean that the folk in the kirk were buzzing thegither hke bees, instead of sitting still." " Even if it does mean that," says another friend, " what was the sense of being so particular? Surely the art of essay-writing consists in using the first word that comes and hurrying on." " That 's how I did," proudly says McLauchlan, the victorious competitor. " I see," interposes another friend, " that McLauchlan speaks of there being a mask of people in the church. * Mask ' is a fine Scotch word." ** I thought of * mask,' " says Tommy, " but that would have meant the kirk was crammed, and I just meant it to be middhng full." " 'Flow' would have done," suggested another. '"Flow"s but a handful" " * Curran,' then, you jackanapes." " ' Curran' 's no enough." The friends throw up their hands in despair. " I wanted something between ' curran ' and ' mask,' " said Tommy, dogged, yet almost at the crying. Then Ogilvy, the master of the victorious McLauchlan, but whose heart is secretly with Tommy, and who with difficulty has been hiding his admiration, spreads a net for him. " You said you wanted a word that meant middling full. Well, why did you not say ' middling fuir or ' fell mask ' ? " " Yes, why not?" demanded the others. " I wanted one word," said Tommy. " You jewel," muttered Ogilvy under his breath. THE JUSTIFICATION OF LATIN 1 7 ** It 's so easy to find the right word," reproachfully adds another. "It's no', it 's as difficult as to hit a squirrel." Again Ogilvy nods approval. But Cathro, Tommy's master, can restrain himself no longer. In a burst of fury he seizes Tommy by the neck and runs him out of the parish school of Thrums. As the others offer their con- gratulations to Ogilvy, master of the victorious Mc- Lauchlan, the school door opens from without, and the face of Tommy, tear-stained and excited, appears once more. " I ken the word now; it came to me a' at once; it is ' hantle.' " " Oh, the sumph ! " exclaimed McLauchlan ; " as if it mattered what the word is now." But Ogilvy gives his McLauchlan a push that nearly sends him sprawling, saying in an ecstasy to himself: '' He had to think of it till he got it; and he got it." When Cathro savagely says, " I have one satisfaction ; I ran him out of my school," Ogilvy merely answers, " Who knows but what you may be proud to dust a chair for him when he comes back?" How many of us know well this quest for the right word ! How often we have struggled to find it when it was n't * puckle ' and it was n't ' manzy,' nor ' mask,' nor * flow,' nor ' curran,* but ' hantle ' ! Sometimes we have found it, sometimes we have missed it; but the quest has ever been honourable, and has helped us to find and know the way to truth. Cicero was well aware of the importance of what I am urging when he wrote those memorable words in his de Optimo genere oratonim. Despite his thor- cicero's ough familiarity with Greek, he confesses that Testimony, he found it a useful exercise to translate with care from Greek to Latin. In this way he prepared Latin versions of Demosthenes on the Crown and of Aeschines against I8 THE JUSTIP-ICATION OF LATIN Ctesiphon, not rendering word for word, but preserving- the style and spirit of these two orationes nobilissiniaey weighing their words, he adds, not counting them. Compare also what Lowell says. Speaking before the Modern Language Association in 1889, after a life of wide observation and careful reflection upon the Lowell. problems of education, he says : *' In reading such books as chiefly deserve to be read in any foreign language, it is wise to translate consciously and in words as we read. There is no such help to a fuller mastery of our vernacular. It compels us to such a choosing, and testing, to so nice a discrimination of sound, pro- priety, position, and shade of meaning, that we now first learn the secret of the words we have been using or mis- using all our lives, and are gradually made aware that to set forth even the plainest matter as it should be set forth is not only a very difficult thing, calling for thought and practice, but is an affair of conscience as well. Translation teaches, as nothing else can, not only that there is a best way, but that it is the only way. Those who have tried it know too well how easy it is to grasp the verbal meaning of a sentence or of a verse. That is the bird in the hand. The real meaning, the soul of it, that which makes it literature and not jargon, that is the bird in the bush, which tantalizes and stimu- lates with the vanishing glimpses we catch of it as it flits from one to another lurking-place : Et fugit ad salices et se cupit ante videri. Lowell may not have been a great teacher. His limi- tations in the class-room were probably very pro- nounced, but that, for all that, he possessed by nature and training a clear sense for what is vital and strength- ening in education, I am thoroughly persuaded. At all events, the words I have quoted are the ones I have THE JUSTIFICATION OF LATIN 1 9 .always heard commended when mention has been made of the address in which they are found. This transcendent importance of translation as bear- ing upon an increased mastery of one's vernacular is so generally recognised by educators that it seems worth while to cite a few further similar expressions of opinion as to its value. Thus we find Dettweiler de- ^ ^^^ „ daring (Baumeister's Handbuch der Erzie- himgs- und Unteimchtslehre, in. Lateinisck, p. 22) : ** We must not forget that the real strength of Latin instruc- tion Hes in the recognition of the wide difference of ideas, which is brought out in the choice of words and phrases as one translates from Latin to German. . . . These ends we must reach . . . hy a constant compari- son with the mother tongue} through the medium of a much more extensive employment of translation ^ than has heretofore prevailed." At a later point (pp. 54 ff.) Dettweiler dwells more fully upon this topic. After enumerating a number of special principles to be ob- served in translation, he goes on to say : " The proper treatment of these and many other points may exercise an absolutely enormous influence upon the pupil's German style. The Latin language in its means and modes of expression is so remote from our own, that the form of translation demands the exercise of a stylistic power the appHcation of which to the pupil must in future constitute one of the noblest tasks of the teachers in our Gymnasien. The experience of other countries which is often cited with approval may be utilized in Germany too. In France and Belgium 1 The italics are Dettweiler's, /. e. they correspond to the spaced type of the German. 2 It is noteworthy that the revised courses of study for the Prussian gymnasia promulgated in 1892 call for increased attention to translation from Latin into German. 20 THE JUSTIFICATION OF LATIN translations from Latin are regarded as an admirable, exercise in expression. In England the superior style of the gentr}^ is ascribed to extensive practice in trans- lating, and it is well known how Cicero [see above, p. 17], that supreme stylist, formed his style by practis- ing translation from the Greek. ' Translation from a foreign language/ says one of our most experienced school officials, ' is a lesson in German that cannot be too highly prized, and is, alas ! too much neglected. By a good translation, one conforming to the genius of the German language, instruction in German is most effectively promoted.' " To a similar effect are the remarks of Isaac B. Burgess and W. C. Collar as given in the Proceedings of the National Educational Asso- ciation, 1896, pp. 563 ff. ; also those of Laurie, Lectures on Language ajid Linguistic Method, p. 108 ; Paton, in Spencer's Aims and Practice of Teaching, p. 61 ; Shorey, *' Discipline vs. Dissipation," in The School Re- view, 1897, P- 228: " Every hour spent by the student in improving the accuracy or elegance of his version is, apart from its practical service in mobilizing his English vocabulary, an unconscious philosophic discipline in the comparison of two sets of conceptual symbols and the measuring against each other of two parallel intel- lectual outgrowths of the one sensational root of all our knowledge. Every time the student is corrected for washing out in his translation some poetic image found in the original, he receives a lesson in the relation of the symbolizing imagination to thought. As often as he discusses with the teacher a Vv^ord for which no apt English equivalent can be found, he acquires a new concept and a finer conception of nice distinctions. Whenever an apparently grotesque or senseless expres- sion is elucidated by reference to the primitive or alien religious or ethical conception or institution that gives THE JUSTIFICATION OF LATIN 21 it meaning, he receives a simple, safe, and concrete lesson in comparative religion, ethics, folk-lore, anthro- pology, or institutional history, as the case may be. And as often as he is forced to reconsider, in the light of the context, the mechanically memorized meaning of a word or phrase, he has impressed upon his mind the truth which the student of the more rigid working formulas of the physical sciences is so apt to miss, that words are not unalterable talismans, but chameleon-hued symbols taking shape and color from their associates. The effect of this kind of discipline is unconscious, insensible, and cumulative. It cannot, of course, cancel the inequalities of natural parts; it cannot take the place of practical acquaintance with life and accurate knowledge of a special trade or profession. But pur- sued systematically through the plastic years of youth, it differentiates the mind subjected to it by a flexibility, delicacy, and nicety of intellectual perception which no other merely scholastic and class-room training can give in like measure." The English training derived from such careful trans- lation as above described seems to me greatly superior to that gained by the usual methods of Eng- xransiation lish composition. Original composition must -u^. Original necessarily deal only with the ideas already ^position, present in the pupil's mind. How elementary and crude these are in case of the pupils in our secondary schools, is a fact sufficiently familiar to us all. The reflective period has not usually begun at the age when the pupil enters upon the secondary education; he finds it diflicult to write an English theme because he has nothing to write about. But set before him a pas- sage of Latin, elevated in thought and well expressed, with the problem of putting this into the best English 22 THE JUSTIFICATION OF LATIN he can command; in the first place he is relieved of the necessity of hunting aimlessly about for ideas which do not exist in his brain ; and in the second place he is raised above the plane of his ordinary thinking, and in this higher atmosphere grows familiar with concepts and ideas which might otherwise long remain foreign or at least vague to him. All things considered, I do not hesitate to say that I beheve there is a considerable period in the secondary training when Latin translation, if rightly conducted, may wisely be made practically the exclusive instrument of special instruction in English composition. This view, too, I find, is shared by many. See the discussions in the P^'oceedmgs of the National Educational Association, 1896, p. 563 ff., especially p. 570. Probably no teacher who has ever system- atically instituted this experiment of written translations has failed to regard the time it demanded as wisely expended. I have said above that this training in English seemed to me to form a larger part of the advantages of Latin other Effects Study than all others together. Yet the other of Latin. advantages are by no means insignificant. They are now to be considered. Discussing with his usual sober thoughtfulness and lucidity of exposition the question : Wherein Popular Education has Failed,^ President Eliot lays down the four essential educational processes which should be involved in any rational and effective system of in- struction. These are : I. The process of "observation; that is to say, the alert, intent, and accurate use of all the senses. Who- ever wishes to ascertain a present fact must do it through the exercise of this power of observation. . . . 1 American Contributions to Civilization, p. 203 flf. THE JUSTIFICA TION OF LA TIN 23 Facts, diligently sought for and firmly established, are the only foundations of sound reasoning." 2. " The next function, process, or operation which education should develop in the individual is the func- tion of making a correct record of things observed. The record may be mental only, that is, stamped on the memory, or it may be reduced to writing or print. . . . This power of accurate description or recording is identical in all fields of inquiry." 3. '* The next mental function which education should develop, if it is to increase reasoning power and general intelligence, is the faculty of drawing correct inferences from recorded observations. This faculty is almost identical with the faculty of grouping or coordinating kindred facts, comparing one group with another or with all the others, and then drawing an inference which is sure in proportion to the number of cases, instances, or experiences on which it is based. This power is developed by practice in induction." 4. " Fourthly, education should cultivate the power of expressing one's thoughts clearly, concisely, and cogently." These, according to President Eliot, are the four essential processes of the educated mind : observing accurately; recording correctly; comparing, grouping, and inferring justly; and expressing the result of these operations with clearness and force. Now it is precisely these four processes or operations which the study of Latin, when well taught, promotes in an eminent degree : I The study of Latin trains the observing faculty. To fathom the meaning of a Latin sentence requires a whole series of accurate observations. Thus ,, ., ^, 1 • ^ . . Observation. the pupil sees the word egissent m a sentence ; he observes that the word is a form of ago ; he takes 24 THE JUSTIFICA TION OF LA TIN note of the voice, mood, tense, person, and number; he observes its position ; he may make other observa- tions. Or he is reading poetry and comes to the Hne, Si qua fata sinafzt, jam turn tenditque fovetque. The second word puzzles him at first; to the eye, it may be either a nominative plural neuter or an ablative singular feminine used adverbially. Observation (scan- sion of the line) teaches him that the latter conclusion is the true one. 2. Little of this observation is recorded in speech or writing in the preparation of a lesson, but it is recorded mentally, which according^ to President Eliot Recording. . • , , t»t ^ IS entirely adequate. Moreover the process is constant. It is necessarily so. No lesson in a Latin author can be adequately prepared without sustained and repeated observing and recording from beginning to end. 3. The study also necessitates the most thorough and rigid processes of reasoning. The pupil has observed that a certain word is in the dative case, or in the subjunctive mood, and has made also a mental record of the fact. He now proceeds to determine the relationship of the dative or subjunctive to other words in the sentence. This demands as severe an exercise of the reasoning powers as anything I know. The first combination the pupil tries may be found to be gram- matically impossible; it offends against his conscious- ness of linguistic usage. Or it may be grammatically correct and yet be flatly absurd in point of meaning. Or it may make only a half satisfactory sense, some- what inconsistent with the context. Every conscious endeavour, however, rightly to combine and accurately to interpret the words, phrases, sentences, and para- graphs of any passage of a Latin author is an exercise of the reason. It is not, to be sure, an exercise of the THE JUSTIFICATION OF LATIN 2$ kind expressly mentioned by President Eliot in his al- lusions to the process of reasoning as one of the indis- pensable results of a rational education. He ^ , . --.11 Induction not mentions only mductive processes as entitled the only to recognition in this sphere, and by impli- ^'^^ cation excludes all recognition of deductive reasoning. This seems to me extremely unfortunate and unjust. Both processes are legitimate in education ; neither is to be disparaged. President Eliot's position seems to be that only the inductive reasoning of the observational sciences is reasoning properly so-called. Yet of the popular fallacies and delusions which Presi- dent Ehot enumerat-es (p. 224 f.), and which he justly deplores, few, when evaded by intelligent and educated men, are evaded by processes of inductive reasoning. How many of the intelligent men who opposed the free- silver heresy in this country in 1896 did so as the result of inductive reasoning? Any such reasoning faintly deserving the name would be simply impossible for the average educated man. The process by which opinions must be formed by most men on such matters is one of deductive reasoning. Only the specialist can reason inductively on such great questions, where honest settle- ment by inductive processes demands almost infinite time and pains, not to speak of special training. The minds of the great majority of thoughtful men must work otherwise. Faith in the honesty, intelligence, and patriotism of others is probably the major premise in the minds of most of us in determining our attitude on large questions. The minor premise is the view of some earnest, trained, and sagacious statesman or student of affairs in whom we trust. Our conclusion, therefore, represents the view of another person, logically made our own by deductive process. Oftener perhaps our own views on such matters are formed as a result of 26 THE JUSTIFICATION OF LATIN comparing the views of many others rather than by- adopting the view of any individual. In such cases we adopt the preponderance of authority or the preponder- ance of evidence furnished by others and assumed by us to be fairly complete. But the process is still deduc- tive. So in most of the serious things of life : our choice of a vocation, our preparation for its duties, our diet and recreation, the education of our children, our social, religious, and political affihations, — all these must of necessity be determined by deductive processes of rea- son, so far as they are determined by reason at all. I cannot help thinking, therefore, that President Eliot at- tributes too important an educational function to pro- cesses of inductive reasoning, and allows such processes a much larger play than they can, under any conceiv- able conditions, ever have in the practical life of any individual. At all events, I think it proper to insist on a recognition of the part which deductive reasoning must always play in nine tenths of the lives of the most conscientious of us, and to urge this fact as of impor- tance in estimating rightly the value of the deductive reasoning so inevitably associated with the study of Latin and other languages. 4. Lastly, the study of Latin involves in translation constant practice in expressing the results of one's ob- serving, recording, and reasoning. Whether this be clear, concise, and cogent, as Presi- dent Eliot would have it, is a matter entirely within the power of the teacher to determine. But I am confident that no teacher fit to be intrusted with giving Latin instruction, or in fact any instruction, will neglect this most important and crowning feature of Latin study. Latin, then, would seem fairly to fulfil all the important functions demanded by President Eliot as essential in a rational system of teaching. Yet he himself is inclined THE JUSTIFICATION OF LATIN 2/ to look askance at the present predominance of Latin and other language studies in the curricula of our sec- ondary schools. Though not specifically declaring it, he impHes his distrust in the efficacy of language study to achieve any of the results which must be admitted by all to be so eminently important. To me all these results seem to flow of necessity from the study of Latin. Even with poor teaching, observ- ing, recording, reasoning, and expressing are necessary daily processes of the pupil's intellectual Hfe. This may explain why even poor Latin teaching often seems to have an educative influence. Where the teaching is of first-rate quahty, the processes referred to are naturally given an accuracy, a power, and clearness of form, which cannot fail to prove of the highest educative power. It is, of course, manifest that the foregoing arguments in favour of studying Latin, if valid, apply at least in some measure to other languages than Latin, ^ and many persons doubtless will be incHned Modern to advocate the advantages of French or Ger- ^^^uages. man, as superior to those of Latin. While not denying the usefulness of both those languages when taught with discrimination, yet, if one language only can be studied, I see two reasons for giving Latin a decided preference to either French or German. In the first place the concepts and ideas of the Latin language are much remoter from those of English than are those of the modern languages. All modern thought is essentially kindred. The same intellectual elements, so to speak, are common to all civilized nations, — particularly to nations so closely in touch as the English, French, and German. This is not true when we come to study either of the ancient languages. The ultimate elements of the thought, i. e. the language of the Greeks and Romans, are as different from our own as is their entire 28 THE JUSTIFICATION OF LATIN civilization. It is precisely this fundamental difference which makes either of the classical languages of such invaluable discipline. At every stage of study we are brought in contact with new phases of thought, new ideas ; — the intellectual horizon is continually widen- ing. The modern languages, on the other hand, suggest relatively much less that is new. Both the matter and the manner of expression are so directly in the line of our ordinary knowledge and speech, as to give mlich less occasion to processes of comparison or to that stimulating intellectual grapple which is essential to mental growth. This is particularly true of French, whose thought-forms are so closely kindred to our own. It is less true of German, though even that language suggests vastly fewer differences in ideas — and con- sequently vastly fewer opportunities for comparison — than does either Greek or Latin. There is yet another reason which I should urge in favour of Latin as compared with either of the modern languages, and that is that Latin has supplied us with so large a share of our own vocabulary. Just what the exact percentage of such words in English is, I do not know. Nor is it material. The number, at any rate, is very large, and covers every department of thought. For this reason no educated person can safely under- take to dispense with a knowledge of the root words of the Latin language. I mean no such knowledge as comes from memorizing a list of the commoner roots and suffixes along with their meanings, but a knowledge at first hand, and sufficiently comprehensive and thor- ough to enable one to feel the full significance of the primary words of the Latin, a knowledge which reveals at once the full value of such English Words as connota- tion , speciousness, integrity, desultory ^ temperajice, induc- tion, deduction, abstract, ingenuotis, absolute, and scores THE JUSTIFICATION OF LATIN 29 of others whose precise apprehension marks the edu- cated man. This point has been strongly though briefly emphasized by the Commissioner of Education, W. T. Harris, in " A Brief for Latin," Educational Review^ April, 1899. See also Paton, in Spencer, Ai7ns and Practice of Teachitig, p. 41 f. To the two foregoing theoretical reasons for prefer- ring Latin to French or German as an instrument of secondary education, must be added a third reason, more cogent even than those already empha- Testimony of sized, namely, experience. I believe it well Experience, within the limits of accuracy to assert that no one who has had actual experience with the teaching of either of the modern languages to pupils of the same age and intellectual power will for a moment venture to compare the intellectual profit attained from French or German with that derived from Latin. In fact, so far as we have any testimony on this point, there is a strik- ing unanimity of judgment in favour of Latin. Speak- ing at the first annual meeting of the Association of Colleges and Preparatory Schools in the Middle States and Maryland {Proceedings, 1893, p. 59), Principal Mac- kenzie, discussing the question, "Will any kind or amount of instruction in modern languages make them satisfactory substitutes for Greek or Latin as constitu- ents of a liberal education ? " said : " Twenty-three years ago, when I was a school-boy at one of our foremost academies, there was no scientific or English ^ course, — no course, that is, without Latin. Those who know the history of that school for the century closing in the seventies, know her brilliant achievements in developing mental power with Latin as the staff of the pupil's ^ The scientific or English courses regularly omit Latin, and include either French or German, or both French and German. 30 THE JUSTIFICATION OF LATIN mental life. Meantime, in company with all our fitting schools, she, too, has established an English side with- out Latin. I could give no umbrage nor be chargeable with indelicacy were I to repeat the statements made to me by her teachers as to the unfavourable change in the intellectual tone and character of the institution. There are in this Association an earnest, skilful, experi- enced body of teachers connected with our high-schools and other schools of secondary grade; I have yet to meet one such teacher who, administering courses of study both with and without one or two of the classical languages, does not, however reluctantly, affirm that satisfactory scholarship is found only on the so-called classical side, and that, therefore, no satisfactory sub- stitute for Greek and Latin has yet been found." Sub- sequently President B. I. Wheeler, then Professor of Greek at Cornell, declared it his conviction that French and German cannot compare with the classics as effec- tive instruments of secondary education, " simply be- cause they don't." These positive assertions based on experience went absolutely unchallenged in the pro- tracted discussion of the question which followed. Compare also the testimony of an English educator, Mr. Paton, in Spencer, Aims and Practice of Teaching, p. 44: "Many argue that French and German would be just as efficient [as Latin], but their contention has never been practically demonstrated." Similar testi- mony comes from Germany, France, and Belgium, to the effect that those boys who have received a classical training are on the whole superior to those who have received a training only in the modern languages (Fouill6e, Education from a National Standpoint, p. 167). Fouillee {ibid., footnote) adds: ''One of our most eminent critics [Ferdinand Brunetiere], before his connection with the Revue des Deux MondeSy was THE JUSTIFICATION OF LATIN 3 1 on the staff of the Ecole Normale Sup^rieure, and taught French Hterature to the pupils at the College Chaptal, and at the same time to the mathematical students at the Lycee Louis-le-Grand and the College Sainte-Barbe. At Chaptal almost every boy passed through his hands, as he took each class some time or other during the week, and in this way he knew the boys in six classes, of course of varying ages. Now, says M. Brunetiere, * I feel, after this experience gained under exceptional conditions, that for opening the mind and for general development, for a knowledge of our own tongue, and for literary skill, the boys who instead of a classical training have received a purely French education, with the addition of modern languages, are at least two and perhaps three years behind their fellows.' At Louis-le-Grand and Sainte-Barbe, M. Brunetiere's pupils had done Latin and Greek grammar only, and had never had a thorough grounding in that, intending to devote themselves at an early period ex- clusively to mathematics. Here again the superiority of even a little classical training was equally marked. These observations," adds Fouillee, *' agree with my own while I was engaged in teaching." Such testimony might be multiplied almost indefinitely. From this verdict of experience we can hardly venture to appeal, until experience has new and different contri- butions with which to support the claims of the equality of the modern languages with Latin as educational instruments. The position of those who have advo- cated the equality of French or German on theoretical grounds is well represented by the late Professor Boyesen. In his remarks before the Association of Colleges and Preparatory Schools of the Middle States and Maryland (Proceedings, 1893, p. 38 ff.), he lays stress on the admirable quality of the French and 32 THE JUSTIFICATION OF LATIN German literatures, comparing them favourably with the classical masterpieces. But the training of the second- ary pupil who is studying a foreign language, as was shown above, is primarily Imgiiisticy not literary. Liter- ary study enters in to some extent, to be sure, but the main benefit of the study must come after all from the minute study of the elements of the thought, not from the contemplation of its larger literary aspects. And it is precisely on this hnguistic side that French and German exhibit, as compared with Latin, such a strik- ing lack of adaptation to the ends of a truly liberal training. It is for the foregoing reasons that I feel justified in urging the superiority of Latin to either of the modern languages as an educational instrument in our secondary schools. Experience may ultimately prove French and German entitled to relatively greater consideration than we can at present concede to them, though the theo- retical grounds against any such eventual result seem very strong. As to Greek, for the pupil of the secondary school I am reluctantly forced to give it a place second to Latin. I do this chiefly because Greek has contributed so much less to our own English vocabulary than has Latin. These estimates of educational values, however, by no means imply that one or even more of the other lan- guages mentioned may not wisely be added to Latin in the secondary school. I most certainly believe that this should be done wherever practicable, and would advo- cate the combination of two languages, as, for example, Latin and Greek, Latin and German, or Latin and French. Latin, however, I should insist upon as the basal study for all pupils of the secondary school who are capable of pursuing it. More than two languages (Latin for four years and Greek, German, or French THE JUSTIFICATION OF LATIN 33 for three years), I should not suggest for an individual pupil, though I am well aware that the colleges are enforcing demands in this direction. With all the advantages and allurements of language study, I feel that we can easily go too far, and may do damage by neg- lecting other sides of the pupil's intellect. I have enlarged sufficiently upon what seem to me the primary ends of Latin study in the secondary school, namely, the power of accurate observation, the development of the reasoning faculties, and the supe- rior facilities it affords for training in our own language, by which, as I explained, is meant not merely the ap- prehension of words, but the assimilation of ideas for which the words are merely symbols. Incidentally, too, we considered the fact that the study of Latin gives us the needed insight into the precise meaning of a vast number of English words derived from Latin, and that, by taking us out of ourselves, the study of Roman life and thought gives us a broader view of the signifi- cance of ideas and institutions, — what Laurie calls the " universal," as opposed to the merely ** national" point of view {^Language and Linguistic Method, P- 3 f.)- There are yet other humanizing influences of the study, which, though of less importance, yet deserve to be emphasized. Among these must be reck- mstoricai oned "dispositive knoivledge of Roman history. Training. thought, and institutions which comes from the study of Latin. No one can get so good a view of the per- sonality of that great organizer Julius Caesar, as the intelligent reader of Caesar's own narrative ; no one can so appreciate the constitution and workings of the Roman republic as the pupil who reads the pages of Sallust's Jugurtha and Catiline or Cicero's Orations and Letters ; no one can so appreciate the one dom- 34 THE JUSTIFICATION OF LATIN inant principle of all Roman civilization,-— the power of organization and administration combined with a sense of imperial destiny, — as he who comes face to face with that sentiment in the Latin authors. These are examples merely of the almost infinite suggestive- ness of Latin study along historical and institutional lines ; — not that the study of Latin should or can replace a formal study of Roman history and institu- tions, but it can and should serve to supplement such study. I shall venture to emphasize also the value of the training of the aesthetic and moral sense which must iEsthetic come to every mind of ordinary endowment Training. y^y contact with the masterpieces of Latin writing usually read in our secondary schools. Here again I shall quote the words of Professor Shorey (" Dis- cipHne vs. Dissipation," School Review^ 1897, P- 228 f.), " This scholastic study of language, through the careful interpretation of selected literary masterpieces, is a totally different thing both from mere gerund-grinding and the acquisition by conversational methods of the courier's polyglot facility. It is essentially a study of literature, — a fact overlooked by those who declaim against language while protesting their devotion to Hterature; and it is the only form in which literature can be taught to young students that offers serious guarantees of the indispensable accompanying disci- pline. It trains the intellect in close association with the sense for beauty and the sense for conduct as no other studies can. . . . The iridescent threads of culti- vated and flexible aesthetic and ethical institutions must be shot through the intellectual warp of the mind at the loom. They cannot be laid on the finished fabric like an external coat of paint. The student who between the years of twelve and twenty has thrilled at the elo- THE JUSTIFICATION OF LATIN 35 quence of Cicero or Demosthenes, has threaded the mazes of the Platonic dialectic, has laughed with Aris- tophanes, has pored over the picturesque page of Livy, or apprehended the sagacious analysis of Thucydides, has learned to enjoy the curious felicity of Horace and the supreme elegance and tender melancholy of Virgil, has trembled before the clash of destiny and human will in the drama of ^schylus and Sophocles, has been cradled in the ocean of Homeric song, or attuned his ear to the stately harmonies of Pindar, — the student, I say, who has received this or a Hke discipline in the great languages and literatures of the world, has insen- sibly acquired the elementary materials, the essential methods, and the finer intuitive perceptions of the things of the spirit, on which all more systematic study of the mental and moral sciences must depend." We have dwelt sufficiently upon the various reasons for studying Latin in the secondary school. It remains to discuss briefly some of the objections which have been urged against the study at urged against this stage of education.^ ^*^* In 1 86 1 Herbert Spencer published his work on Edu- cation: Intellectual, Moral, and Physical, consisting of a series of four essays which had previously ap- Hertwrt peared in various English Reviews. I shall not spencer, have the presumption to question the importance and value of these essays as permanent contributions to the discussion of educational problems. Yet with regard to the value of at least one classical language in any adequate scheme of secondary education, Spencer is singularly un- just. The title of the first essay is : " What knowledge is of most worth?" In discussing this question no at- 1 It is impracticable here to discuss any utterances except those of a few representative thoughtful students of education. 36 THE JUSTIFICATION OF LATIN tempt at a comparative estimate of the educational value of different studies is instituted. On page 23, Spencer observes : " If we inquire into the real motive for giving boys a classical education, we find it to be simply conformity to public opinion. ... As the Ori- noco Indian puts on his paint before leaving his hut, not with a view to any direct benefit, but because he would be ashamed to be seen without it, so a boy's drilling in Latin and Greek is insisted on, not because of their intrinsic value, but that he may not be dis- graced by being found ignorant of them." This is the sum and substance of Spencer's examina- tion of the worth of the pursuit of either Latin or Greek. The bulk of this first essay, the title of which assumes at least an honest attempt to institute a candid inquiry con- cerning the relative value of different subjects, is devoted to an exposition of the thesis that the study of science is of some worth to some people, — nothing more. Grant- ing for the sake of argument that this thesis is ade- quately established, it by no means follows that other subjects are of less worth or that Latin is of no worth. Herbert Spencer has often, and with great acumen, justly convicted other thinkers of unwarranted assumptions and bad logic, but in the present instance he seems to cap the climax in his absolute begging of the question at issue. The value of Latin can never be proved or disproved by discussing the value of something else, nor can it be proved or disproved by passionate declarations of its worth or worthlessness. Spencer unfortunately has not attempted to go beyond these methods ; and it is doubly unfortunate that this attitude has been as- sumed by a thinker who usually exhibits such excep- tional seriousness, candour, and intellectual integrity, and the influence of whose utterances must inevitably be so great. THE JUSTIFICATION OF LATIN 37 Much more commendable is the procedure of Alex- ander Bain in Education as a Science (London and New York, 1881). In chapter x., "Value of the Classics," Bain seriously undertakes to estimate the worth of Latin and Greek, Unfortu- nately he does not limit the question to any period of education, nor does he seem to recognise that the question of the study of Latin alone is a radically differ- ent question from the study of Latin and Greek. His discussion, however, is one that commands our attention. Bain first sets forth the alleged advantages of studying the classics, and then the drawbacks. His conclusion is that the latter decidedly outweigh the former. It is impossible here to take up his arguments in detail, but it is to be noted that, among the advantages of the study, Bain practically ignores the transcendent value of the increased intellectual power derived from the study of the classics, and the mastery acquired over the resources of one's mother tongue, /. e., over the ideas which form the highest intellectual elements of our national life, — the very things which we set down above as constituting the prime reason for studying Latin. Of the other assumed advantages of the study of the classics, Bain finds no one of sufficient weight to be entitled to great respect. On the other hand he enu- merates four positive objections to the study : ms I. The cost is great. 2. The mixture of Objections, conflicting studies distracts the learner. 3. The study is devoid of interest. 4. The classics inculcate the evil of pandering to authority. As to the cost, it must be admitted that Latin does cost. It takes time and labour. If pursued as a daily study in our American schools for four years, it claims one-third of the entire secondary-school curriculum. The real question for us, however, and the question 38 THE JUSTIFICATION OF LATIN which Bain professes to be examining, is the question of value. To the discussion of that question the consider- ation of cost is irrelevant. When we have determined the value of Latin, the question of cost may properly influence the pupil's choice in individual cases, but it cannot affect the question of value any more than the length of one's purse determines the value of a fine watch. That the study of Latin is devoid of interest (Bain's third objection), or that it inspires a bhnd pandering to authority (his fourth objection), is contrary to my own experience, and I believe to that of teachers in this country. I can only conclude that Bain is here advanc- ing arguments which, if vaHd, are so only in Great Britain. More importance attaches to Bain's second objection, which I intentionally reserve till the last. The mixture of conflicting purposes, he adds, distracts the learner, i. e. he would contend that it is distracting to the pupil of Latin to be gaining in intellectual grip and breadth of vision, to be mastering the resources of his mother tongue (/. e, the higher elements of the national life of which he is a member), to be gaining a profounder insight into the thought, life, and institutions of the Romans, to be advancing in the cultivation of the aesthetic and moral senses, — to be doing all these at one and the same time. I see no answer to make to this objection beyond declaring that experience does not seem to me to bear out its truth, any more than experience shows that the study of Latin is devoid of interest or that it inculcates a blind respect for author- ity. On the other hand, experience seems to me to show, and to show abundantly, that all the results whose contemporaneous realization Bain declares to be so dis- tracting, do actually flow from the study of Latin. The THE JUSTIFICATION OF LATIN 39 reason they do flow is, in my judgment, due to the fact that they are not consciously sought by either pupil or teacher. Were such the case, I am quite prepared to believe that the joint quest would prove distracting and even futile. Fortunately, however, the valuable results of studying Latin are indirect results, while Bain's objec- tion seems to have been formulated as a result of the erroneous conviction that the valuable., ends of Latin study are always present to the pupil's consciousness. It is really their absence from his consciousness which is the salvation of the study. Less radical in his attitude toward the value of Latin in secondary education is Friedrich Paulsen, who in 1885 published his important Geschichte des gelehrten Unterrichts auf den deutschen Schu- len und Universitdten vom Ausgatig des Mittelalters bis zur Gegenwart mit besonderer Rucksicht auf den klas- sischen Unterricht. Paulsen's criticisms upon classical education as at present organized and conducted in German secondary schools {Gyimiasien and Realschu- len) are embodied in his concluding chapter. Before proceeding to their consideration, however, it will be necessary to get clearly before our minds the status of classical education in Germany. In the Gynmasien and Realgymnasien Latin is studied for nine years, — from about the tenth year to the nineteenth; while in the Gymjtasien Greek also is studied for six years, — from about the thirteenth year to the nineteenth. A total of fifteen years of study is therefore regularly devoted to the classics in the Gymnasien. Another element that enters into the situation is that the amount of work in classics and other branches combined has long been something enormous for the student of the Gymnasien. For two generations the UeberbUrdungsfrage has been 40 THE JUSTIFICATION OF LATIN one uppermost in educational discussion. Accordingly when Paulsen undertakes to show the evils of existing conditions, and when he urges earnestly and cogently the dropping of Greek and the radical retrenchment of Latin, we must be exceedingly cautious what conclu- sions we draw from his observations for the study of Latin in the secondary schools of the United States. The time now spent on Latin in a German Gymnasium or Realgymnasium is more than equal to that spent by most graduates of our American colleges who have pur- sued Latin continuously from the lowest grade of the high school to the termination of their college course. A retrenchment of Latin in the German Gymnasien, therefore, may be entirely compatible with the main- tenance of the existing attention given to Latin in this country, or even with its extension. Paulsen nowhere goes so far as to advocate the aban- donment of Latin as an instrument of German second- ary education. His attitude on this point I believe has largely been misunderstood in this country, owing mainly to the prevalent incapacity of many minds to dissociate Latin and Greek. Paulsen's attitude as re- gards Greek is practically uncompromising. For the great body of students he is convinced it would better be abandoned, but as regards Latin, he nowhere goes beyond the demand for retrenchment. Thus on p. 762, while declaring positively that the present ideal of clas- sical education in Germany must pass away, he unhesi- BeUevesin tatingly asserts his belief that Latin must Retaining continue to be indispensable. As to the amount of time to be devoted to the study we get an expression of opinion on p. 774, where Paul- sen thinks that the study may profitably be pursued through the lower and middle classes, — presumably to the end of Oberteriia, or five years in all. On p. 782 THE JUSTIFICATION OF LATIN 4I he even goes so far as to admit that experience may show that for certain classes of students the traditional classical course will still be necessary. But in the main Paulsen's estimate of the value of the classics, Latin as well as Greek, is an exceedingly low one. Let us briefly consider his reasons. First, he complains that classical training as pursued in Germany does not exert any marked influence upon the pupils' German style. In fact he goes so far 1 11 -11 Alleged as to assert that men who have enjoyed the Defective classical training are conspicuously lacking in ^J!^^***. any sense for form, and the typical scholar is nothing less than a laughing-stock, — a handy conven- tional figure largely utilized in popular comedy to pro- voke merriment. This indictment is severe, and if well grounded certainly constitutes a weighty argument against the pursuit of Latin. But Paulsen's testimony is contradicted by his own countrymen, e. g. by Dett- weiler, quoted above, p. 18 f. It is, I believe, contradicted also by the impressions received by most Americans in their contact with German gymnasial graduates fre- quenting the German universities. However, for us Americans the question is not one to be settled by the experience of Germany. The question for us is, whether Latin produces certain results upon our own pupils. Another of Paulsen's arguments is to the eflect that, after all, vital results in education emanate from the personality of the teacher, not from the subject. Cer- tainly there can be no underrating of the effect of per- sonaHty in the teaching of any branch ; but that fact has nothing whatever to do with the large question, whether there are not vast differences between the educational values of different subjects. Until experience faintly demonstrates the contrary, we must believe such differ- ences exist ; and so long as they do, the influence of 42 THE JUSTIFICATION OF LATIN personality in teaching can hardly be considered as bearing upon the question at issue. Even Paulsen him- self, by the way, candidly admits that the ancient clas- sics do afford an unusual opportunity for the effective exercise of personal influence, or at least that they would, were it not that iaability to understand the lan- guage in which they are written constitutes an impassa- ble barrier between teacher and pupil. But it is difficult for an American who has witnessed the brilliant inter- pretations of the classics in the upper forms of the Gymnasieii to credit the general existence of any such barrier. Paulsen passes on to urge that the pursuit of the classics does not tend to promote that sympathy, charity. Moral and brotherly love which might be expected Influence, from the humanities. But certainly Paulsen's own volume teaches us most clearly that the humanities (jtudia hiimaniord) were never so designated because they were supposed to make men humane, in the sense of sympathetic and charitable. Humanism was but the revolt from schofesticism : the one made God the ex- clusive object of speculation ; the new tendency empha- sized 7nan, his achievements, capacities, and aspirations. The implication, therefore, that the classics are specially under obligations to make men kindly and charitable is one hardly justified by the designation ' humanities,' nor has it ever been the professed ideal of these studies. But let us look at the facts adduced by Paulsen in support of his charge that the study of the classics promotes strife, hatred, pride, and all uncharitableness. He cites a letter of Jakob Grimm, in which complaint is made that of all branches of knowledge none is more arrogant, more contentious, and less indulgent toward the short- comings of others than philology. Goethe also writes in a similar strain to Knebel. But philology is not con- THE JUSTIFICATION OF LATIN 43 fined to the classics ; it includes the modern languages as well, even German, which, as we shall later see, is specially recommended by Paulsen to take the place of Greek and Latin in the reformed program. Goethe's indictment also is not directed against the classics, but against Hberal studies in general. But neither of these men was considering the effects of any of these studies upon pupils. They were obviously alluding to the exhibitions of jealousy and rivalry manifested between scholars of eminence. Such exhibitions must always be a more or less frequent result of keen intellectual com- petition. They are no more frequent in classical phil- ology than in other departments. Nothing can exceed the virulence of some of the recent polemical hterature evoked in Germany by the higher criticism of the Scrip- tures. Even philosophy (another subject which Paulsen cordially endorses as a substitute for the classics) is not without its amenities, and I vividly recall the polemic of a leading German investigator in this field, in which words were used that English literature has not tolerated since the days of Swift. Natural science, too, has not been exempt, — a study which Grimm and Goethe seemed to think more adapted to the development of a *' sweet reasonableness." Such may have been the case in Germany at the beginning of the century. It may still be so. But certainly in the United States there are many exceptions to this rule, and one of my clearest boyhood recollections is of the vehement per- sonal invectives hurled against each other by two emi- nent paleontologists. Paulsen will attach no weight to the fact that men, even professional men, who have enjoyed the severe classical training of the Gyinnasien, are prac- g^j^ phases tically a unit in their advocacy of retaining this instruction in its present form. These men, he 44 THE JUSTIFICATION OF LATIN asserts, are actuated not by any educational considera- tions, they are not impressed with any sense of the value of the training they have received. What actu- ates them is social pride, an aristocratic sense of the recognised superiority which their education has con- ferred. They wish to perpetuate the caste in all its glory. How just this imputation of motives is, it is of course impossible for us to determine, but one hesitates to believe it well founded. At all events, in this country no one will charge the existence of such sentiments as a factor in the adjustment of educational problems. Paulsen's last argument is based upon the observable educational tendencies of the last four centuries. Ever Tendency of since the Renaissance and the Reformation the the Times. relative importance of the classics has been diminishing. There was a time early in the sixteenth century when these studies practically monopolized the field of learning. Each succeeding century has seen their relative importance diminish. Paulsen's reasoning is that ultimately their place must vanish, and that that era has in fact arrived. But any such argument based upon the operation of a tendency is likely to be falla- cious. No one can say with certainty how long a given tendency may operate. The record of the American trotting horse has been reduced in the last twenty-five years from two minutes seventeen and one-quarter sec- onds to a fraction over two minutes. But he would be bold who should predict that this tendency will go on without limit. Similarly, educational policies can hardly be determined on the basis of observed tendencies. They must be settled rather in the light of existing conditions. As substitutes for Greek and for so much of Latin as it is proposed to banish, Paulsen suggests the introduc- tion of philosophy and German. We hardly need to THE JUSTIFICA TION OF LA TIN 45 discuss the value of the former of these studies. If in- troduced into the Gymnasiett, it is obvious that philoso- phy could be intended only for the two higher proposed classes of the Gymnasium, a department of Substitutes, education lying beyond what we designate as secondary, and corresponding rather to the lower years of our American colleges. But the proposition to introduce German as a substitute for the classics invites our care- ful attention, for if it is sound for Germany, it is also sound for us to replace the study of either or both the classical languages by the study of English. My reasons for questioning the soundness of the general principle involved are two : I. Experience has never shown that any study of the vernacular is capable of yielding results in anyway com- parable with those secured from the study of inadequacy of other lane^uages. In fact experience has so a study of the Vernacular frequently illustrated the reverse as prac- tically to have demonstrated the impossibility of secur- ing such results. 2. ^^fle ction, too, reveals adequa Jj^-^ wrir fn i r laidipying ^ that the study of the vernacu- lar never can^pr^^ZZoL^Ji y ver^Tlrtlgtr^ducatl v^ value. The case has been so well stated by Fouillee, Educa- tion from a National Standpoint, p. 108, that I quote his words : " From the point of view of individual de- velopment, the study of the mother tongue is only sufficient in the case of exceptionally gifted minds. Secondary education should be regulated according to the average, and not according to exceptional students. Now, on the average, to the culture essential to the humanities, the study of a tongue other than the mother tongue is the shortest and surest method. A French- man, for instance, has a quick mind and a versatile intellect ; but the very facility with which he uses his intellect does not leave him enough time for reflection. 46 THE JUSTIFICATION OF LATIN When a French boy is reading a French book, unless he enjoys unusual reflective faculties, his mind is carried away by the general sense, and the details and shades of expression escape him. As M. Rabier says, ' A French child reading a page of Pascal or Bossuet does not fully grasp it, i. e. only half grasps it.' Exercises and translations force the child to weigh every word, to ascertain its exact meaning, to find its equivalent; he must also consider the inter-relations of the ideas and words in order to fix the sense concealed in the text ; finally, he must transpose the whole from one language to another, just as a musician transposes an air. The final result is that he has repeated for himself the labours of the thinker and writer; he has re-thought their thoughts, and has revived the living form which was organic to the writer's thought. He has had to repro- duce a work of art. A cursory perusal of works in the mother tongue is rather like a stroll through a museum ; translation from one language to another is like copying a picture ; the one makes amateurs, the other artists. In this way the sense of depth and form are simultane- ously acquired." My own experience confirms this view. For some years I was connected with one of our large universities, in which there was an " English " course. The preparation for admission to this course included neither classics nor modern languages, but was based primarily upon English itself. For years the students who presented themselves for admission with this English preparation were recognised as the most deficient in intellectual strength and training of any who came up to the University. Nothing, I believe, but a desire to give the experiment the fairest possible trial prevented the early abolition of that course. In conclusion, Paulsen calls for the exercise of more common sense in the organization of education, partic- THE JUSTIFICATION OF LATIN 4/ ularly in the establishment of the curriculum. Common sense, he adds, suggests that languages are learned to be understood, and the inference is that, if understand- ing them is not obviously of transcendent value, then their study is profitless. All the fine phrases about the discipline and culture, he adds, supposed to result from language study are likely to make no appeal to sturdy common sense. If by sturdy common sense is meant the instinctive conclusion of the common man who has given no serious thought to the problems of education, Paulsen is probably right, but can we safely intrust the interests of our higher education to such hands? Such are Paulsen's arguments against the study of Greek and Latin in the German secondary schools, and such are the substitutes he proposes. I have Review of considered them partly because they repre- Paulsen's ^ ' , 1 • r • / i-i,- 1 Objections, sent the conclusions ot an emment thmker and earnest student of educational problems, partly because by many in this country Paulsen is popularly supposed to have demonstrated finally the absolute lack of any raison d'etre for the study of either of the classical languages. Our examination of his arguments shows, I think, that they are very far from justifying the radical changes which he proposes in German secondary edu- cation. Much less do they warrant a lack of confidence in the pursuit of the classics as pursued in this country ; while, as regards Latin, Paulsen expressly recognises the justification of retaining quite as much as is ordinarily pursued in American secondary schools. In conclusion we may state the case for Latin briefly as follows : Reason and experience show that Latin in secondary education is capable of producing intellectual results of great positive value, practically indispensable to the 48 THE JUSTIFICATION OF LATIN educated man. Experience has not yet shown that any other subject (excepting possibly Greek) is capable of producing equally good results. Theorists Summary. , rii have often asserted the equal value of other subjects, or at least have asserted the capacity of other subjects to yield as good results. Some of these theories, e. g. that in favour of the study of modern languages, that in favour of the study of the vernacular, we subjected to criticism with a view to showing their defects. Still the empirical argument must ever be the stronger, and, say what one may, the stubborn fact remains of the unique educational influence exercised by Latin. By this it is not for a moment meant to disparage the legitimate functions of a single other study. Their special value is ungrudgingly conceded. But in the Hght of our present knowledge, it seems a plain educational duty to adhere to Latin as admirably meeting a distinct educational need which is not met by any of the other subjects with which we are so often urged to replace it. At present, however, the danger seems to be not that too few will study Latin, but rather too many. A Possible Latin is a difficult subject, and the peculiar Danger. educative power it possesses is not capable of being exercised upon all minds, — only upon those of a certain natural endowment. In our intense democ- racy we are perhaps at times inclined to forget that no constitutional declarations of czvi/' equality can ever make, or were ever intended to recognise, an intellectual equality between the individual members of the nation. Latin is good for those whose gifts enable them to profit by its study. It is not, however, capable of popular distribution like so much flour or sugar. Because Latin is a highly effective instrument for the training of certain minds, we must not think that the THE JUSTIFICA TION OF LA TIN 49 efficiency is contained in the subject /^r se ; there must exist in the pupil the mental endowment requisite to profit by Latin ; else the time spent upon the study is worse than wasted. Observation convinces me that many parents and pupils labour from a serious miscon- ception on this point, and that many are ambitious to study Latin whom nature has not endowed with the capacity to benefit by its pursuit. The present enormous increase in the number of Latin pupils in our American secondary schools seems to justify calling attention to possible dangers in this direction. CHAPTER II THE BEGINNING WORK In the beginning work we are confronted with what is probably the greatest difficulty in the entire range Difficulty of of elementary Latin instruction. The pupil the Prowem. ^j^q j^ his early study fails to become well- grounded in the elements of Latin — who fails to secure an accurate knowledge of forms and of the leading principles of syntax — is at once put at an immense disadvantage. The chances are that he becomes dis- couraged, and that his continuance in the work will prove increasingly uninteresting and increasingly profit- less to himself, as well as increasingly burdensome to his teachers. The proper conduct of the beginning work also makes the severest demands upon the knowl- edge and skill of the teacher. Too often, beginners are intrusted to inexperienced instructors on the general theory, apparently, that the lower the class the easier it is to instruct it. But in every subject I believe that, if there must be differences, the ablest and wisest teacher should be put in charge of the beginning work. " Aller Anfang ist schwer," says Goethe. Certainly this is pre- eminently true of Latin. Only the well-trained teacher, whose knowledge of Latin is accurate and broad, is qualified wisely to direct the first steps of the begin- ner. For only such can and will inculcate that indis- pensable precision, and only such can judge what things are of vital importance and must be learned now, and THE BEGINNER'S BOOK 5 1 what things are less essential and may be deferred to a later time. Even for a well-trained and accurate Latinist, the difficulties that beset the teacher in charge of the beginning work are very great. Some of them are inherent in the subject; some of them are connected with the choice of method to be pursued. Their num- ber and importance makes it desirable to consider them under different heads. I shall discuss succes- sively I. The Beginner's Book. II. Pronunciation. III. The *' Inductive " Method. IV. Reading at Sight. V. Unseen Translation. VI. Easy Reading. I. The Beginner's Book. No problem is greater than the wise choice of the first book to be put into the beginner's hands. The plan of the beginner's book used in this country has been rapidly and radically changing in the ner's Book last twenty years. Twenty years ago the yeS^A^. pupil usually began with the Latin Gram- mar and the Latin Reader. The Grammar served to give the facts of pronunciation, accent, declension, con- jugation, etc., while the Reader gave parallel exercises illustrative of the parts of the Grammar assigned from day to day. The development naturally followed the arrangement of the Grammar, i. e. the pupils were taught the five declensions in succession, then the adjective, pronouns, and the four conjugations. Dur- ing the acquisition of the forms little attention was paid to syntax. Only a few indispensable principles of the most elementary kind were introduced at this stage, such as the rules for the predicate noun, appositive, subject, object, agreement of adjective with noun, etc. After the acquisition of the forms, and before the com- 52 THE BEGINNING WORK mencement of the regular reading of a continuous text, the beginner's attention was directed to the elementary syntactical principles of the language. Here again the Grammar was used as the basis of instruction, and the different constructions studied were accompanied by parallel illustrative sentences in the Reader. Like the study of the forms, the study of the syntax followed the order of the Grammar, i. e. all the constructions of one case were treated together, and all the case constructions preceded the constructions of mood and tense. This method of study yielded excellent results. Boys learned their forms with accuracy, they early became familiar with the Grammar, and so laid a solid foundation for future work. This plan of A Defect. . ^ instruction, however, involved one feature which exposed it to attack from the theoretical side ; it was urged that the isolated fragmentary words and phrases given in the Reader as parallel exercises to the Grammar were irrational. During the acquisition of the declension of nouns, adjectives, and pronouns, and largely during the study of the conjugations, the pupil was fed in the Reader on these isolated words and phrases. Complete sentences were almost unknown, — necessarily so until the verb was reached. Now, it was urged that it was an injustice to the pupil to be confined for weeks together to such unnatural exercises as Dionysii tyranni ; eqimm Balbi ; vobis ; templum quod- dam; audiveris ; simto ; laudatos esse, etc. The justice of this position is fairly debatable, but debate now is hardly necessary. To-day the use of the Grammar The Typical ^"^ Reader as above described is a thing of Beginner's the past. For two decades the beginner's Book of To- boo]^ YidiS been coming into more and more general use, until to-day its reign is prac- tically universal. These books are usually complete THE BEGINNER'S BOOK $3 in themselves. They contain all the grammar supposed to be essential for the beginning pupil, along with copious illustrative sentences. Representing as they do, also, a reaction against the old Reader with its iso- lated words and detached phrases, they introduce com- plete sentences at the start. This is accomplished by treating certain parts of the verb in the very earliest lessons. Had the makers of these books contented themselves with remedying what they characterized as the crying defect of the old Reader, the result would not have been so bad. But they have gone much further. Most of these manuals are absolutely without plan unsyste- in their distribution of material. Bits of the matic. noun, adjective, adverb, verb, and pronoun are found scat- tered here and there throughout the book, interspersed with various syntactical rules, now on the noun, now on the verb, now on one case, now on another. The most cursory glance at almost any one of the dozens of beginner's books published in recent years will amply confirm the accuracy of this statement. The plan of these books has long seemed to me pedagogically unsound, and in practice I fear they have not enabled us to realize the best results in our element- ary Latin teaching. To me it seems undeniable that pupils to-day are conspicuously inferior in the mastery of their inflections to the pupils of twenty years ago, as well as conspicuously inferior in their general famili- arity with the Latin Grammar. This observation I find is quite general. The complaint comes from Harvard even, situated though it is in the centre of the finest preparatory schools of the country, — schools whose efficiency ought to increase, not diminish, with time. Both these results I trace in large measure directly to the type of beginner's books now in vogue ; as regards 54 THE BEGINNING WORK the former, at least, I do not see how it can possibly be assigned to any other source. Let us examine more closely the defects of these books. My criticisms will cover three heads : Defects in I- They separate things that logically be- Detau. long together ; also, in endeavouring to relieve the memory and to promote interest, they sacrifice accuracy of knowledge. 2. They separate things in the early stages of teach- ing which must later be associated. 3. In introducing the translation of English into Latin before the forms are thoroughly mastered, they involve a serious expenditure of time without any corresponding gain. My first criticism was that things which logically belong together are in these books separated from one another. Thus the five declensions seem to of what "le more like each other than like anything tSter ^^^^ ' ^^^ ^^"^^ ^^ ^^"^ ^^ ^^ pronouns taken as a whole; it is also true of the four con- jugations of regular verbs, and even of the irregular verbs taken as a whole. So also in the case of the syntax, the different constructions of the genitive, the dative, the accusative, or the ablative, the uses of the subjunctive, seem to me more like each other than like anything else. This intimate logical relationship is explicitly recognised, too, in all Latin grammars with which I am acquainted. Now both reason and experi- ence have for years constantly tended to strengthen my conviction that facts which logically belong together are most easily acquired by being learned in conjunction with one another, and that it is a fundamental psycho- logical mistake to dissociate such facts in teaching. Thus the pupil who is studying Roman private antiqui- ties, for instance, can hardly expect to secure an easy THE BEGINNER'S BOOK 55 mastery of his subject if in one lesson he learns a few facts about the Roman house, a few more about the toga, coupled with isolated allusions to the modes of marriage and the methods of disposal of the body after death. Similarly, the pupil who acquires in one lesson a bit of a verb, a paradigm of a declension, the inflec- tion of a pronoun, along with a rule for the use of the infinitive, and then in the next, perhaps, the principles for the use of cmUy the formation of adverbs, and the conjugation of possum^ — such a pupil, I say, seems to me to be put at an enormous psychological disadvan- tage in his acquisition of the really essential facts whose thorough mastery is so indispensable. A certain theory of interest is, I am well aware, some- times urged in defence of the prevaihng plan, but it is a serious question whether interest is really The Theoiy promoted by a plan which does violence to °* interest obvious psychological laws, and, even if interest were promoted, whether it would be wise to make so great a sacrifice for the end. The combination of a study of syntax with the forms results apparently from the same motive, — that of increasing the interest of the subject by in- ^^^„^ Q^gj.- creasing its variety. trainiiig of It is frequently urged, too, that the old ^ emory. method of vigorous, aggressive attack upon the para- digms (and upon them alone until mastered) involved a training of the memory at the expense of other facul- ties; hence the justification of combining the study of syntax with that of the declensions and conjugations. But even were the study of syntax taken up more sys- tematically, I am convinced that it would be a mistake to pursue its study in conjunction with the study of the forms. It can hardly fail to distract the energy of the beginning Latin student to be studying contemporane- 56 THE BEGINNING WORK ously two things so different as forms and syntax. Any such plan necessarily precludes, or at least enormously diminishes, any effective concentration. Without such concentration it must be more difficult to acquire a mastery of either forms or syntax. We hear much Importance of to-day of correlation in educational work, Concentration, j^^^ ^g need to exercise the greatest dis- crimination in the combinations we undertake to make ; else under the name of correlation we are hkely to find ourselves encouraging a serious dissipation of energy. Nor need we, I beheve, cherish any fears of overtraining the memory by directing the pupil's efforts from the outset exclusively (or practically so ^ ) to a systematic study of the forms until these are mastered. So far from there being any danger of overtraining the memory by this plan, I am convinced, by my experience with some twelve hundred freshmen whose work has all passed directly under my observation during the last ten years, that there is the greatest danger of training it too little. The age at which pupils ordinarily begin the study of Latin is one at which the memory is usu- ally active and responsive. Later the keenness of its edge is dulled, and it seems unfortunate not to encour- age its cultivation by putting upon it the legitimate burdens which at this period it is fitted to bear with ease. Nor is it a common experience that pupils quali- fied to pursue Latin with profit find this work either specially laborious or distasteful when pursued in the manner I am recommending. On the other hand, I 1 There can be no objection to giving the pupil at the outset the paradigm of the present indicative active of a regular verb of the ist conjugation, the present indicative of sum, along with a few fundamental syntactical principles (subject, object, predicate noun, appositive). This makes it possible to deal with complete sentences from the earliest lessons. THE BEGINNER'S BOOK $7 cannot reject the conviction that the labour is increased and the acquisition of the forms is made positively dis- tasteful by assuming, even unconsciously, the attitude that a vigorous attack upon the forms and a most thor- ough memorizing of them is not desirable. As has been often observed, the pupil in the early weeks of his study of Latin is dominated by a veritable thirst for extensive acquisition, and it seems unfortunate not to gratify this spirit and utilize it, instead of wearying the pupil by unnatural restraint. The exclusive exercise of the memory is certainly a pernicious practice, but we cannot afford to neglect the service of this intellectual process at any stage of educa- tion or in the pursuit of any subject. Least of all can we afford to neglect it in the study of a highly inflected language, the knowledge of whose paradigms is so absolutely indispensable to all future work. These paradigms must be memorized till they are as familiar to the pupil as the alphabet or the multiplication table. Only so can he be said to know them. The important question is whether it is best to pursue a halting timid policy or one of vigorous, sustained attack, recognising that nothing but the severe exercise of the memory will suffice for the purpose. Yet it is only in the very ear- liest stages of Latin study that any such extensive utili- zation of the memory can be necessary. The pupil comes soon enough to problems which demand the exercise of the reflective, the discriminating, and the imaginative faculties, and he will be all the better equipped to cope with these problems if he has first provided himself with a solid foundation in the forms. In fact, without such foundation he will be permanently at a fatal disadvantage. The second defect of the beginner's book of the pre- vailing type is that it separates in the initial stages of the 58 THE BEGINNING WORK work things which must later be associated. Thus the pupil, let us say, learns the present, imperfect, and Necessitates ^^^"^^ indicative of amo in one lesson; in Later Re- another somewhat later he learns the perfect a justmen . {jj^^j^ative active, and long subsequently he acquires piecemeal the remainder of the conjugation of amo. So with the other conjugations, with the pronouns, with the five declensions, particularly the third, which is often dismembered and whose parts are treated at wide intervals ; so, too, with the various constructions of the accusative, dative, genitive, ablative, etc. Sooner or later the pupil comes to the Grammar, and here he finds the facts with which he has previously become familiar grouped in quite another way. In the review of what he has already learned, and in forming a basis around which to group systematically the new facts of forms and syntax he may acquire, the pupil is forced to make an entirely new distribution of his stock of knowledge. All the subtle threads of association which have hitherto been woven into the existing fabric of his knowledge have to be rudely broken, and a new warp and a new woof have to be created. I fear that the amount of effort requisite for the consummation of this redistribution and rearrangement is not fully appreci- ated. To my mind the requisite effort cannot fail to be enormous. ^ I fear, in fact, that it is so great that the redistribution and rearrangement frequently fail of consummation by the pupil, and to this fact I believe we must attribute in large measure ^ the deplorable ignorance of Latin grammar which characterizes the 1 On this point, cf. Dettweiler (in Baumeister, Handbuch der Erzie- hungs- und Unterrichtslehre fUr die lioheren Schulen, Vol. III. Part iii., Lateinisch, p. 36), who insists that the beginner's book and the Gram- mar should agree in arrangement and in form of statement. 2 Another cause is mentioned later in chapter iv. p. 144. THE BEGINNER'S BOOK 59 pupils of our secondary schools to-day. Even where the change of association and the necessary regrouping are effected, it can be only at great expense of time and energy. A true economy of acquisition should always consider the ultimate form and arrangement in which the student is to marshal and group the facts of his knowledge. Unless we are to abandon the effective study of the Latin Grammar, it seems to me indispen- sable to make the beginner's book conform in its arrange- ment and material to the order of the Grammar, so far as the two books cover identical ground. In this way the beginning book will be a distinct help to the later study of the Grammar; in the other case, the difficulty of the new adjustment is likely to prove a serious im- pediment to an effective mastery of the Grammar. The old way of beginning Latin with Grammar and Reader would, I believe, be sounder and easier than this. The third fundamental defect in these books to which I wished to call attention touches the introduction of exercises in translating English into Latin before the forms are mastered. So far as S^iS" any increased mastery of the forms is con- introduced cerned, it seems a serious mistake to expect *^ ^^^^' to secure it by practice in translating from English into Latin. Let us suppose, for example, that the essential feature of the lesson for a given day is the inflection of a noun of the first declension, or the indicative Economy mood of the active voice of amo. Is it likely o^ Time, to be an effective employment of the student's time and energy, for him to translate, say, a dozen or fifteen sen- tences from English into Latin, calling for the use of different forms o{ porta and amo? The pupil in this way gets but a limited amount of drill on the forms. Fifteen sentences of the sort mentioned constitute a fairly long exercise. My own experiments indicate that two and 6o THE BEGINNING WORK one-half minutes is a very moderate average time allow- ance for each sentence. This makes thirty-seven minutes for such an exercise, a large proportion of the pupil's Defective time. Moreover, the exercise is almost certain Results. to be lacking in tonic effect. The pupil's nat- ural tendency in writing the Latin for ' of the farmer,' 'of the girls,' 'to the inhabitants,' etc., is to turn to his printed paradigm and secure the desired form by imitating ; so in the verb, * he will praise,' ' we have praised,' * you summoned,' ' they are calling,' etc., are not turned into Latin by an active effort of deriving the required form from the pupil's present knowledge of the paradigm, but almost inevitably the pupil follows the line of least resistance and consults the printed paradigm. This tendency on the pupil's part is so strong, I believe, as to be practically irresistible, and, where yielded to, must exert an influence which, so far from being tonic and strengthening, is positively weakening to the pupil. To me it seems possible to ensure the requisite inde- pendent exercise upon the forms only by oral methods under the immediate direction of the teacher. Let me illustrate what I have in mind. Let us sup- pose the lesson is on the first declension. Let the A Practical teacher put to the entire class such questions Suggestion. as the following, asking for a show of hands as each pupil is prepared to answer: ''What is the Latin for ' of girls ; ' ' to the farmers ; ' ' farmers ' as sub- ject ; as object ; * of the island ' ? " and so on, i. e. pursu- ing a series of questions in which the English is given and the corresponding Latin form is demanded. Then let the reverse process be instituted, and translation into English be demanded where the Latin form is given. The teacher asks: "What is the English for puellae, for insulis, incolariim, ificolain, agricolaCy agricolas ? " etc. Then a fresh turn may be taken and the form be given. THE BEGINNER'S BOOK 6l while the pupils are asked to give the number and case in which the form is found ; and, lastly, the teacher may give the number and case, asking for the form which corresponds, e. g., " What is the genitive plural of in- sula; the dative singular of agricola; the dative plural; the accusative plural of incolaf ", etc. Similarly with the verb ; the teacher can give the meaning and ask for the corresponding form, or he may give the form and ask for the meaning; or he may state the mood, tense, person, and number in which a given form is found and ask the pupils to give the form ; or, lastly, he may give the form and ask the pupils to locate its mood, tense, number, and person. By such an exercise the pupils are thrown entirely upon their own resources. They are forced to recall and to reconstruct; they cannot refer to a book ; the process is stimulating and strength- ening. They are indelibly imprinting upon their minds vivid pictures of the paradigms, filling in the relatively uncertain and shadowy outlines with definite and effec- tive strokes. Another advantage of such an exercise is the amount of work that can be done in a relatively short time. The pupil who in thirty-seven minutes has written fifteen exercises has at best received only fifteen impressions illustrating the paradigm involved in the lesson for the day. There is the greatest danger, too, that these impressions have been feeble, — inevitably so if, instead of recalling the required form by a direct effort, the pupil has consulted the printed paradigm for it. On the other hand, by such an exercise as I describe it is easily possible in two minutes to secure these fifteen impressions, and to be sure that they have been secured by the only way possessing any educative value, — by a direct effort of the memory and reason. In ten minutes, therefore, five times as much can be done toward impressing upon the pupil's mind the 62 THE BEGINNING WORK paradigm of porta or of a^no as in four times the same amount of time devoted to writing sentences involving the application of these forms, and the teacher can be certain too that the work has been honest. It is not difficult either to enlist the activity of an entire class in such an exercise. While only one pupil can answer any given question, yet I have never failed to feel convinced, where I have followed this plan, that the entire class were doing the work. Such work, further- more, is intensive, whereas the writing of sentences — even of simple sentences — inevitably distracts the pupil's mind from the forms, and dissipates his energies upon a variety of things. One of these is the vocabu- lary. As the pupil progresses from lesson to lesson he is sure to forget some, at least, of the earlier Latin words, and when he needs them there is only one re- course, — to hunt them up in the Vocabulary at the end of the book. Another difficulty is the syntax, — slight, perhaps, but actual ; yet another is the matter of word- order. All of these elements together conspire to pre- vent that indispensable concentration upon the forms without which they cannot be mastered. Instead of doing one thing, the pupil is doing several contempora- neously, and all probably indifferently. " Otie thing at a time, and that do7te well,' was a fine old motto of our fathers, which seems too much neglected in recent edu- cation. Still the writing of Latin undoubtedly has its place. When the pupil comes to the systematic study of syntax, such exercises are indispensable ; but I hold it to be a self-evident proposition that for the purposes of effective drill in syntax the forms must be already thoroughly mastered, so that the pupil's entire energy may be devoted to the one central object of attention. Only then can we secure that definiteness of impression which is the foundation of real knowledge. The piano- THE BEGINNER'S BOOK 63 forte pupil does not practise exercises the successive bars of which consist of arpeggios, trills, double thirds, octaves, and scales. These various elements of musical capacity are taken individually, and each is made the subject of intensive work. I cannot but feel that in all study and all teaching the same principle must apply wherever effective progress is to be made without de- plorable waste of time and energy both on the pupil's and the teacher's part. As to the vocabulary of the beginner's book, 1 believe it should be small. The principle above advo- cated of doing one thing at a time and doing ^^ that thing well, as opposed to undertaking to lary should do several things at a time and inviting dis- aster, holds here also. If the beginner can learn his in- flections and a few elements of syntax, even though his vocabulary be limited, he is equipped to begin some simple reading. A vocabulary can be acquired only slowly at best, and its acquisition will be retarded so long as the pupil still has an imperfect or incomplete knowledge of his paradigms, and is still under the neces- sity of devoting a large part of his energy to this feature of his Latin study. Even after the forms are mastered, it would still seem wiser, pending the acquisition of the fundamental principles of Latin syntax, to defer any special endeavour to extend the range of the pupil's vocab- ulary. When these indispensable preliminaries have been met the pupil may well enough make the acquisi- tion of a vocabulary an important end of study, and may then, I believe, expect to make fairly rapid progress in his quest. But before that, I am convinced not only that his struggle will be futile, but that his general prog- ress in other directions will be impeded by the multi- phcity of his concerns, and the consequent distraction of effort and energy. Those educators, therefore, who 64 THE BEGINNING WORK advocate a vocabulary of 2,000 or 2,200 words in the be- ginner's book seem to me to be guided by unsound con- victions. It is perfectly true, as these persons urge, that the lack of vocabulary is the one great impediment to more extensive and more rapid reading of Latin ; but the great question after all is how best to secure an exten- sive and accurate knowledge of the words one is likely to meet in reading. Are we likely to succeed by dint of a heroic effort at the outset when other and more serious difficulties are encountering us at every turn? Is it not better to restrict ourselves to other things in the begin- ning work, and leave the vocabulary for the later stages of the study? Seven hundred words have been shown by experience to be amply sufficient to lend variety and interest to the work, and, by the abundant repetition of the same words, to ensure that this small vocabulary will be thoroughly mastered. But even this mastery should hardly be made a conspicuous object. Probably most pupils will inevitably become familiar with all or nearly all the words of a vocabulary of that size by the mere frequency with which the words recur. Any effective vocabulary will certainly always be gained in that way, i. e, by reading and frequently meeting the same words used again and again in the same senses. Nothing but wide reading can bring about this result, and to read widely while pursuing the beginning work is a contradiction in terms. To sum up, then, on this subject of the beginner's book, I feel convinced that most existing beginner's books make a profound psychological mis- take in combining the contemporaneous study of forms and syntax from the outset; in disso- ciating not merely the different declensions and con- jugations, but even the different parts of the same declension and the same conjugation; in dissociating THE BEGINNER'S BOOK 65 related syntactical constructions ; furthermore (as a result of these dissociations), in teaching the elements of the language to the pupil in an order that must be unlearned and mentally rearranged so soon as a syste- matic study of the Latin Grammar is begun ; lastly, in laying stress upon the writing of Latin before the forms are mastered, — an exercise which can primarily be of value only in inculcating a better knowledge of syntax, and is of the very slightest aid, if not a positive detri- ment, in acquiring a knowledge of the forms themselves. When to all these defects is added, as in some books of the class referred to, a very large vocabulary, we have the climax of unwisdom applied to the teaching of elementary Latin. Reason seems to me to show us that in approaching a difficult subject the logical way is not to attempt to master all its difficulties at once, not to undertake from the outset to cope with every species of obstacle, howsoever heterogeneous these may be; but rather to choose for the object of first attack that side of the subject whose knowledge is indispensable to further advance, to master this, and then proceed to the next thing, building in orderly systematic fashion, doing one thing at a time and doing that honestly, conserving energy, clinging definitely to a purpose, and making that purpose obvious to the pupil instead of involving him in a blind maze, out of which nothing but a supreme act of faith can afford any hope of ever emerging. Per- sonally I believe the pupil should first address himself to the forms, and devote himself to nothing else until they are completely mastered. I believe too that these should be studied practically in the order given in the Grammar,^ illustrated of course by copious sentences for 1 Bonus and other adjectives of the first and second declensions may well enough follow nouns of the first and second declensions. I can think of no other justifiable deviation. S 66 THE BEGINNING WORK translation. Until the forms are mastered, syntax, I am convinced, should be kept in the background, beyond the introduction of the commonest syntactical principles, such as the case for subject, object, predicate noun, appositive, the agreement of the adjective with its sub- stantive, and of the relative with its antecedent. The writing of Latin, too, should be deferred at least till syntax is reached, and if it is deferred till after the first rough outline of elementary syntax is acquired, it will involve no harm. The vocabulary should be brief; seven or eight hundred words, exclusive of proper names, are ample for the beginning work. These, too, should be common words, and as concrete as possible; words, too, employed in their original senses, not In derived ones. II. Pronunciation. BIBLIOGRAPHY. Bennett, Chas. E. Appendix to Bennett's Latin Grammar, pp. 4-68. Boston. Allyn & Bacon. 1895. Lindsay, "W. M. The Latin Language, Chapter ii. Oxford. Claren- don Press. 1894. Lindsay, W. M. Historical Latin Grammar, pp. 8-21. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1895. Seelmann, Emil. Die Aussprache des Latin. Heilbronn. 1885. Ellis, Robinson. The Quantitative Pronunciation of Latin. Lon- don. 1874. A discussion of special problems. Roby, H. J. Latin Grammar. Vol. I., 4th ed. pp. xxx-xc. London. Macmillan & Co. 1881. It Is now something like twenty years since the so- called Roman or quantitative pronunciation of Latin was „^ „ first generally introduced into the schools The Roman , t^ • Pronuncia- and colleges of this country. Prior to that, *^°°* most schools and colleges had used the Eng- lish pronunciation ; some few employed a pronunciation called the * continental.' This last, however, was not PRONUNCIATION 6/ one pronunciation, but several; in the sounds of the vowels it adhered to their prevailing pronunciation in the languages of continental Europe, but the sounds of certain consonants, namely, c,g, t,j\ s, were rendered with much variety. Both the English and continental pro- nunciations still survive in this country, though prob- ably the two together are not represented by five per cent of the Latin pupils of the secondary schools ; in the colleges the percentage must be lower still. By the Roman pronunciation is, of course, meant the pronunciation employed by the ancient Romans themselves. This pronunciation naturally varied much at different periods ; ^ hence it has been necessary to take the pronunciation of some well-defined epoch as a standard. The epoch conventionally adopted for this purpose is the golden age of Rome's literary greatness, — roughly the period from 50 B.C. to 50 A. D. Inas- much as many intelligent and otherwise well- Eyj^gjice for informed persons, including teachers of Latin, the Roman often cherish and express a skepticism as to the grounds on which scholars have presumed to recon- struct the pronunciation of a dead language like Latin, it may be well here briefly to indicate the nature of the evidence which supports this Roman pronunciation of Latin. The evidence may be brought under five heads. a. The statements of Roman writers. To a person unaware of the writings of the old Latin grammarians from the first to the eighth centuries of our jj^j^^ era, the body of their works will be surprising. Grammari- These works have been carefully collected ^** by Keil, a German scholar, under the title Grammatici 1 Thus V, to take but a single letter for the purposes of illustration, was pronounced as English w down to about 100 a. d. ; later it became a bilabial spirant (a sound not occurring in English); and finally (5th century a. d.) it passed into the labio dental spirant, English v. 68 THE BEGINNING WORK Lafim (heipz'ig, 1855-1880), and fill eight large quarto volumes. These writers cover the entire field of gram- mar, and most of them devote more or less space to a systematic consideration of the sounds of the letters. As representative writers on this subject, may be cited Terentianus Maurus (flourished 185 A. D.) ; Marius Victorinus (fl. 350 A. D.) ; Martianus Capella (fourth or fifth century A. D. ; not in Keil's collection) ; Priscian (fl. 500 A. D.). Even the classical writers have often incidentally contributed valuable bits of information; e. g, Varro, Cicero, Quintilian. b. Inscriptions furnish a second important source of information. The total body of these is very great. The Corpus Inscriptionnm Latinarum, in pro- Inscriptions. /.,,.. . ox- . , cess of pubhcation smce 1863, consists al- ready of fifteen large folio volumes, some of them in several parts, and is not yet completed. These inscrip- tions disclose many peculiarities of orthography which are exceedingly instructive for the pronunciation of Latin. Thus such spellings as urps and pleps by the side of urbs and plebs clearly indicate the assimilation oi b \.o p before s. Similarly termae, aetereas, etc., show clearly that at the time these inscriptions were cut th was still practically a /-sound, and forbid us to attach to it the value of English th as heard in either this or thin. Even the blunders of the masons who cut the inscriptions are not infrequently exceedingly instructive. c. Greek transliterations of Latin words constitute a third source of knowledge. Not only Greek writers Greek Trans- (especially the Greek historians of Roman uterations. afl"airs), but also Greek inscriptions, aflbrd us abundant evidence of this kind. Thus the Greek KiKcpcov (Cicero) furnishes support for the y^-sound of Latin c; while Atovia (^Livia) and OvakevrCa {Valentia) bear similarly upon the zf-sound of Latin v. The PRONUNCIATION 69 Inscriptions are naturally much more trustworthy guides in this matter than our texts of the Greek authors, for we can never be sure that the MSS. have not undergone alterations in the process of transmission to modern times. d. The Romance languages also (French, Spanish, Italian, etc.), within limits, may be utihzed Romance in determining the sounds of Latin. Languages. e. The sound-changes of Latin itself, as analyzed by etymological investigation. Modern scholars, particu- larly in the last forty years, have done much to promote the scientific study of Latin sounds and forms; their researches have thrown no little light upon the sounds of Latin. As a result of all these sources of knowledge,-^ any one who will patiently review the evidence may easily assure himself that the Roman pronunciation rests upon a solid historical foundation, and is not a flimsy product of the imagination. As to certain points, the evidence is, of course, conflicting, and as a result the opinions of scholars diverge. Doubtless, too, there existed certain refinements of pronunciation which will always remain unknown to us. But it cannot be denied that we can to-day restore in its essential features the pronunciation of Latin substantially as the Romans spoke it. Admission has just been made above of our inability to establish with certainty all the various refinements of pronunciation which must have existed in Latin. An exception must be made, however, in Hidden regard to one point, — " hidden quantity." A Q^iantity. hidden quantity is the quantity of a vowel before two consonants. Such a quantity is called hidden as dis- tinguished from the quantity of a vowel before a single 1 The detailed evidence will be found in the books above cited. 70 THE BEGINNING WORK consonant, where the employment of the word in verse at once indicates whether the vowel is long or short.^ The determination of these hidden quantities is obvi- ously of great importance if we would secure an accu- rate pronunciation of Latin. In a modern language the pronunciation of a long vowel for a short, or vice versa, will often effectually disguise a word.^ At first sight the determination of these multitudinous hidden quanti- ties seems a well-nigh insuperable difficulty. Scholarly research has, however, succeeded in definitely settling most of them.^ The evidence is as follows: a. Express testimony of the attcient Roman writers. Thus, for example, Cicero {Orator, 48. 159) lays down the general principle that all vowels are long before nf and ns. Nearly every Roman grammarian furnishes some little direct testimony of this kind. b. The versification of the early Roman dramatists, particularly Plautus and Terence. These writers fre- 1 Thus in the hexameter line beginning conspexere silent, the metre clearly shows that the / of silent is short ; for if the vowel were here long, the syllable would be long. But the e of silent might be either long or short. All that the metre shows is that the syllable is long; it tells us nothing about the vowel, and we cannot (at least not by mere inspection of the verse) determine whether we should pronounce e or e. Hence we call the quantity of the vowel in such cases hidden. Pupil and teacher alike should always guard carefully against the prevalent confusion of quantity of vowel with quantity of syllable. Before a single consonant the quantity of the vowel and syllable are, of course, always identical, /. e. if the vowel is long, the syllable is also long, but before two consonants, while the syllable is long, the voivel itself may be either long or short, and must be pronounced long or short according to its actual quantity. 2 Were one to speak of a wtck as a 7veke, or a pool as a pUll, the metathesis would be the same as in Latin when one says victor for vtctor ; or ustus for iisltis. I remember that in German my pronunciation of Kloster as Kldster ; Mond as M8nd ; and WUste as WUste, all com- pletely nonplussed my listeners. 8 A detailed discussion of the principles for hidden quantity, along with a full list of words whose hidden vowels are long, may be found in Bennett, Appendix to Latin Grammar, pp. 34-68. PRO NUN CI A TION 7 1 quently employ as short many syllables which in classi- cal poetry would invariably be long by position. In many of these cases it is manifest that the short syllable quantity is owing to the fact that the vowel was short and that the two following consonants somehow failed to * make position.' c. Inscriptions. Various modes of spelling and various diacritical marks were in vogue to indicate long vowels. Thus from 130-70 B. c. we find the vowels a, e, ?/ written double, when it was desired to indicate their long quan- tity, e. g. paastores, pequlatuu, etc. Long i was in early times often written ei, e.g. veixit. Beginning with the middle of the first century B. c. we find the apex (or accent mark) set over the vowels a, e^ 0, u, while long i was now designated by an I rising above the other letters and called i longa. Later, i also took the apex. Examples are : trdxi, olla, lectus, juncta, qvInqve, prisciis. d. Greek transliterations of Latin words. This method is most fruitfully applied in case of the vowels e and 0. The employment of Greek e or 77, or a), makes the quantity of the Latin vowel certain, wherever faith may be reposed in the accuracy of the transcription. Thus we write Esquiliae in view of 'Hc/cuXtz^o?, Strabo, v. 234; Vergilius after OvepyiXio^;; Vesontio after OveaovTicov, Dio Cassius, Ixviii. 24. The quantity of i also may often be determined by Greek transliterations. Thus ei regu- larly points to Latin J, e. g. BeL-^jrdvto^ = Vipsdnius; Greek i points to Latin t, e.g. l(TTpo<; = Ister. e. T/ie vocalism of the Romance languages, particu- larly the Spanish and Italian. These languages treated e, i, 0, u with great regularity according to the natural length of the vowel in Latin. Latin e and were close vowels ; e and were open. The Romance languages have preserved these original vowel qualities with great 72 THE BEGINNING WORK tenacity. Hence Italian crescere with close e justifies our writing cresco for Latin ; while Italian honesto with open e points to Latin hoiiestiis. Similarly Italian noscere with close justifies our writing nosed for Latin, while Italian dotto with open o points to Latin doctus. In the same way Latin i and il remained i and ii in Romance, while t and u became respectively close e and close o. Thus from Italian dissi we infer Latin dixi ; from Italian dussi, Latin duxi ; while detto with close e points to Latin dictus, and -dotto with close o to Latin diictus. This method of deteimining the hidden quantity of Latin vowels from the Romance has been applied most fruit- fully in recent years. As a result of the application of the five methods above described, there remain at present extremely few undetermined hidden vowel quantities in Latin words. Some slight divergence of opinion still exists among investigators as to the quantity of certain vowels ; but this divergence is exceedingly slight, vastly less, in fact, than for any corresponding number of Eng- lish words. Professors Greenough and Howard in the preface to their Allen a?td Greenough' s Shorter Latin Grammar, p. iv, speak of this matter of hidden quanti- ties as a subject still in its infancy. Such is far from being the case. Of the five methods above enumerated of arriving at a knowledge of hidden quantities, each one has already been utilized to practically the fullest extent of which it is capable. The works of the Roman gram- marians and other Roman writers have been systemati- cally searched, and their testimonies recorded and sifted ; the versification of the Roman dramatists has been care- fully studied with specific reference to this very point ; the great body of Latin inscriptions has been conscien- tiously examined, and all instances of the use of the apex or I lofiga have been gathered and classified by PRONUNCIATION 73 C\\ns,t\3in?,en {De apicibtis et I longis. Husum, 1889); the form assumed by Latin words in Greek transliterations has been carefully studied for the body of Greek in- scriptions by Eckinger {Orthographie lateinischer Worter in griechischen Inschrifteji. Munich. Without date; about 1893); and, lastly, the testimony derivable from the Romance languages has been most minutely exam- ined in a series of publications : Grober, Vulgdrlatein- ische Substrata romanischer Worter^ a series of articles in Wolfflin's Archiv fur lateinische Lexikographie y vols, i.— vi. ; Korting, Lateinisch-Romanisches Worterbuchy Paderborn, 1891 ; d'Ovidio, in Grober' s Grundiss der rornanischen Philologie, Strassburg, 1888, i. p. 497 ff. The authors of these last three works have not merely taken into consideration the leading literary Romance languages, but they have gleaned from the most obscure dialects whatever contribution these could offer. All in all, it is not probable that we shall ever know the quantities of hidden Latin vowels appreciably better than we do to-day, for it is unlikely either that new sources of knowledge on this subject will be discovered, or that further study of the existing sources will yield re- sults which will materially alter our present conclusions. I have been speaking thus far of the Roman pronun- ciation as a subject of historical and linguistic interest. It remains to say a word as to its adaptation ^j^g uo^ja^ to the needs of our American education ; and Pronunciation here I wish at the outset to declare frankly Abandoned — my conviction that the introduction of the Reasons. Roman pronunciation was a fundamental blunder, and that its retention is likewise a serious mistake. My reasons follow: a. The Roman pronunciation is extremely difficult. This is sometimes denied, but only by superficial ob- 74 THE BEGINNING WORK servers. Such persons call attention to the fact that, under the Roman pronunciation, c, g, ty s are Difficulty. , .^ . ^ • ^' t u always uniform m pronunciation, whereas by the English method the sounds of these letters vary and depend upon rules. This, however, is a very slight con- sideration ; for c, g, t, s under the English pronunciation vary in accordance with the normal mode of pronounc- ing the same letters in English words. Thus we instinc- tively pronounce genus 2i?> jee-nuSj propitiiis as propiskuSy after familiar English analogy. What makes the Roman pronunciation of Latin really difficult is the quantity of the vowels. So far as these belong to inflectional endings, e. g. -i, -drumy -oSy -as, -drum, -ibuSy 'dbamy -ebaniy -ero, -eranty etc., they can be learned as easily by one pronunciation as the other. But even when the pupil has acquired a knowledge of these, there remains the multitude of vowels in the interior of words, — in root syllables, in stems, and in suffixes. Here nothing but sheer force of memory can enable any one to become master of the vast number of vowels to be pro- nounced. Even the same root often varies, e. g. fldoy but fides ; ftdelis, but fldus. Some few general prin- ciples can, of course, be given, but there remain literally thousands of vowels that must be learned outright and retained by memory alone ; e, g. stMiuniy geroy vttiumy modus y sexdgintd^ seneXy video y Idtus C side '), but IdtuSy ('broad ')yferuSy etc., etc., etc. To these must be added hidden vowel quantities by the hundreds ; e. g, frustrdy cessi, scrip Sly tinxiy missus y ustuSy Us si, lux, niiXy diiXy neXy lex, usquCy rostrumy fibster, sistOy sistrumy mdximus, luctuSyfliictus, etc., etc., etc. Even the consonants create difficulty, particularly the doubled consonants ; e. g. pp, tt, cc, 11, mmy sSy etc. In English we pronounce these singly. Thus we say/^ry, though we write ferry ; kitj/y where we write kitty. But PRONUNCIA TION 75 in Latin we know that these doubled consonants were regularly pronounced double, just as they are in modern Italian. A distinct effort is necessary to achieve this pronunciation. Another point of difficulty is the proper division of words into syllables. Recent researches have shown that our traditional rules for syllable division, though they rest upon the express testimony of the Latin grammarians, were purely mechanical directions, and did not indicate the actual pronunciation.^ The actual division, moreover, must have been quite different from that which prevails in English under corresponding con- ditions. Lastly, we have the difficulty of the Latin accent. It is beyond question that Latin was less heavily stressed than are the accented syllables in our English speech. All these difficulties are really so great that anything like an accurate pronunciation of Latin under the Roman system is practically impossible except by the sacrifice of an amount of time out of all proportion to the importance of the end to be attained. As a matter of fact, few teachers and practically no pupils ever do acquire a pronunciation of any exactness. Out of some twelve hundred freshmen whom I have tested on this point in the last dozen years at two leading American universities I have never found one who could mark ten Hnes of Caesar's Gallic Wcir with, substantial quantitative accuracy. Nor is this all. For eight years I have con- ducted summer courses for teachers at Cornell Uni- versity. This work has been attended by some two hundred teachers and college professors, nearly all of them college graduates, and many of them persons who had had graduate work at our best universities. Yet few 1 See the discussion in Bennett, Appendix to Bennett's Latin Gram- mar, p. 30 ff. ^6 THE BEGINNING WORK of these have ever shown any thorough grasp of the Roman pronunciation, and most of them have exhibited deplorable ignorance of the first principles of its accurate application. Even college professors of eminence often frankly admit their own ignorance of vowel quantity and proclaim their despair of ever acquiring a knowledge of it. It is not long since I Hstened to a professor of high position who gave at an educational meeting an illustration of his method of reading Latin poetry. The reading was prefaced with the candid declaration that the reader had never pretended to acquire an accurate knowledge of Latin vowel quantities and de- spaired of ever succeeding in doing so. The reading which followed proved the correctness of this state- ment. The opening hne of Horace, Odes^ i. 23, was read thus: Vitas inuleo me similis Chl5g, and was followed by similar violations of vocalic and syllabic quantity. It is safe to say that only those who have devoted long and patient attention to the subject, and who practise frequent oral reading, can pronounce Latin with accuracy according to the Roman method. My observation teaches me that those who ever attain this accompHshment are so few in number as to constitute practically a negligible quantity. The foregoing practical considerations, based upon the inherent difficulties of the Roman pronunciation, coupled with the practically universal failure to adhere to its principles, have long seemed to my mind valid grounds for its abandonment. Those who urge its retention on the ground of its ease certainly are inex- cusably blind to the facts. Those who advocate it on the ground that it is a moral duty to pronounce Latin PRONUNCIATION 77 as the Romans did, may theoretically have a good case. But certainly it can no longer be held to be a moral duty to maintain a system of pronunciation which the experience of twenty years has shown to result in miserable failure, and the intrinsic difficulties of whose accurate application are so evident. We cannot hope, I believe, to secure appreciably better results than have thus far been achieved, certainly not without the ex penditure of a vast amount of time and energy, which can ill be spared. b. It brings no cojnpensating advantages. This state- ment will doubtless provoke dissent, and some may wish to urge that the acquisition of the vocalic Brings ^q sounds of the Roman pronunciation of Latin compensating e/ O - . . 1 1 r 1 1 Advantages. 1 ' ' -eiMy^/^JJi IS oi assistance m the study oi the modern %ii-- i European languages. But this can hardly be deemed -C->^ ax^^J^^C^ a serious argument. Some of the Latin vowels and ^t^-cytiw tat diphthongs designate identical sounds in French and ' German, but quite as often they are different; e.g. French a, ti, en, ei, ai, oi; German ae, en, ei. Moreover, the apprehension of these constitutes an exceedingly slight difficulty. Others urge the importance of the quantitative pro- nunciation of Latin for the reading of Latin poetry; and here, if anywhere, we might recognise a valid reason for the retention of the Roman pronunciation, if only our pupils acquired, or could reasonably be ex- pected to acquire, an accurate quantitative pronuncia- tion of the Latin language, and if they combined with this any just conception of the truly quantitative nature of Latin poetry.^ But so long as the prevailing pro- nunciation is practically oblivious of the difference between long and short vowels, and so long as we 1 See below, chapter vi., Latin Prosody. 78 THE BEGINNING WORK follow the traditional practice of making Latin poetry accentual, it is idle to support the retention of the Roman pronunciation on the grounds that it contrib- utes to a capacity to appreciate Latin poetry in its true organic and artistic structure. A rigidly accurate quantitative pronunciation will do this, provided we eliminate the unjustifiable artificial stress ictus, but our present proficiency in the Roman pronunciation, or any proficiency we are ever, likely to achieve, will hardly enable any considerable fraction of our students ever to appreciate Latin poetry as a quantitative rhythm. c. // does bring certain distinct disadvantages. Chief among these is the difficulty it adds to the beginning Disadvantages. '^^^^ ^^ Latin. I am forced to believe that the acquisition of the forms is very much easier under the English pronunciation, where the entire energy of the pupil can be devoted to the forms them- selves without the embarrassment which the difficulties of a strange pronunciation inevitably impose. Another serious disadvantage is the chaos it has wrought in our current pronunciation of classical proper names, Latin quotations, proverbs, technical terms, legal phrases, titles of classical works, etc. It is extremely difficult to reach any satisfactory basis for pronouncing these. The Roman pronunciation seems awkward and affected, and is to many unintelligible, while to those who have been taught the Roman pronun- ciation any other is difficult. The result is a condition of aff"airs that is keenly felt by many classes of society, — by none perhaps more than by the teachers of Latin, who, while protesting against the present anarchy, find themselves at a loss to effect any radical improvement. The foregoing are the considerations which have for years weighed with me, and which have finally com- P RON UNCI A TION 79 pelled me to believe that the retention of our present unmethodical " method " of pronouncing Latin has proved itself a serious mistake. Fifteen years ago my zeal for the Roman pronunciation was unbounded. For years I have been a conscientious student of the histori- cal and linguistic evidence bearing upon this subject. For years I cherished the hope that with time and better teaching a decided improvement in the results yielded by the Roman pronunciation would manifest itself. But I am now convinced that no such advance has been apparent, and that it will not, can not, ought not to be. So long as we retain the Roman pronuncia- tion, while nominally making that our standard, we shall in reality be far from exemplifying that method in our practice. We shall be guilty of pretending to do one thing, while we really are doing something else. I hesitate to believe that such disingenuousness can per- manently commend itself to thoughtful teachers. I have above mentioned the fact that certain educators advocate the employment of the Roman pronunciation on moral grounds, urging that it is our bounden duty to apply what we know to be true. It is equally on moral grounds (among others) that I would urge the immediate abandonment of the Roman pronunciation. We are not just to ourselves, we are not just to our students, so long as we encourage the present hypo- critical practice. The English pronunciation is at least honest. It confessedly violates vowel quantity, though I doubt whether it actually does so any more than the Roman method as actually employed. But it is simple, easily applied, and reheves the beginner especially of one important element of difficulty and discouragement. The educators of other countries have shown much greater wisdom in this matter of Latin pronunciation than have we. England and Germany have witnessed 80 THE BEGINNING WORK efforts to introduce the Roman pronunciation, but the sober conservative sense of German and English edu- cators has thus far resisted, and probably will continue successfully to resist, this unwise spirit of innovation. In America we are unfortunately too prone to view with favour any new idea, educational or other, and to em- bark precipitately in experiments which involve serious consequences. Undue pressure, I think, is often ex- erted upon the schools by college teachers. Many of these, in their enthusiasm for the scientific aspects of their own professional work, exhibit a tendency to demand that the teaching of their subject in the second- ary schools shall be conducted with express reference to the ultimate needs of the higher scholarship. This attitude manifests itself in many matters of educational policy connected with Latin, and in my judgment in- volves great danger to the best interests of the schools. The prime question in the teaching of every subject in our schools should be the present educational needs of the pupils. Pedagogical procedure should be governed by these considerations. In other words, pupils do not exist for Latin, but Latin exists for the pupils. The needs, real or fancied, of the higher scholarship have no claim to consideration as compared with the rational satisfaction of the pupils' present interests. III. The "Inductive" Method. BIBLIOGRAPHY. Cauer, Paxil. Grammatica Militans, 1898. Chapter ii. " Induktion und Deduktion." Wenzel, Alfred. Der Todeskampf des altsprachlichen Unterrichts. Berlin. Carl Duncker's Verlag. 1899. pp. 19-41. A discussion of the " Inductive " Method may seem somewhat academic. At present certainly in this THE ''INDUCTIVE'' METHOD 8 1 country such a discussion is no longer a practical one. Books constructed professedly on an inductive plan have met with severe criticism, and those specimens of them which have thus far been offered to the educa- tional public have been, I think, quite generally rec- ognised as involving serious pedagogical defects. Still, fairness compels the admission that the so-called *' induc- tive " method has not yet had a fair trial upon the basis of its own merits. The radical defects of the " induc- tive " Latin books for beginners which I have known have seemed to me to He not so much in the inherent weakness of the method professedly followed as in some other features. Harper and Burgess's Inductive Latin Primer will serve to illustrate what I mean. The defects of this book in my judgment are fairly rep- resented by the type of beginner's books which were under discussion in an earlier part of this chapter, pp. 51-66. We note the same unsystematic arrange- ment, the same dissociation of things belonging together, the same mistaken endeavour to teach a little of every- thing at one time, which we considered above. These defects seem to me so serious as to have prevented the possibility of a fair judgment upon the merits of the feature which has given the title to the book, namely, its so-called " inductive " character. In order to understand what this feature promises for Latin instruction, let us examine precisely what it in- volves. The essential feature of the method ^^^^ ^^ receives illustration in the opening lesson of "inductive" the book referred to. Its essence seems to consist in giving an illustration of a principle, and en- couraging the pupil to deduce the principle from the illustration. Thus it is pointed out that Gallia is accented on the first syllable, dlvisa, omuls, partes, on the second, and from these facts the pupil is to study 6 82 THE BEGINNING WORK out the principles of accentuation. So with the other facts and principles of the language. Instead of the statement of a principle followed by an illustration of it^ the pupil is to work out and determine the principle for himself by observation and reflection. The plan rep- The Name resents, therefore, a definite educational the- a Misnomer, ory. The name " inductive," however, seems a thorough misnomer. Any proper induction (in any sense of the word with which I am familiar) consists in bringing together all the facts or, at least, all the possi^ ble types of facts bearing upon some one problem, and then determining from these the principle which they prove. In the book before us, the pupil is given to understand that the facts are typical ; hence he really institutes no truly inductive process ; ^ he merely inter- prets the meaning of an example which some one else by processes truly inductive has discovered to be typical. This inaccuracy of nomenclature, however, does not bear vitally upon the merits of the method, except so far as it may mislead both teacher and pupil to believe they are pursuing a severer mental process than is really the case. The purpose of the method, such as it is, may be pre- sumed to be the stimulating of the pupil's observational and reflective powers. Whether it be wise to of Question- utilize the beginning Latin work for this pur- abie Wis- ^q^q seems open to serious question. Per- sonally I have had no experience with this method of learning the elements of the language, — particularly the accidence ; but the experience of those 1 The process, in fact, is a truly deductive one. Formally, it amounts to this : I. The example before us illustrates a universal principle. 2. The example before us illustrates the following truth {e. g. that the subject of the infinitive stands in the accusative case, or that adjectives of fulness are construed with the genitive). 3. Therefore it is a universal principle that the subject of the infinitive stands in the accusative, or that adjectives of fulness are construed with the genitive. THE ''INDUCTIVE'' METHOD 83 who have attempted to apply it has impressed me with the belief that it is neither effective nor economical. The later study of Latin is so rich in the opportunities it affords for the cultivation of the observational and reflective powers, that it seems safer to defer for the first three or four months of Latin study any special attention to these ends. It certainly will be not only safe, but a positive duty, to do this, unless experience can show that this so-called " inductive " method of learning the sounds, accentuation, forms, and inflections of Latin is an easier and briefer way of mastering them. That experience ever will show this, I doubt. Obser- vation and reason have never proved very helpful assistants in memorizing any large body of facts, such as the forms of a highly inflected language. Reason, I fear, hinders rather than helps in such a task. Such a task seems to me rather a function of the retentive memory, a faculty whose importance we have lately shown such a mistaken tendency to ignore. An exclu- sive cultivation of the memory at the expense of the other faculties is certainly most deplorable. But mem- ory has its important functions, and it is to be hoped that in avoiding the abuse of this faculty we may not be betrayed into ignoring and neglecting its legitimate utilization. In his Grammatica Militans, Paul Cauer, one of the soberest and most thoughtful of German classical edu- cators, thus expresses himself on the subject cauer's of the '' Inductive " Method as its workings Criticisms, have been observed by him in German schools (Chapter ii. : " Induktion und Deduktion," p. 25) : " In the exact sciences, all know how difficult — not to say impossible — it is to establish a complete inductive proof, and how difficult it is to avoid the errors which are neces- sarily involved in the limited material at one's disposal. 84 THE BEGINNING WORK Yet in the school in studying grammar, after three/ four, or, if you will, ten examples have been adduced, the pupil is encouraged to conclude, ' Therefore it is always true that, etc' Instead of this, the teacher should always remind the pupil that no proof has really been adduced, and that the principle to which attention has been called in one or two examples has been estab- lished by the labours of scholars who have carefully examined the literary monuments of the Greek and Latin languages. . . . Otherwise there is propagated by teaching, instead of the blessings of an inductive process, merely the tendency to precipitate generaliza- tion, — a tendency always too natural, — as illustrated in the case of the Englishman who returned from Heidel- berg with the conviction that it always rained there, since he had twice so found it. . . . The passage from the particular to the general, from fact to law, is not the only method of acquiring new knowledge ; the reverse process is equally justified. . . . Which process is best, must be decided in each special case by the nature of the subject." As regards ** inductive " treatment of the forms, Cauer (p. 26) says : " In the first weeks of the study of a new language the pupil is inspired with a burning zeal for learning much ; he has a veritable hunger for extensive acquisition. The teacher should gratify this disposi- tion; he should utilize it, and not weary the pupils with a method which is in place only where one is reviewing matter already familiar for the purpose of discovering the laws to which it conforms. Later also in the syntax there are many instances in which it is both simpler and more instructive to derive the truth from the nature of the subject under discussion rather than from observation." 1 Our American books have mostly contented themselves with one. READING AT SIGHT 8$ IV. Reading at Sight. 'Reading at sight' is used in two senses; in one sense it designates the reading of a passage from some classical author in the original Latin in such -v^at it a way as to appreciate and feel its content Means, without translation mental or oral, but precisely as one would feel a similar passage in one's own vernacular. In the other sense * reading at sight ' designates the trans- lation into English of a passage never before seen. In the discussion which follows I shall restrict the expres- sion * reading at sight ' to the first of these two senses/ and in later discussing the second process shall employ the phrase ' translation at sight.' With the appearance of Professor Hale's fascinating and stimulating paper, The Art of Latin Reading (Bos- ton, 1887), the suggestion was first definitely professor put before teachers and pupils that by the Hale's proper method of study it was possible at ^^p ^ • a relatively early stage of one's Latin study to learn to apprehend even the more complex periods of Cicero's orations as rapidly as read by the eye or heard by the ear. To acquire this power, Professor Hale recom- mended habituating one's self from the very beginning of Latin study to extensive oral reading. As the Latin word-order constitutes one of the chief difficulties in the comprehension of a Latin sentence, the pupil was urged consciously to ask himself at each word of a new sentence, Just what bearing or bearings may this word have?, and holding his several conclusions in suspense was bidden to press on to the end, precisely as in the case of his own language. Faithful application of these 1 It is, of course, obvious that the two processes are not necessarily mutually exclusive. I separate them for the purposes of discussion. / S6 THE BEGINNING WORK principles, it was promised, should enable the pupil, as he progressed in his Latin study, to understand Latin without the necessity of a translation. Professor Hale included in his paper well-chosen illustrations of the way the pupil's mind should act in attaining the promised goal, and new visions of the millennium thrilled the hearts of those who were so fortunate as to listen to the original exposition of his views at the Conference of Academic Principals held at Syracuse in December, 1886. Since Professor Hale's pamphlet appeared (and inci- dentally before that time),* Professor Greenough has Professor given forcible expression to views practically Greenough. identical with those presented by Professor Hale. In the Preface to his "edition of Eutropius (Bos- ton, 1892) he thus concludes his remarks on this ques- tion : *' The essence of all this is, that to learn to read a language the words must be taken as they come, with the ideas they are supposed to convey, and must be forced to make a mental picture in that order^ no matter whether the order is familiar or not."^ More recently still the Commission of New England Colleges has urged* that a very large amount of atten- tion be paid to reading at sight in the new scheme of instruction which they have lately recommended to the secondary schools of New England for adoption. The eminent standing of the advocates of the new theory naturally claims for their views the " most serious con- sideration, and it is because I am not familiar with any 1 For example, in the Introduction to his edition of Cicero's Orations. Boston, 1886. 2 The italics are mine. 8 Cf. also the similar tenor of Professor Flagg's remarks in the Preface to his edition of Nepos. Boston, 1895. * See the Report of their action in the SCHOOL Review for December, 1895. READING A T SIGHT 8/ previous discussion of the subject that I venture here to express some doubts as to the soundness and the practical possibilities of the theories so confidently championed. A favourite appeal with those who lay stress upon the importance of reading at sight is to the fact that children in learning a language learn it not through ^u A' c \- \- ^ A A . 1 Subjective the medium oi objective study and transla- Acquisition of tion, but by direct interpretation of what they ^o^^s^^ ^^n- hear or read. " Why," they ask, " should not Latin and Greek be acquired in the same way?" A proper answer to this question seems to involve the consideration of two others ; first, What is the purpose of Latin study in the secondary school ? and, purpose of second. What is the nature of the intellectual ^^ study, training gained by acquiring a language in the subject- ive way that is regular with children? To the first of these two questions I can still see no other answer than that which I undertook to formulate and defend in the first chapter of this volume. As there set forth, the only rational justification of the study of Latin in our secondary schools seems to me to be found in its unique effect in stimulating and ele- vating the pupil's intellectual processes, and most of all in the increased mastery over the resources of the mother tongue which it confers. As previously main- tained, these results come naturally from careful daily translation under wise guidance. In order properly to answer the second question, namely, that as to the value of the subjective acquisition of a foreign language, the attainment of a capacity for direct interpretation without the medium of translation, let us assume that an American boy of ten goes abroad and resides at Paris or Berlin. It is a familiar fact that such a boy rapidly acquires a certain command of French 88 THE BEGINNING WORK or German. To the person who has no oral command of those languages, the performance of such a youth after a year's foreign residence would be impressive to a degree. But what has the lad really acquired, and what is the significance of his acquisition from the tionai VaiuT' purely educational point of view? The actual of Subjective acquisition does not go beyond a capacity to express the limited range of his ordinary ideas. His vocabulary is small. As regards the edu- cational worth of his new-found capacity, it has given him no mental stimulus, no new powers of discrimina- tion or analysis. Least of all has it given him any increased mastery over his own native language. In fact, as he has become subjectively familiar with a new tongue, the chances are that he has proportionately lost command of his own. Educationally apparently the boy's new acquisition marks no positive intellectual Worthiessness S^i^' ^^^ could it fairly be expected to do of Imitative so; for the process of acquisition has been purely imitative, or practically so, and such a boy might go on indefinitely, learning a new language a year in the same way, without essentially strengthen- ing his intellectual fibre or increasing his intellectual range. Educational processes after the very earliest years are no longer imitative. They are rather dis- criminative and constructive. They must involve com- parison and judgment, and no employment of the pupil's attention which ignores this principle can be expected to yield fruit of value. Those, now, who insist so strenuously on the impor- tance of the direct subjective interpretation of Latin at the very outset of the study seem to me to advocate the acquisition of something which in the first place can be attained only by an imitative process, and which, if at- tained, is not likely to be of any greater educational READING AT SIGHT 89 utility than the capacity to understand colloquial French or German which an American lad might acquire by a moderate period of foreign residence. If, now, Latin is to be retained as a basal subject of instruction in our schools, is it desirable that the pupil be initiated at the outset into a subjective apprehension of the language? Would not the chief usefulness of Latin as an instrument of intellectual discipline vanish the moment the mind of the pupil passed from its objective to its subject- ive contemplation? So soon as such a transition was effected all need of translation would at once disappear, and with it those minute and searching mental processes, which now constitute the most important functions of the study, and which give it its superior title to a place in the curriculum of our schools. Just so far then as reading at sight abridges atten- tion to conscientious translation into idiomatic Eng- lish, just so far must those who believe in the vitalizing and informing influence of such translation believe that reading at sight introduces into our secondary educa- tion an element which is undesirable, — simply because it interferes with what is desirable. But it may be said by the advocates of reading at sight, *' No one disputes the value of translation. All we maintain is that reading at sight furnishes a disci- pline just as good or better, and hence equally entitled to recognition." The validity of this last position seems so questionable that we shall do well to examine it more fully. The result which the exercise of Reading at Sight aims to achieve is the subjective apprehension of the language, a feeling for Latin as Latin. Obviously such a result can be obtained for Latin only in the same way as in case of other languages, namely, by imitative pro cesses. Professor Hale and others urge, in fact, that the beginning pupil put himself in the same attitude as the 90 THE BEGINNING WORK Roman boy of nineteen centuries ago. But was such a process an educative one to the Roman boy? If it was not, is it likely to be to the boy of to-day? Or if it be claimed that to the Roman boy it was distinctively edu- cative, why is not the acquisition of our own tongue in precisely the same way of distinctively educative value, and why does it not accomplish ideal results? It cannot be too clearly borne in mind, I believe, that it is not the knowing a language that is primarily of educational utility. If that were so, the polyglot couriers and kell- ners and portiers of the continental hotels ought to be the most highly cultivated persons of contemporary society. How many of them are able to speak with fluency and accuracy four or five different languages ! These men have learned English, French, German, Italian in the very way that we are told is so desirable for Latin. They feel English as English, French as French, German as German, Italian as Italian. No de- tails of word-order trouble them. No necessity for even a mental translation into terms of their own vernacular. All is subjective, as it should be. The appeal is as direct as was Cave canem ! to a Roman boy. And yet what intellectual furtherance has ever come from such linguis- tic attainments? In fact, ought we to expect it to come? Must not such intellectual growth for pupils in the secondary school come from processes of reflection and comparison, rather than from those of imitation? Per- sonally I am convinced that they must so come. And so I say again : To interpret Latin directly, to feel it as a Roman felt it, is a facility that can be acquired (if at all) only as the Roman acquired it, namely, by imitative processes ; and these processes do seem to be lacking in any tonic educational value which warrants their recognition as instruments of the secondary edu- cation. READING AT SIGHT 91 But there are those who advocate the subjective acqui- sition of Latin on other grounds, namely, aesthetic ones. Is it worth while, they ask, for students to ^thetic study Latin four years in the school, unless Grounds are they acquire a feeling for Latin and learn to '^ enjoy it? Now I have a regard for what is beautiful, and I certainly believe in cultivating the aesthetic sense, but I cannot bring myself to believe that the purpose of Latin study is primarily an aesthetic one, and that the chief goal is the attainment of a nice feeling for the cadence and rhythm of the Latin sentence, so that the culmina- tion of a four years* course shall be a capacity to revel in the flow of Cicero's periods or in the long roll of the hexameter, or, failing this, to be condemned to look back upon wasted hours and neglected opportunities. If that be true, why is it truer of Latin than of geometry? We hold up no such peculiar ideal for the latter study. To reap value from geometry it is not thought necessary that the pupil should feel a thrill of rapture over the contem- plation of an isosceles triangle or an inscribed hexagon. Why should we magnify the aesthetic aim of feeling Latin any more than feeling geometry? There might possibly be reason for so doing, did Latin offer oppor- tunities for culture in no other way. But will any one seriously maintain such a thesis? There are still others who are incessant in their asser- tion that it is the reproach of Latin study that a youth who has spent four years on Latin does not acquire a sufficient mastery of the language suits of Latin to enable him to read Latin with ease and study Defec- tive, speed, or to continue his study of Latin litera- ture with pleasure and enthusiasm. It certainly is be- yond question that the great majority of young men when they reach college do not turn with relish to Latin, and it is even truer that in after years they do not evince 92 THE BEGINNING WORK a disposition to beguile any considerable part of their leisure in the perusal of Latin literature. This condition of affairs I admit is beyond question. But what conclu- sions are we justified in drawing from it ? Have we a right to assume that all young men when they enter college ought to turn with avidity to the study of Latin ? Have we a right to assume further that after graduation the proper employment for one's leisure time is the continuation of one's study of the classics ? And with this assumption as our major premise, have we a right to assume as our minor premise that students would turn eagerly to Latin in college, and that college graduates would assiduously pursue the study of Latin literature, if only the capacity for reading at sight were theirs ? We should then get this syllogism : 1. All college students ought to study Latin with en- thusiasm, and all college graduates ought to turn with zest to the study of Latin literature, 2. If the persons referred to could read Latin at sight they would do these things. Therefore, all pupils should be taught to read at sight. But with all my interest in Latin and all my convic- tion of its abounding importance, both for discipline and culture, yet I cannot assent to either of the two premises just mentioned. As a preparation for college, both reason and experi- ence seem to me to show that Latin is not only the best single instrument, but practically an indispensable instrument; but for the average man in college I say with all frankness I do not believe that extensive special- ization in Latin is a sine qua non. The secondary edu- cation is essentially disciplinary. The college cannot afford, and does not pretend, to restrict its energies to that goal. It aims at imparting breadth of view, it aims at depth and soundness of knowledge in some few lines. READING AT SIGHT 93 Above all, it recognises the relation of the educated man to the state and to society ; it recognises the neces- sity of bringing the student into close and sympathetic touch with the problems of modern hfe and thought. Now, in the quest of this ideal the classics undoubtedly have their part, but with all their usefulness and all their pre-eminence they certainly do not contain the bulk of the " best that has been thought and said," and do not pretend to monopolize the field of culture. Professed teachers of the classics ought to be the first to realize this in theory, as I believe they actually do in practice, so far as they make any impression on the thought and action of to-day. Let it not be thought for a moment that I believe a liberally educated college man can dispense with Latin or even safely with Greek in his college course, but can we any longer say in candour — if indeed we ever could — that these studies should form the chief and central object of attention of the college student, and that the test of his being on the right course is to be found in the spontaneous enthusiasm with which he addresses himself to their pursuit? I have just been endeavouring to say that the college student may, in my judgment, be making wise use of his advantages for self-improvement even though he fail to manifest that absorbing devotion to classics to which I have referred. I wish also to ask : Are there not other reasons, and valid reasons, why the average educated man in college and out should not be expected to evince a profound absorption in Latin literature? How much of Latin is primarily attractive to the average cultivated man? What are the Latin authors to communion with which such a man should be expected to apply his leisure? Shall he devote it to Plautus and Terence with their 94 THE BEGINNING WORK scant dramatic variety and wearisome repetition of brazen courtesan, tricky slave, simple father, and brag- gart soldier? Shall he devote it to Cato and Varro, with their old recipes of how to plant beans or the best way to manure a field? Shall he devote it to Lucretius even? Will the noble enthusiasm of that writer and his occasional magnificent bursts of poetry be compensation for the long and tedious discussion of puerile physical and metaphysical theories? Even when we come to Cicero, how many of that great writer's works can be counted on to make an appeal to the sympathy and intelligence of the average cultivated man of to-day? He would be hardy who should say that the proportion is large. The best of Virgil and Horace, of Livy and Tacitus, has presumably been read in school and college, and to these he will often return ; but will he find strength and inspiration in the other Augustan poets or in the later poetry of the imperial era, overloaded as it is with mythological detail and studied rhetorical embellishment? I am speaking of the average educated man. For such a man I do not hesitate to say that, when we consider the wealth of the world's literature outside of Latin, when we consider the masterpieces of the more recent centuries, many of the greatest of them in our own language too, — when we consider these, it seems to me that it is not to be expected that Latin literature should assert any such paramount claims. To the special student of Latin the case is quite differ- ent. The professional teacher will and must spare no effort in familiarizing himself with all the literature, just as he spares none in studying the history and growth of the language, in tracing the development of institu- tions, social, religious, and political. He will and must endeavour to become saturated with ancient thought READING AT SIGHT 95 and life. But men of this equipment cannot be rela- tively numerous, nor is it desirable for the interests of modern society that they should be, any more than that every man should be a profound physicist, a pro- found chemist, or profound biologist. Of the two prem- ises, then, which we undertook to examine, neither one would seem to rest upon a basis sufficiently solid to warrant its acceptance. Even did our freshmen bring to college an ability to read Latin at sight, I cannot see how it would alter or ought to alter the attention given to Latin in college or after graduation, simply because adequate reasons appear why Latin should not consti- tute a more absorbing object of attention than it actually does at present. When, therefore, Latin is reproached because it fails to accomplish these ends, it is pertinent to inquire whether the difficulty may not be one inherent in Latin as a study, and not merely the result of the traditional methods of Latin instruc- tion in the schools, and also whether the ends which it is claimed Latin as now taught fails to achieve are themselves legitimate and indispensable ends of a liberal education. Why, then, reproach Latin for failing to consummate these ends? Why not rather commend it for what it does accomplish, and endeavour by wise and fostering care to make it realize even more richly that which experience has so abundantly shown it cap- able of achieving ? In all this discussion thus far I have been conceding what I really believe to be impossible, namely, the acquisition in the secondary school of the subjective power to read Latin as Latin and to interpret Acquisition T .• ^ . 1- .1 TVT • . of Utinlm- a Latm text directly. My own conviction possible in is that relatively little can be accomplished ^^ School. in this direction in the schools, even under favourable conditions. Do we realize sufficiently the amount of 96 THE BEGINNING WORK time that is indispensable in acquiring pronunciation, learning forms and vocabulary, analyzing words, tracing their history and development of meaning, studying syntax, and writing Latin? Some time, too, is conceded to translation even by the most ardent adherents of direct interpretation. When all this is done, how much time is likely to be left in any ordinary school program for the acquisition of a subjective feeling for Latin? Does it not take in the aggregate an enormous amount of time to acquire a subjective feeling for a modern language ? I do not mean a subjective feeling merely for a few current phrases sufficient to enable one to secure railway transportation and hotel accommodations in France or Germany. We are speaking of a subjec- tive acquisition of Latin which shall be adequate for the interpretation of literature. Can any such subjective acquisition of French or German be attained without prolonged concentration upon the spoken language? Is it not a mistake, too, to imagine that the chief diffi- culty in acquiring a sense for Latin as Latin is the word-order? Undoubtedly the word-order does con- stitute one great obstacle to the pupil, but it is far from being the only one, or the greatest. My own experience with elementary pupils has shown me that they are ignorant of the meanings of words, they fail to apprehend the force of inflections, they have hazy or inaccurate conceptions of syntactical possibilities, they are not adequately informed as to the subject matter with which the Latin text is concerned. Under such circumstances, there are apt to be so many ele- ments of uncertainty in a Latin sentence that the direct apprehension of its content is simply impossible to the average elementary pupil. The capacity to understand Latin as Latin, and to interpret it directly, must, it seems to me, be a matter of growth, and with most pupils a READING AT SIGHT 97 matter of slow growth. I do not see how it can come until the pupil has grown very familiar with individual words for one thing, — so familiar that the word is no longer objective, but subjective, so that as soon as uttered its whole meaning flashes before him involuntarily. So, too, the pupil must come by long practice to feel the exact force of inflection, all the numerous variations of mood, tense, voice, case, etc. A keen appreciation for word-order must also have been developed as the result of repeated observations of its significance. All this takes time, and a great deal of time. Yet until it has been accomplished I fail to see how the pupil can be held to read at sight in the sense of directly interpret- ing a Latin author. Only then can one do this when the process has become thoroughly unconscious, and after an experience of many years with freshmen in four American universities, I have not as yet had the good fortune to meet with pupils who seemed to me to have reached this stage, anxious as I have been to discover them, and thankfully as I should hail them as my own deliverers from many a difficulty which has for years given me perplexity; for after thirty years of continuous study of Latin I am still bound to confess that I think it hard, very hard. I have read much, in fact most of the Latin literature. A few years ago I sat down to prepare a little edition of Cicero's de Senectute. For six months all my available leisure, which was then considerable, was devoted to the completion of this task. The de Senectute is what would be called easy Latin, hardly more difficult than one of Cicero's ora- tions, and yet with the help of all the extensive literature on the subject and of several competent advisers, I am still bound to confess that there are many points of interpretation in that little essay which are by no means clear to me, and more where my own interpretation 7 98 THE BEGINNING WORK (though I am prepared to defend it) has been adjudged anywhere from improbable to absolutely impossible by other scholars. This in the case of a classic that is relatively easy, whose text is unusually sound, and for whose elucidation relatively so much has been done. I repeat, I believe Latin to be hard, and its accurate understanding and faithful interpretation no simple matter. We so often fail to realize the immense intel- lectual gulf that separates us from the past. It is not merely the structural difficulties of the Latin language that make Latin a hard study; it is even more the content of what is recorded in that language. Latin Hterature consists not of the doings, thoughts, and aspirations of nineteenth century Americans, but of a widely different people, different in all their social, intel- lectual, religious, and political endowments, attainments, and environment. When we read Latin, therefore, we must not merely master the technical difficulties of the Some of the ^^"^^^ speech, but we must surmount the Difficulties obstacle of adapting ourselves to the totally of Latin. ^^^ intellectual surroundings. Is not this the really difficult thing; and must not the key to it be furnished mainly by a slow and minute study of the literature itself? Until we have by gradual steps worked our way up to the new attitude, may we undertake to believe that we can interpret Latin directly ? In other words, can we feel Latin (the speech of the Romans) as Latin, until we have first surrounded ourselves with the intellectual atmosphere of that ancient people ? This is true of any modern language, even under favourable conditions. It takes in the aggregate a long time — • longer than can ever be available in the schools, — to learn to think and feel in French or German, even when one hears those languages constantly spoken. How much more difficult must it be to do the same in the READING AT SIGHT 99 case of Latin, which we not only do not hear spoken, but practically not even pronounced to any extent worth mentioning, — a language, too, whose entire idiom is so much more at variance with ours than is either of the modern languages just mentioned. One other fact, too, remains to be considered. * Latin * is an elastic term. ' French ' and * German,' on the other hand, are definite and precise concepts, Latin an Eias- or relatively so. When we say ' French' or tic Term. ' German ' we mean the French or German of to-day, — of a single period. Latin may be the Latin of Plautus or the Latin of Suetonius, and between the two is an inter- val of nearly four centuries, containing writers of widely different style, vocabulary, syntax, word-order, sentence- structure, etc. The vastness of the difference between many of these various writers we often fail to appre- ciate, simply because it is so difficult for us to acquire an actual feeling for a language which we do not speak. But these differences exist, and they augment enor- mously the difficulties of acquiring a sense for Latin as Latin, especially in the beginner ; for with a new author and a new period we practically come upon a new language. Latin is not one language, but practically several, according to its various periods and its various representatives. All these difficulties and embarrassments must be frankly faced when it is seriously proposed to teach pupils in the secondary schools a sense for Latin as Latin, and to make the acquisition of that capacity the prime end of Latin study at that stage. It is very easy to recommend such a program, and even to tell how it should be carried out. Thus Mr. Hale tells us that the mind should hold in suspense. But the human mind is a peculiar organism. It is very obstinate for one thing. It has laws of operation which when they lOO THE BEGINNING WORK become habitual it is well nigh impossible to alter. It is one thing to be told we are to hold in suspense ; it is quite a different thing to hold something in suspense. Similarly Professor Greenough urges us to force the mind to make a mental picture, whether the given order is familiar or not. I am free to confess that so far as the secondary schools are concerned I believe both Mr. Hale and Mr. Greenough to be at fault. I cannot think that the true way to get a feeling for Latin is by any con- scious process, — least of all by any conscious forcing process as Mr. Greenough would have us believe. Hamerton in his Intellectual Life has a dream of a Latin island. " Let us suppose," says he, " that a hun- Hamerton's <^^^<^ fathers could be found, all resolved to Proposal. submit to some inconvenience in order that their sons might speak Latin as a living language. A small island might be rented near the coast of Italy, and in that island Latin alone might be permitted. Just as the successive governments of France main- tain the establishments of Sevres and the Gobelins to keep the manufactures of porcelain and tapestry up to a recognised high standard of excellence, so this Latin island might be maintained to give more vivacity to scholarship. If there were but one little corner of ground on the wide earth where pure Latin was con- stantly spoken, our knowledge of the classic writers would become far more sympathetically intimate. After thinking in the Latin island, we should think in Latin as we read, and read without translating." Hamerton him- self confesses that this is a Utopian dream, and so I am confident it is, but not for the reasons that he advances. To his mind the proposed plan is idle, because sooner or later these isolated Latinists would be forced to return to the corrupting influence of modern colleges and univer- sities. But even on their island I must beheve that the READING AT StC^H^f " '' ' '' \6i attempt to maintain a high standard of spoken Latin could terminate only in ignominious failure. Latin, as Hamerton understands it and as we all must understand it, was the language of a people who have long passed away. The Latin language, as we know it in its extant literature, records the mental attitude, intellectual attain- ments, sentiments, and aspirations of that people. For these it was an adequate expression. For the immensely altered conditions of our modern life, different in almost every conceivable detail from that of the Romans, it can be no adequate vehicle. Hamerton's young islanders, therefore, could not resuscitate the language of the Romans, because they would have none of the ideas that were essentially characteristic of the Roman people. The most they could do would be to create a new idiom, — Latin mayhap in outward form and structure, but in content as modern as our daily newspapers. Such an experiment could bring one no nearer the heart of ancient life nor do one whit to lessen the strangeness of the ancient civilization, the thing which really makes Latin difficult. To meet this difficulty we want not more method, but simply more knowledge. I shall also venture to urge another point in this con- nection, and one which seems to me of fundamental importance. It is this: unless I am gravely „, ,. ^^^ . , , . . , ,.^ . Relation of the mistaken, the proposition to make direct in- CoUege to the terpretation the central feature of Latin instruc- ^^^<^^- tion in the secondary school emanated originally from the college alone, and the pressure that has since been exerted to secure its recognition in programs of instruction has come from the same source. Now I make bold to raise the question whether college teachers can possibly under- stand the organization and problems of the secondary schools sufficiently well to warrant them in urging any , such method of imparting instruction upon the schools. 'lb2' ' ' ' " TliE BEGINNING WORK Ought not any such detailed scheme of teaching, if it is to give promise of success, to originate primarily in the schools themselves? Ought it not to be the outcome of the observation and experience of the teachers who are in constant touch with secondary pupils, who know exactly their strength and weakness, their capacity and their limitations? Is there warrant for believing that any definite method of imparting knowledge, elaborated out- side the schools by men of however exalted scholastic position, can be intelligently adopted and applied by the teachers? I do not believe there is. Any method really feasible and fruitful is sure to be discovered and applied by the secondary teacher long before it is for- mulated outside. I have therefore regretted not a little of late to note the increasing tendency on the part of the colleges to assume a responsibility for the interior economy of the schools, and not merely to prescribe the subject matter, but to urge definite ways of giving in- struction. Any such attitude, I beheve, does injustice to the schools. As one who has laboured in that depart- ment of education for some length of time, and knows something of the problems with which the secondary teacher is confronted, I earnestly deprecate the assump- tion that the secondary teachers are not the most com- petent agents to solve their own problems. Certainly if they do not possess the intelligence and patience to do so, I am at a loss to see how they can be thought capa- ble of applying a solution devised by others. The foregoing considerations were formally presented to a gathering of representative teachers a few years ago. In the discussion which followed, an eminent edu- cator nominally took issue with my conclusions. As his remarks showed, however, his attitude on the main point under discussion was practically identical with my own. In fact he dealt the method I had myself been TRANSLATION AT SIGHT I03 condemning some additional blows, calling attention among other things to the undue stress laid upon syn- tax to the practical exclusion of everything else. What this educator understood by ' reading at sight ' was an exercise wherein the pupils under the teacher's guid- ance read a passage of Latin hitherto unseen. This is not reading at sight in the sense in which it is ardently championed by some, and in which I had endeavoured to discuss it. An exercise in which the pupils are taught by a competent guide the proper mode of at- tacking a new passage of Latin and getting its fullest and most accurate meaning, is one for which I have only commendation. Within Hmits it is most useful. But it should be obvious that it has not in the least been the subject of consideration in the foregoing pages. V. Translation at Sight. 'Translation at sight' has already been defined above, p. 85. It means precisely what the words naturally suggest, namely, the translation of a passae^e r T J X.' i\\. Ml, T Definition. 01 Latm which the pupil has never seen. I have already, at the close of the previous section, indi- cated what all will undoubtedly recognise as a legitimate employment of translation at sight for purposes of in- struction. Where time offers — and it can usually be wisely taken — for such an exercise, it is likely to prove an efficient means of guidance and of imparting knowl- edge. It is nothing new, however, and has probably been recognised as an effective instrument from time immemorial. More serious is the question how far ' translation at sight ' should be made the As the Basis basis of college admission tests. Were this ^^^^^^ion question one which affected the colleges Tests, alone, or the student after leaving the secondary school, > 104 THE BEGINNING WORK it would be an impertinence to discuss it here ; but as it has vital bearings upon the teaching of Latin in the schools, the relevancy of considering these bearings must be apparent. Some persons advocate making such translation (com- »^" bined with the writing of Latin) the sole test of the ^ candidate's knowledge, to the exclusion of any exami- "N nation upon prescribed work. Against an examination i^\\ * upon prescribed authors, it is urged that such a test is J\' ^ quantitative, whereas an examination on a passage set for translation at sight is qualitative. Such a compari- son, however, seems to me exceedingly unfair. To characterize an examination upon prescribed work as essentially quantitative implies that its primary object is to discover how much has been read, combined with the policy of accepting or rejecting the candidate according as the amount is found to be great or small. No one seriously supposes any such thing for a moment. As a matter of fact, an examination upon prescribed work is, and always has been, primarily a qualitative test. The essential difference between such an examination and an examination by translation at sight is not that one is qualitative and the other quantitative, but that, both being qualitative, the range of selection is somewhat greater in the one case than in the other. My own objections against an exclusive sight test are based quite as much on the practical effects of the system, as upon any theoretical grounds. Practically I believe the ten- dency of such a test is to tempt many teachers to employ the time of their classes on the rapid reading of large amounts with consequent failure on the part of their pupils to acquire that precise knowledge of the grammar and that fine feeling for the language which are so indispensable to true scholarship. This I believe, because I have thought I discovered the effects of this TRANSLATION AT SIGHT IO5 practice in the deterioration in the quality of classical preparatory training which is now so generally deplored. In the secondary study of Latin, I am convinced that our greatest danger at present is that of slovenly, super- ficial work. In the eager quest of the magic power to translate at sight, it is all too easy to lose sight of the most indispensable conditions of ever attaining profi- ciency in the language, — namely, a painfully thorough grammatical discipline. At no period in a four years' course should such discipline be relaxed. It is with learning to read a classical language, as it is with learning to play a musical instrument. The technique of the art cannot be neglected, and he who is the most perfect master of technique will be surest of making a player in the end, — at least he will never make a player without it. So in reading Latin the process is not one of divination, but of sober inference from positive knowl- edge of the meanings of words, the force of inflections, word-order, and the subtleties of syntax; and no one who is not master of these can any more translate at sight, than he can read music at sight without having previously mastered the technique of the particular instrument on which he wishes to perform. Another practical objection to the plan of an exclusive sight test is the great difficulty in setting passages which are just and fair. I base this conclusion partly on a comparison of passages actually given at different insti- tutions, and partly on my experience as a secondary teacher and a college professor. It is no exaggeration to say that passages are often set which, in view of their inherent difficulty and the absence of the context, are altogether beyond the power of any ordinary pupil ; in fact it is no secret that the secondary teacher is some- times seriously puzzled to interpret the passage set for his own pupils. I06 THE BEGINNING WORK If a sight test is to be made the basis — wholly or ' partially — of a college entrance examination, I should recommend as the best possible preparation for such a test the most careful and thorough preparation of (the traditional prescribed authors, Caesar (or Nepos), 'icero, and Virgil. The pupil who has faithfully and accurately studied his four books of the Gallic War, his seven speeches of Cicero, and his six or eight books of the ^^neid, need have no fear of any passage set him for translation at sight that ought to be put before a candidate for ad- mission to college. It is because so many teachers fail to see this, and because the colleges so often set extremely difficult passages, that new " methods " are becoming prevalent and vitiating the quality of pre- paratory Latin teaching. With a definite amount of time at our disposal only two possibilities present themselves to me : Either the traditional prescribed authors and honest work, or an increase of the amount read and a consequent lowering of quality. I leave it to the candid judgment of all teachers, which course is likely to prove the better either for the student who is to end his Latin study in the secondary school or for the prospective collegian. VI. What Latin Reading should follow the Elementary Work ? When the elements of Latin have been once mastered the question arises. What is to be done next? It was long common to begin at once the reading of Caesar; and probably that custom is still somewhat prevalent. Yet the difficulties of Caesar or even of the alternative Nepos are undeniable, and have led teachers more and more to prefer the use of some simple Latin to serve as a transition from the simple sentences used in e- EASV READING 10/ connection with the elementary work to the first regular continuous prose author. I am myself de- Reading cidedly of the opinion that some such simple I'^^oposed. Latin should precede either Caesar or Nepos. Several things offer themselves for this purpose : a. Viri Romae. b. Roman History {e.g. Jacobs's extracts). c. Eutropius. d. Some simplification of a part of Caesar. cjU^ ^ Let us consider these in turn. Viri Romae is of more value than its barbarous Latin ^-^^^^^^-^-^ -^ title might suggest. It was prepared a century and a ^^^^^ "^. ^ \ or elsewhere, so far as I know, and the reception ac- > ^ ? corded to recently published editions of the<^*(V.| \ x^ * work fails to encourage the belief that it, J"^^ ^^ will ever be popular. The work lacks hfe and, above [^ ^^ all, it lacks perspective ; it is an exceedingly dry annal- " ^* x- istic account of events important and unimportant. It V, ^^ can hardly be expected to inspire interest, especially in (l ^ young pupils. ^^ The last type of simple reading to be considered con- sists of some simplification of a part of Caesar. An ad- Cffisar vantage of such matter is that the pupil Simplified. becomes familar with Caesar's vocabulary, his subject matter, and his general style, without encounter- ing the severer obstacles of his continuous narrative. 1 See Redway, J. W., The Breviarmm of Eutropius, in The Educa- tional Review, vol. xii. (Dec. 1896), p. 509 £f. EASV READING I09 Still it is difficult, I think, to secure any simplification of Caesar without a decided diminution of such interest (perhaps not very great at best) as is possessed by the original. With the exception of the last, all the foregoing works suffer from one defect. The Latin is much of it far from classical. Eutropius belongs to the Defects ^f fourth century of our era; Justin to the Most of second. Similarly many of the other sources ^^^* embodied in Viri Romae, and in Jacobs's Extracts from Roman History are late, and exhibit striking variations from the norm of classical usage. This is a serious fault. The pupil learns from his elementary book or his gram- mar that qiiamqtiam is construed with the indicative, but is at once introduced to Latin in which he finds this particle used with the subjunctive ; he learns that ut or postquam referring to a single past act takes the perfect indicative; he finds them used with the pluperfect; he learns that in indirect discourse verbs of * promising,' for example, are followed by the future infinitive with sub- ject accusative, but he meets expressions like promisit dare, obviously employed in the sense * he promised that he would give.' These are but illustrations of the very numerous violations of the most ordinary canons of standard usage as laid down in all our grammars. If Viri Romae, Jacobs's Extracts, or Eutropius are to be used in our schools, they certainly ought to be adapted, as can easily be done, to recognised classical standards. Otherwise the task of inculcating any accurate grammat- ical knowledge must be immensely increased. The foregoing enumeration of books containing sim- ple reading makes no pretence at completeness. There are numerous other books. Many suffer from the same objectionable features of unclassical Latin ; others in- troduce modern or mediaeval subject matter in a Latin no THE BEGINNING WORK dress. This last procedure seems a serious mistake. To the extent that we withdraw the student of Latin from the thoughts and ideas of ancient Rome, we are missing one important element of culture which ought to come from the study of Latin, namely, better understanding of the present through an understanding of the past. This end is certainly not reached by stories from the Arabian Nights or English history put in Latin form by modern scholars. CHAPTER III WHAT AUTHORS ARE TO BE READ IN THE SECONDARY SCHOOL AND IN WHAT SEQUENCE? REFERENCES. Wagler, F. A., Casar als Schulbuch, in Zeitschrift fur das Gym- NASIALWESEN, 1857, pp. 481-503. This article has been excellently trans- lated by F. H. Howard in The School Review, 1897, pp. 561-587. Report of the Committee of Ten of the National Educational Asso- ciation, Latin. 1893. Report of the Committee of Twelve of the American Philological Association on Courses in Latin and Greek for Secondary Schools. 1899. I. What Author should be read first ? There has been much discussion in recent years as to what regular prose author should be read first. For years Caesar's Gallic War had been chosen for this pur- pose, and this practice had become so universal as to be regarded almost as a permanent and necessary feature of our educational economy. In the Report of the Com- mittee of Ten of the National Educational Association, published in 1893, the suggestion was formally made that Nepos be substituted for Caesar as the Kepos vs. first prose author to be read in our secondary Caesar, schools. This suggestion of the Committee of Ten was but the adoption of a recommendation of the Latin Con- ference appointed by the Committee in December, 1892. The Conference devoted two days of careful discussion to the consideration of several problems of secondary instruction in Latin, and was practically unanimous in 112 AUTHORS TO BE READ its recommendation that Nepos be made optional with Caesar. As the question of choice is of some impor- tance, it seems worth while to discuss the relative merits of these two authors with reference to their adaptation to the needs of secondary instruction. I cannot do better perhaps than to enumerate the considerations which weighed with me (and I think with others) as a member of the Latin Conference which reported to the Committee of Ten, and then to add the reasons which have tended sub- quently to modify the position then taken. While not explicitly expressing disapproval of Csesar as the first author read, yet the recommendation of the Conference was intended to indicate a certain distrust of th6 fit- ness of Caesar to retain the place it had held so long. In recommending Nepos, though only as a permis- sible alternative, the Conference meant to suggest the superior fitness of that author for the special stage of Latin involved. Objections to Against Caesar (and by Caesar is meant his casar. Gallic War) it is urged : a. Ccesar is undeniably difficult. Indirect Discourse abounds, particularly in the first book, which from nat- ural inertia will always be the book generally first read, despite the frequent recommenda- tions of educators to begin with the second, third, or fourth book. But even apart from the indirect discourse and apart from the first book, Caesar cannot be called easy reading, especially for the beginner. b. Ccesar is not interesting. The writer does not impress us as gifted with imagination, historic or other. Lack of He is exceedingly dry. There is little to ex- interest. cj|-g ^j^g enthusiasm. The narrative, more- over, is monotonous. We have practically an unbroken i-chronicle of marches and victories, in which the tri- umph of trained Romans over undisciplined and poorly C^SAR OR NEPOSf II3 equipped Gauls and Germans is nothing surprising. Patches of interest appear here and there, to be sure, as where Caesar gives us descriptions of the customs of the Gauls, Britons, or Germans. These are brief, how- ever, — hardly more than oases in the surrounding desert of military details ; — some of them, moreover, are found in portions of Caesar not usually read. c. The bearing of Ccesars narrative is not obvious. The pupil cannot see the point, — the drift of it all. It is apparent, of course, that Caesar is con- obscure quering a lot of turbulent Gauls and Germans. Bearings. But what it all signifies, must necessarily be very obscure to the average pupil ; at least it does not appear in the narrative itself. With the exception of the few chapters already referred to on the customs of the Gauls, Ger- mans, and Britons, all of Caesar's commentaries on the Gallic War might easily be summed up in a few brief lines, to the effect that for seven years he waged unceas- ing war against the Gallic and German tribes, and finally subdued them all. This is practically the sub- stance of the historical knowledge acquired by the stu- dent in reading Caesar. Without doubt Caesar's Gallic campaigns were profoundly significant. They had a motive, — perhaps a double motive. On the one hand Caesar was strengthening himself by his military success for future schemes of ambition. By winning prestige and power in Gaul, he aimed to be able to return to Rome at the critical juncture and make himself master of the situation, as he actually did. On the other hand he may have been exercising that far-sighted states- manship, with which Mommsen credits him, in prepar- ing for the organization of the West as a part of the Roman Empire. But though all this is true, yet it does not appear in Caesar's Commentaries. The Commenta- ries themselves, in all their weary detail of battle, siege. 114 AUTHORS TO BE READ and march, never suggest their own connection with contemporary or future history. To all intents and purposes they stand outside of the events of their own day. They do not contain facts the knowledge of which is of value to the average pupil or the average edu- cated person of mature years. Some have compared the similar choice of Xenophon's Anabasis as the first Greek usually read. But it must be admitted in favour of the Anabasis that, while it has for the pupil no visible connection with Greek history and no visible bearings upon it, it is at least neither difficult for the beginner nor dull. Caesar, on the other hand, is regarded by many as unique in its combination of difficulty, its dul- ness, and its dearth of valuable information. If anything of Caesar's were to be read, it is often urged that it The Civil Ought rather to be his Commentaries on the ^^' Civil War than those on the Gallic War. The account of the Civil War at least contains valuable information of an important epoch in Roman history. We see the very death-struggle of the old order of things, — the Republic passing away to make room for the Empire. We see Caesar leave his Gallic province and become an active maker of Roman history at its most critical era. We follow him from the beginning of his strife with the Senate and Pompey through all the stirring events of the next three years (49-46), at Pharsalus, in the East, in Egypt, in Numidia, until he finally comes back to Rome to lay the foundations of the imperial organization. There is no doubt here as to the bearings of the narrative. The most ordinary pupil cannot fail to apprehend its import. Nor is it dull. It may, however, possibly suffisr from one defect: it is difficult, — too difficult perhaps for the average pupil who is approaching his first Latin author. In defence of Caesar the chief point to be urged is CjESAR or NEPOSf 115 the purity of his diction and the accuracy of his style. That he is a correct writer, no one can deny. He thought, as he acted, with a directness and in Defence precision which were admirable, and he ex- ®* ^^xtsax. pressed himself in writing with equal directness and precision. At the same time nothing could be more grotesque to the minds of most than to attribute a literary character or quality to Caesar. He simply gives us a plain and colourless statement of facts, which makes hardly any nearer approach to literary charm than does a clear statement of a proposition in geometry. Such a statement may be clear and precise and direct, — yet its literary quality would be grudgingly conceded. We pass to the considerations which are urged in favour of Cornelius Nepos. a. Nepos' s Latinity is good. This is disputed by some, and I have even heard it charged that Nepos did not know how to write Latin. That he was an elegant writer, possessed of command- ing stylistic powers, no one will maintain, but that he was a correct writer and represents in the main with great fidelity the standard classical usage of the best period cannot be gainsaid. To verify the impressions of my own reading, I have recently re-examined Bern- hard Lupus's book of some two hundred pages, Der SprachgebraitcJi des Cornelius NepoSy Berlin, 1876. This work is a detailed syntactical study of Nepos, and supports abundantly the assertion made above regard- ing the correctness of Nepos's style. Nepos, to be sure, omits the auxiliary esse with the future active and perfect passive infinitives, but this is the prevailing usage with many excellent writers. He also uses dubito with the infinitive, where Cicero and Caesar preferred to use a ^////z-clause ; but while, Cicero himself never uses the infinitive with dubito in this sense, several of Il6 AUTHORS TO BE READ his correspondents employ it, the accomplished Asinius Pollio, Trebonius, and Cicero's own son Marcus. Duifiy * while/ in standard prose usually is construed with the historical present. Nepos once uses it with the perfect; but Cicero also does this. The perfect sub- junctive (for imperfect) in result clauses is exceedingly frequent in Nepos, — so frequent as to be a striking feature of his style. Yet the usage is thoroughly good. Csesar and Cicero use it, though rarely. The only two striking exceptions to standard usage that I have noted in Nepos are fimgor with the accusative and qiiamvis with the indicative. Yet Cicero also is credited with one instance of the latter construction, and Sallust once uses vescor with the accusative. On the whole Nepos writes like his contemporaries, barring the fact that he does not exhibit their stylistic gifts. He shows none of the symptoms of the so-called " decline." So far as his diction is concerned, he is an eminently fit author to put into the hands of young pupils. b. Nepois lives are interesting. Though they are the lives of Greeks, they are the lives of famous Greeks, men who stand out as great exemplars in human history, whose achievements and whose characters have always evoked admiration. Were they the lives of Romans, they would undoubtedly be better adapted to pupils of Latin, yet Nepos's point of view and his mode of treatment are so thoroughly Roman that one catches much of the Roman spirit in reading and studying them. c. They are composed in short instalments. This is exclusively a psychological advantage, perhaps, but it is not without importance. Where the pupil sees the end, he receives a stimulus to coun- teract the fatigue of study. When the end of what he is reading lies but two or three pages ahead, he is eager CjEsar or jvEPosf 117 to press on and gain the goal. When he reaches this, he enjoys the satisfaction of having accomphshed one whole thing and of having it behind him. Very differ- ent are his feelings when he begins one of the long books of Caesar, where he must read for weeks before he can really get the setting to enable him fully to understand what he reads, and where the remoteness of the end of the book tends to produce a certain discouragement and despair of ever reaching it. d. The method of treatment by biography is attractive. The hero-worshipping instinct of the young pupil takes delight in the recital of the deeds of noble BiograpWcai men, a point already touched upon above in Treatment, connection with Viri Romce. The foregoing, I believe, were the main considerations which prompted the recommendation of the Latin Con- ference in 1892 which was later embodied in the Report of the Committee of Ten in 1893. Subsequent experi- ence has shown that most teachers clingy te- „ Reasons why naciously to Caesar. Some doubtless do so Caesar is stm from sheer inertia, but I am convinced that ^ ^"^ there are many who are thoughtful and deliberate in their choice. I have been surprised to find how many pupils find Caesar interesting, not merely irotDuUto more interesting than Nepos, but possessed of "^• a positive human interest per se. Where samples of both Caesar and Nepos have been read by a class, I have been told the pupils often prefer Caesar. Possibly the greater energy of action displayed in Caesar's Com- mentaries may explain this attitude on the part of those pupils who manifest it. Boys in particular take an in- terest in accounts of achievement. Nepos is not alto- gether lacking in this feature, but many of his lives are prevailingly devoted to an analysis of character ; while with Caesar we have practically a continuous account Il8 AUTHORS TO BE READ of skilful triumph over difficulties. Upon most mature minds not of the Miles Standish type, this narrative soon palls ; but it seems to be a fact that to the minds of many young pupils it has a positive attractiveness. One other reason in favour of Caesar of a somewhat subtler nature may not be without its weight, and may have acted subconsciously perhaps in determ- Greater Con- ining the adherence of many teachers to the creteness in traditional Gallic War. I refer to the voca- Vocabulary. bulary of Caesar. A very careful comparison of the vocabularies of Caesar and Nepos undertaken in connection with the preparation of my Foundations of Latin revealed to me the much greater concreteness of Caesar's diction. This is largely a natural and necessary adjunct of Caesar's subject matter. He deals mainly with facts ; Nepos indulges much more in character analysis, and, while this is never deep or subtle, it necessitates the employment of words in transferred, figurative, ab- stract senses. This fundamental difference is of vital importance for the beginner. He should, if possible, first become acquainted with concrete ideas and with the literal meanings of words, particularly in the case of words that also possess figurative senses. These words and these meanings make the most direct ap- peal, and leave the most vivid impress on the mind. An apprehension of the Hteral meaning affords, too, the best guide to all figurative, transferred meanings which have later developed from it. These consider- ^^^ ations may perhaps explain the fact often more Notice- noted by teachers that pupils who have read *^^®* _ one book of Caesar find the next book much easier, and the subsequent books easier still, while with Nepos this increased facility is not noticed, the tenth life being no easier than the first and the twentieth scarcely easier than the tenth. Yet even apart from CICERO AND VIRGIL 1 19 the vocabulary, it must be manifest that the range of ideas is considerably greater in Nepos than in Caesar ; this constitutes a permanent difficulty in Nepos, so that, though this author is somewhat easier at the outset, it may after all be doubted whether on the whole he is more so than Caesar. On the whole, I for one feel to-day that the consider- ations which are so often urged in favour of reading Nepos instead of Caesar are by no means weighty enough to warrant our giving the preference to the former author. The choice between the two may properly vary with the temper and taste of teachers and the disposition of their pupils. Yet reflection tends to make me think that for most pupils Caesar is the better book for the purpose we have been considering. II. Should Cicero Precede or Follow Virgil ? There is a difference of opinion as to whether Cicero should precede or follow Virgil, and practice varies accordingly. The question is one of enough importance to receive consideration here; two reasons suggest themselves for postponing Virgil. a. 071 the ground of the language. The pupil who has finished Caesar or Nepos has not yet a sufficient mastery of the language. He probably knows Linguistic the forms, if he is ever going to, but he is not Reasons, yet posted as he should be on the syntax. of the lan- guage, on its vocabulary, on the order of words, and many other points of idiomatic usage. If he enter upon the study of Virgil in this state of mind or of knowledge, the chances are that what little knowledge of the language he possesses will be pretty thoroughly un- settled by reading poetry. The use of cases, the employ- ment of words, and the arrangement of the sentence are I20 AUTHORS TO BE READ all so different from prose usage, that unless the pupil has already acquired settled convictions on the subject great damage will be done. On the other hand, if he takes his Cicero immediately after Nepos or Caesar, he becomes so familiar with normal prose usage by the time he finishes that author, that not only does the poetical diction of Virgil work no injury — it rather helps, by virtue of the contrast it furnishes to the idiom of prose. b. On the groimd of the literature. Virgil is a poet, whose product is one of the choicest that Roman litera- literary ^ure contains. Let the pupil wait until he is Reasons. \i^<=x qualified to do justice to the fine quality of the j^iieid. A year makes a great difference, and will often decide whether the pupil shall read Virgil with sympathy and profit, or the reverse. Attention must also be given to another sequence recently suggested in the reading of Cicero and Virgil. Another Ar- I refer to the course tentatively outlined in rangement. |-]^g Preluninary Report of the Committee of Twelve on Courses iji Latin and Greek for Secondary Schools, issued in 1897. This committee consisted of members of the American Philological Association, and was appointed at the request of the National Educa- tional Association in July, 1896. The suggestion is made in this report that in the third year of an ordinary four years' Latin course Cicero's four speeches against Catiline be xead, followed by Books i. and ii, of Virgil's ^neid in the same year, and that in the fourth year Books iii.-vi. of the j^neid be first read, to be followed by two more orations of Cicero. It is difficult, however, to believe that this suggestion represents the mature judgment of any considerable number of educators. To break the continuity of one's reading of Cicero's orations by Virgil's ^neid, and to break the conti- THE ECLOGUES 121 nuity of the j^Eneid by the long vacation, seems an unjustifiable waste of energy without any compensating advantages. III. Should Virgil's Eclogues be read in the Secondary Schools ? The Latin Conference which met at Ann Arbor in December, 1892, and which reported to the Committee of Ten of the National Educational Association, ad- vised against reading Virgil's Eclogues in the secondary schools. This recommendation of the Conference was adopted by the Committee. The considerations urged against reading the Eclogues are probably familiar. Stress is often laid upon their difficulties. That they are difficult in parts, is considerations undeniable. They abound in mythological Urged against allusions, while several of them involve alle- ^® Eclogues, gorical conceptions whose precise interpretation is still debated by the critics. Another argument often urged against the Eclogues is, that where they are not allegori- cal they are mainly imitations of the Idyls of Theocritus ; that the names and allusions are chiefly Greek, and are taken from the pastoral life of the Sicily of the third century B. C. Hence it has been urged that the study of the Eclogues is properly adapted only to advanced college students of comparative Hterature, — students who know Theocritus and who can trace the Virgilian poems back to the Sicilian originals. But the experience of teachers and pupils denies validity to the foregoing arguments. Pupils who have read the Eclogues in the schools have, with Their Liter- practical unanimity, declared that they en- a»7 charm, joyed these poems more than anything else in the entire Latin course of the secondary school. Despite their allegorical and mythological features, and despite 122 AUTHORS TO BE READ the fact that they are palpable imitations of Greek originals, they nevertheless do make a strong appeal to the youthful mind which cannot be ignored. There is danger, perhaps, of condemning too precipitately every literary work which bears traces of imitating some previous work. All of Virgil bears the same impress of his Greek originals as do the Eclogues. The prime question in all these works and all similar works is not merely whether they exhibit traces of borrowing, but whether they exhibit anything else. In Virgil the case of all of Virgil's works we may say Recreated. that, despite the obvious evidences of in- debtedness to his predecessors, he is no irresponsible plagiarist or slavish imitator. He is a true poet, with the genius and endowment of a poet. In form, in phrase, in metaphor and simile, he has drawn with freedom, in accordance with the spirit of his own age and of all antiquity, upon Homer, Hesiod, and The- ocritus. But in spite of this he has transformed all he took with the spirit of his own genius; he has re- created. It is this which makes the yEneid, the Georgics, the Eclogues all great poems, and which makes each in its totality as different as can possibly be from the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Works and Days, or the Idyls of Theocritus. Precisely the same thing is true of Shakspere and of Milton. I believe, therefore, that the Eclogues have a clear title to a place in the curriculum of our secondary , ^^^ schools, and that where time is available, it would be ""^'^^ \^ ^^^^ t^ ^^^^ them. They exhibit to us a phase of an- sy^ ''^"^^^v^ient literature not so well exemplified by anything else N^^^A I know. They breathe the breath of spring, the per- Tennyson's fume of flowers ; they suggest the charm of Tribute, nature — trees, brooks, hills, lakes, sun, air, stars — in her manifold phases. They touch upon THE ECLOGUES — SALLUST I23 the abounding joys of country-life. Tennyson's three stanzas well exhibit the spell which these unique poems exercised upon himself: " Poet of the happy Tityrus • piping underneath his beechen bowers ; Poet of the poet-satyr -whom the laughing shepherd bound with flowers ; " Chanter of the Pollio, glorying in the blissful years again to be, Summers of the snakeless meadow, unlaborious earth and oarless sea ; " Thou that seest Universal Nature moved by Universal Mind, Thou majestic in thy sadness at the doubtful doom of human kind." This, to be sure, is the tribute of a poet, but I am convinced that the attitude of pupils will be generally analogous, and that it will justify the study of these poems wherever time allows. All their subtleties will not be apparent to the young student; some of them have not even yet been settled by the critics, and may never be, but there is enough that is obvious, that is stimulating, that is elevating, to make them legitimate and worthy objects of study for the pupils of our _pjr In point of content and style, Sallust is well deserving qJ^t of representation in the curriculum of the secondary school. Both the Jugurtha and the Catiline are valu- able and interesting specimens of historical prose which will well repay careful study. The Catiline in particular is instructive as correcting the one-sided conception of 124 AUTHORS TO BE READ the famous conspiracy derived from reading only Cicero's Catilinarian speeches; Sallust's narrative also largely supplements Cicero's account and makes the historic picture much fuller and completer. The great difficulty, however, with the average school is to find time for reading this work. The Latin curricu- lum of the secondary school is already full, and our school programs are now so congested that in most cases to add more work is to increase a tension already too great and to run great risk of lowering the quality of the instruc- tion given. ^<^' V. Ovid. Ul/Ua J^-v^ Q^^iUu^^^r^A^' GENERAL POINTS 137 use goes back to the true ablative or * from '-case. ' Marcus is taller than Quintus,' was, therefore, to the Latin mind, * Marcus is taller (reckoning) from Quintus (as a standard) ' ; similarly the ablative of agent with a is seen to go back to a * from ' use of the case. The sentence a Ccesare accusatus esty originally at least, and perhaps always, must to the Roman mind have meant * he was accused from Caesar,' i. e. the action proceeded from Caesar as the agent. An especially instructive illustration of the operation of the Roman folk-con- sciousness is seen in the construction used with verbs of fearing. Thneo ne veniat means ' I fear he will come ' ; tinieo ut veniat, * I fear he will not come,' — to the pupil's mind an apparent inversion of all reason. But the explanation of this apparent anomaly is easily furnished in the fact that the Latin forms of expression have developed from subjunctives of wish: ne veniat and ut veniat. These expressions originally meant respectively ' may he not come,' ' may he only {ut) come.' Timeo was at first added half-parenthetically to express a fear that the wish might not be realized. Thus ti^neo, ne veniat, from meaning ' may he not come ; I am afraid (he will),' soon came to be felt as virtually equivalent to * I am afraid that he will come ' ; so timeo ut veniat, * I am afraid he will not come.' What we thus translate, however, is not what is explicitly stated in the Latin, but what is implied in that which is stated. The foregoing are but familiar examples of what is meant by the insight into the psychology of language afforded by the study of grammar. Grammar takes the pupil back to the origin of constructions, and impels him to trace the evolution of the conventional forms of speech. We see other psychological forces at play also. Analogy is a powerful factor in syntax, as it is in 138 CONDUCT OF THE WORK sounds and inflexions. Verbs of * filling ' normally take an ablative (developed from the ablative of means), yet owing to the analogy of the genitive with plenuSy and adjectives of ' fulness/ we find compounds of -pleo occasionally construed with the genitive at all periods of the language. In oro, uxorem ducas (* I beg you to get married '), the sub- junctive, by origin, was a jussive, — 'Get married, I beg you to.' But by analogy the subjunctive soon came to figure in expressions where this logical expla- nation could not apply, as seen in expressions like non oro uxorem ducas (* I don't ask you to marry'), where the explanation * Marry a wife ; I don't beg you to,' would be manifestly absurd. Grammar, too, shows how arbitrary language is. To denote price, definite or indefinite, the ablative was originally employed; to denote value, definite or indefinite, the genitive was employed. As a result of the near relationship of these two conceptions of value and price, the two con- structions naturally began to invade each other's terri- tory. Four genitives, tanti, quanti, phiris, minoris, from the earHest times on were mandatory with verbs of 'buying' and ' selling'; yet the construction of the gen- itive with expressions of ' buying ' and * selling ' went no further ; with all other expressions of indefinite price, e. g. magno, maximo, parvo, minimo, etc. the ablative was as mandatory as was the genitive in tanti, quantiy etc. There can hardly be profit in speculating upon the causes for this distinction; it simply illustrates the fundamental arbitrariness of language in its historical development. Language was not primarily a creation of the logician, but an emanation from, and an evolu- tion of, the folk-consciousness. The same forces which brought it into existence determined in the main its entire future career, and forever precluded the existence GENERAL POINTS 139 of an Ideally perfect and consistent scheme of expres- sion. What we see in syntax, therefore, is largely the waywardness and inaccuracies of the popular mind. Literary masters exercised a certain influence in giving currency and character to those forms of speech which they deemed superior in accuracy, simplicity, or eflec- tiveness ; but they could not create the forms themselves or alter their moulds when once the forms were cast. Syntax, too, shows us often the battle of two rival constructions in a struggle for supremacy. No better illustration of this general principle can be speech- found than is exhibited by the history of the Rivalry. constructions with similis. In our earliest Latinity (Plautus), similis is construed with the genitive alone. Later, probably under the influence of par and similar words, similis begins to be construed with the dative. The genitive, however, still continues in vogue and is practically mandatory when the governed word is a pronoun or the designation of a person. In point of meaning, absolutely no distinction between the two cases can be discovered ; we see simply a struggle for supremacy between two rival forms of equivalent value. As time goes on, it is evident that the invader (the dative) is gaining ground rapidly. In the post-Au- gustan writers the territory of the genitive becomes narrower and narrower ; for a time the genitive of pro- nouns is usual, but with other words, whether desig- nations of persons or of things, the dative occupies the field. Ultimately even the pronouns succumb to the levelling tendency, till by the time of Apuleius the dative is practically left in undisputed supremacy. I have thus far been considering the functions of gram- mar study, particularly syntactical study, — as a training in logic and as illuminating general linguistic psychology. Grammar has yet one other function which demands I40 CONDUCT OF THE WORK recognition, — aesthetic training.* Such training is an in- evitable result of a contemplation of excellences of style ^Esthetic in the choicer masterpieces of Latin read in Phases. ^^ schools. Being subtler than the other kinds of training, to which attention has above been called, it is less certain of effective communication by any of the customary methods of instruction. We can ex- plain facts and relationships, genesis and development, to our pupils with tolerable assurance that they will apprehend a lucid exposition of the truth. But when it comes to matters of taste and feeling, the case is different. We may indicate our own emotions and our own appreciation, but there is no certainty of a response on the pupil's part, as there is in the case of a matter presented exclusively to his understanding. Still the difficulties of communication on the teacher's part and the limits of appreciation on the pupil's part do not obliterate the existence of the function here claimed for grammatical study ; they simply prove that there is less certainty of making this function effective. But it is grammar that guides us through word-order to a right appreciation of the relative prominence of words, phrases, and clauses; it is grammatical study that shows us the force of such rhetorical devices as synchysis and chiasmus ; and that tells us the difference between the rapid summary of an asyndetic series as compared with the cumulative effect of a polysyndeton. It is nothing but objective grammatical study that can tell us the subtle differences between the multitude of synonymic constructions, revealing their shades of mean- ing, their inward character, their elevation or their com- monplaceness, their literary dignity or their every-day colloquial nature. 1 See particularly Gildersleeve,i?jjaj/Jrt«<' ' this Field. mentary questions as 'Who was Clodms? * What was the issue that brought on the Punic Wars ? ' only to meet with blank faces at the benches before me. Nor are the chronological conceptions of students for this period of history what they ought to be. I was once giving a course of lectures to juniors and seniors in one of the historic New England colleges now well along in its second century. My subject was the topography and monuments of ancient Rome. As my auditors were all men of classical training and classical interests, I naturally took certain things for granted. In this spirit, I naturally referred with confidence to such historic characters as Augustus, the Flavian emperors, the Antonines, Constantine, etc. Yet it took me but a short time to see that something was wrong. By the eyes of my students, I could see that I was not striking home. 192 SOME MISCELLANEOUS POINTS When I came to quiz them on the matter which I had presented with all the clearness in my power, I found they had gained no adequate conception of the element- ary survey of the successive architectural eras of Rome which I had endeavoured to characterize. In the endeavour to secure a irov arSi, I put the question, 'When did Augustus reign?' '500 A. D.' was the response from the first man I asked. As this reply failed to meet approval, another student volunteered an estimate. ' 1500 A. D.' was the answer, as I turned to him. On another occasion I was lecturing on the his- tory of Roman Hterature. My theme was Roman tragedy in the days of the Republic. My opening sen- tence ran something like this : * Roman tragedy was a close imitation of Greek tragedy, that literary glory of the Periclean Age.' Then, in accordance with my some- what informal manner of lecturing, I paused and put, to the first student whose eye I caught, the question : * What was this Periclean Age and when was it? ' The student was a young woman in her senior year, who was specializing in Greek and was writing a thesis in that department. My query, however, was too much for her. She could only say that she had heard of the Age of Pericles, but was unable to locate or characterize it. These two cases are, of course, extreme ones, yet a long experience in three great American universities per- suades me that they are somewhat typical. Ignorance is not often so pronounced as in the instances just cited, and, when it is, it is probably confined to a small minority of a class. Yet classes, as a whole, certainly cannot be trusted to know the fundamental events and tendencies of Roman antiquity which the instructor of college fresh- men ought to be able to take for granted as a permanent possession of all his students. With institutions, political, religious, and social, the SOME MISCELLANEOUS POINTS 193 student is almost sure to be even less familiar. He has either no conception or a false one with regard to the different elements of the Roman poHtical organization. Senate, consul, aedile, quaestor, censor, praetor, tribune, impermm, comitia centuriata^ comitia tributa^ etc.y — all these are apt to be but empty names. The notion that these magistrates and bodies were a part of the working machinery of the Roman state seems to have eluded the bulk of the students who come to college. Much less are such students able to give any precise statements of magisterial or legislative function and prerogative. I am, therefore, compelled to feel that the work of the secondary school in Roman history falls far short of what ought to be realized. Nor do I speak primarily as a college teacher, to whom ignorance of the funda- mental facts and tendencies of Roman antiquity cannot fail to be a serious handicap in every college course in Latin. I speak quite as much from a sense of what the Latin pupils of the secondary school — to say nothing of any others — ought, as pupils of Roman antiquity, to know, and to know well, whether they go to college or not. A minute and detailed knowledge will not of course be expected ; it will not be possible either. But some things are possible, are achieved in -^r^^r. England, France, and Germany, and ought to to i)e Ex- be not only expected but actually realized in ^^®*^®^- the United States. These things are : 1. A clear conception of the different periods of Roman history, particularly with reference to constitu- tional development, territorial expansion, and internal social and economic problems. These periods are, in the main, sharply differentiated and strongly characterized. They are also relatively few in number. 2. A knowledge of the great characters of Roman 13 194 SOME MISCELLANEOUS POINTS history. Fabricius, Curius, Camillus, Decius, Cincin- natus, Scipio, Marcellus, Pompey, Cicero, Great Men. „ i, /-, Caesar, — even the last two of these, — are unfortunately often nothing but famiHar names — some of them are not even that — to the mind of the average student. I think it is not too much to demand that the pupil know their personality and carry in his mind some record of their positive achievements. 3. Some knowledge of dates. I am well aware that a mere parrot-like capacity to reel off dates is no evi- dence of a knowledge of history, and that a Clironology. . very ordinary intellect is frequently capable of memorizing such details without appreciating the facts with which they are connected. Yet in spite of this possible (not frequent) perversion of study, there are many dates that every student ought to know. It is a safe statement to say that if an event is important, its date is important. The founding of Rome, the expul- sion of the kings, the great landmarks in the strife between the orders, the Cornelian law, the Hortensian law, the Decemvirate, the Licinian Rogations, the war with Pyrrhus, the battle of Zama, the destruction of Corinth, the Social War, the strife of Marius and Sulla, the assassination of Caesar, the battle of Actium, — these and the like are great events of whose chrono- logical location in the course of Roman history no pupil should be ignorant. When a student tells me that Cicero was born 3CX) B. c, I cannot accept as valid his plea that he never had the faculty for learning dates. I see at once that he has never had any adequate con- ception of Roman history. 4. Lastly, I feel that the secondary student of Roman history ought to have some orderly and sys- Institutions. .,,, r ^ . . . tematic knowledge of Roman mstitutions. I do not, of course, presume that he shall be familiar SOME MISCELLANEOUS POINTS 195 with every detail of the working of the Roman constitu- tion and with the functions and prerogatives of the scores and hundreds of minor officials. But I do claim that he ought at least to understand the Roman consti- tution in its broad Hues. He ought to know what the Senate, and magistrates, and assemblies were, what powers they had, how they did their work. He ought to understand also the imperfections of the constitution, and how and why it proved inadequate to the needs of the later Republic. Is the foregoing too much to ask? I cannot think it is, or that secondary teachers will judge my demands excessive. One thing, however, is certain. Nothing approaching it is now realized in our secondary schools as a body, or in any considerable proportion of them. Furthermore, could any such knowledge be assumed in the graduates of secondary schools, it would mean a veritable revolution in the possibilities of college teach- ing, though the improvement is urged not in the interest of the colleges but of the schools themselves. ( .x^A^S^ b. Comparative Philology. There is an undoubted fas- j-/ tJU L^^ cination to most pupils in tracing the origin of words, '^''''"«^^.^^^^«