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 BULLE TIN 
 
 THE COLLEGE CONFERENCE ON ENGLISH 
 
 in the 
 
 CENTRAL ATLANTIC STATES 
 
 January, 1921 
 
 
 U.-...-U c^..J 
 
 THE BIBLE AND THE CLASSICS 
 AS A LITERARY BACKGROUND 
 
 cADDRESSES 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE MEETING OF THE CONFERENCE 
 AT THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY ON NOVEM- 
 BER 27, 1920 
 
 ^ 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE COLLEGE CONFERENCE 
 
 NEWARK DELAWARE 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2007 with funding from^ 
 
 IVIjcrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/bibleclassicsaslOOhincrich 
 

 "^ Bible and the Classics as a Literary 
 Background 
 
 By Walter 8. Hinchman, Haver ford College 
 
 All teachers of English are familiar with the young man who 
 admits no recognition when he comes upon such a line as 
 
 "she would have ta^en 
 Achilles by the hair and bent his neck;" 
 with the other young man who hears belbind Teninyson's 
 ' ' Push off, and sitting well in order smite 
 The siounding furrows" 
 no echo of Virgilian phrajse; and with the third gentleman who is 
 surprised that he should be expected to know whom Milton could 
 po>ssiibly have had lin mind when he spoke of 
 
 * * That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed ' * 
 from * ' the secret top of Ordb or of Sdnlai. ' ' These young people, 
 for ithey are not all of one sex, are meriely symbols of an ignorance 
 wQiii'ch goes a liong way towards making Milton — to mention the 
 chief among many — la shut book to the modern world. There is a 
 story that a professor ait one of our largest nniversities discovered 
 that no one in a group of Juniors and Seniors could identify Judas 
 Iscariot; exasperated, he cried out: ** Gentlemen, is there anyone 
 in the room who has heard of Jesus Christ ! ' ' The fact that one 
 student toiok the question serionsly and raised his h^and is humor- 
 ous, if yiou like ; but the story, as Garlyle would have said, is 
 ''significant of much." The obvious argument, drawn from the 
 facts, is that English tdache-ils should encourage, perhaps demand, 
 at leas/t a bowing acquaintance with the two chief sources of 
 allusions in Englisih literature. 
 
 But ithis argument does not appeal to me, for two reasons. In 
 the first place, though I agree that such acquaintance on the part 
 of the student would help, it happens that the Claries which the 
 majority of our students study do not by any means supply them 
 with the infiormlatiion necessary to an identifieatiion of the greater 
 number of the allusions in their Enl^lish literature. Those who 
 have been through enough Ca&sar, Virgil, and Cicero to pass the 
 
entrance examdnations lappear <to be sure of only the veiry oommon- 
 est namieis, sueh as Achilles, Aeneas, Juno. If they dJo get some- 
 thing of the force in the line, 
 
 **she could have ta'en 
 Achilles by t-he bair and. bent his neck, ' ' 
 they are usually put to rout by the very next verse : 
 *'0r with a finger stay'd Ixion's wheel.'' 
 
 The same -tihing is true to some extent lof what they retain of 
 tbe Bible. Moses, David, and Job can still be identified, if not with 
 precision, but such imj^otntant figures as Rebecca and Ruth, Joshua 
 and Samuel are little more than nameis. In the next place, so far 
 as this inform'atiional plea is concerned, I believe itoo heartily in 
 the value of the Classics and of the Bible, both for themselves and 
 for their usefuLtiesls las literary (backgrounds, to be content when 
 their diiampionte rest the case with this and associated arguments. 
 Such a feeble •cotnitention las that the Classics and the Bible supply 
 tbe student with indispensable information, together with the 
 mental discipline largument for the one and the moral argument 
 for the 'Other, has done much, to my mind, to discredit both. It 
 proves too little ; it naise^ the damaging suspicion th<at 'all has been 
 said. Furtlhermore, the ground of this argument has been well 
 ploughed and salted. It does not seem profitable to consume ain- 
 other half-Jhour in citing an imposing list of passages which Milton 
 and others have taken from the Bible and the Classics. 
 
 Much the same fault may be found with tftie etymology theory. 
 It is desirable, lof course, that our studemts sihould have a nice 
 sense for shadeis of meaning, that they should know, for example, 
 what Stevemsioin meiains by ''a fine series of acoideaits in the day's 
 career ; ' ' but unless they are fairly steeped in the Classics, they do 
 not seem to accumulate from their work a sufficient inheritance to 
 justify, for this alone, the study of G^reek .and Datin. What I 
 mean is that I am not convinced that a boy lor girl who has studied 
 Latin is lany more likely than one who has not to refrain from 
 using ''aggravate" in the sense of ''provoke" or to give the proper 
 meaning to "horrid" when Satan with bold words broke "the 
 iLorrid sEence.", At 'all events, though I reoogniize the value of 
 both the informiation and the etymology theories, I feel that we 
 must rest our dase for the Classics ion more secure grounds. 
 
 Just now I have been speaking exclusively about Latin and 
 Greek. If we consider for a momieoit two arguments in favor of the 
 Bible, "we may find, I think, that the main 'conltenitions in its favor 
 are in reality the chief arguments for the Classics. The second in 
 ptoint of acquisitioai I mention first because it is the more famliliar. 
 
 4 
 
I refer to a feeling for what the Freiwih oompa<jtly call ' * phrase. ' ' 
 Illustration is hardly necessary; we all recognize that the simple 
 language of our English Bible is wovein inito the pattern of our 
 best Englis'h style, into the writings of Drydetn and Swift, as well 
 as those of Buinyan; of Maculay and Rusbin, las well as those of 
 Lincoln. I can think of no better antidote for the lure of oheap 
 literature than the feeling of simple dignity which must gradually 
 possess the mind of a man who reads 'his Bible aloud, or hears it 
 read, — mot for information, not for moral solace (proper and fitting 
 as these may be), but for the vividness, restraint, and harmony of 
 the language. In other words, dt is not m'erely that (the readeir 
 should be able to identify Biblical allusions which abound in Bacon, 
 JMilton, Bunyan, and others ; it is rather that he should recognize a 
 familiar BibMcal inflieriitance in such sentences as the following: 
 **And mysteries and presences, innumerable, of living things, — 
 these may yet be here your riches; untormenting and divine; 
 serviceable for the life that now is ; nor, it miay be, without promise 
 of that which is to eome. ' ' 
 
 "What ds the virtue in this reminiscence of ithe Biblical phrase f 
 Whait is its peculiar value ? The psychology of it is rather dusive ; 
 but we dan at least feel its value if we cannot always explain it. 
 Somehow such style seems the breath of life to what DeQuincey 
 called the ** literature of power." A recent critic of Shakespeare, 
 in pointing out that certain ideas and emotions need appropriaite 
 language, that language, in point of fact, informs thougtht almost 
 as much as thought prescribes language, has used the phrase, 
 * ' oorresponding speech." If Hamlet, in his last words to Horatio, 
 must break -into the ''sheer splendour of speech," in order thait the 
 Words may ** correspond " to the emotion, so the iniheritors of our 
 Biblical language may be said to accompiliish the sheer dignity of 
 utterance, the only speech which exactly ''corresponds" to the 
 simplicity and ' ' high seriousness ' ' of their thought. 
 
 The other argument I wMi to emphaszie springs from the fact 
 that the English and American people have not only a peculiar 
 literary inheritance in Biblical style, but an equally uniique moral 
 and intellectual inheritance. Overdrawn as John Richard Green's 
 picture may be when he says that England in t«he seventeenth cen- 
 tury .became a niation of one book, we do not have to remind our-' 
 selves that not merely our religious distinotions, but in large me^as- 
 ure the current of our moral and intellectual life, e\'-en today, 
 springs from the absorption of our ancestors in the Bible. In the 
 seventeenth century it dominated a great pant of our literature, of 
 Jeremy Taylor as well as of Bunyan ; in the eighteenth, it fed the 
 evangelical reaction ^aga^lst a tottering rationalism ; and it became 
 the ark and the covenant of the entrenched religions in Victorian 
 days. Indeed, much of the literature of the pasit three centuries 
 
must remiain meaningless to those wbo are unfanii'lrar wifth the 
 book which gave it niot only style but subst^ance. A foreigner may 
 well questdmi George Eliot's art; niovels, he might say, s^hould not 
 make us feel (that their be-iall and end-all is mortality. But English 
 readers know that George Eliot was doing the most n'atural thing 
 in the worid for an English person, thiat she was following a tradi- 
 tion stronger than herself. Similarly, our popular cratieism of 
 literature is frequently governed by the same inheriitamce : witness 
 the praise long given to the poetry of Longfellow because it enunci- 
 ates mioral eomf ort ; the * ' P^alm of Life, ' ' a commoaiplace piece of 
 work, is far better known <than \a greater piece of writing like ' ' The 
 Skeleton in Armor." Or, to take an example of how the tradition 
 directed hostile criticism, recall the conviction with which English- 
 men 'assumed (that the poetry of Byron must be bad, as poetry, 
 because they did not lapprove of his life ; the Weltgeist Goethe, or 
 their own Swinburne, a questionable person, might praise Byron's 
 poetry in vain; it was not till Matthew Arnold, of unquestion- 
 able probity, insisted ttiiat it had great merit that they were able 
 to see its "splendid and imperisihable excellence of sincerity and 
 strength. ' ' 
 
 Now the same (arguments that suppont a study of the Bible for 
 liteTary backgrounds, — that is, to develop tappreciation of the 
 style 'and understanding of the meaning of the English literature 
 written during the past three centuries, — iseem to me the very 
 reasons why our stud em ts sihould ^tudy the Classics for background 
 purposes. The case for style is simple and obvious enough, how- 
 ever complicated >an analysis of the ingredients miay be. From 
 Bacon to Tennyson the classiioal turn of phrase permeates our best 
 literature. The objeetion still radsied in some quiarter's is not to the 
 fact, and the value of such study in order to appreciate English 
 style is not seriously questioned ; but there is la widespread eonten- 
 tion that tr*anslations of the Classics <are sufficient. I wonder 
 whether it is still necessary to lay that ghost. There is a story that 
 on'ce when the Paris cabmen had agreed not to turn a w'heel during 
 lunch hour, a lady in distress on a rainy day besought a gallant 
 driver to make just one exception. He could not bear to eause the 
 lady displeasure or pain, but he must obey the Union rules. He 
 proteisted that, as for himself, he would be only too glad to oblige 
 a lady ; in fact, nothing gave him more diseomf ort than to appear 
 discourteous to a lady; ''but," he added daintily, — ^'mais mon 
 petit estomac, il ne le vent pas/' Turn that answer into English, 
 German, — any language you like, — ^it will not pass mulster; it is 
 wlhoUy French 'and must be s/aid in French. How shall we hope 
 to give our students a senise for the felicity of Virgilian phrase or 
 for the periodicity of Ciceiro through translation, through circum- 
 Idcution and paraphrase? Tennyson Mm^self, with all his happy 
 
gift of translation, does not attempt to remder ''venusta,'* hope- 
 lessly beyond even him, an his lines to Catullus (and ''olive-silvery 
 Sirmio:" 
 
 * ' Row us out from Desenzano, to your Sirmione row ! 
 
 So they row 'd, and there we landed — ' venusta Sirmio ! ' ' ' 
 
 The other point, that of our intellectual inheritance, is more 
 complicated beteause the resultant of the Bible tradition and the 
 Classical tr'adition is a mixture of sdmilariities and contradiehions. 
 There is no need, even if there were time, to g^ive the present com- 
 pany -a detailed laceount of the influence of thesie two sets of writ- 
 ings on the thinking of 'the seventeenth and eighteenth oentuTi.es, 
 or of the coimpiosate result in tlie nineteenth centurj^, but it may be 
 well to iremiind ourselves of the more outstandinig features, if only 
 to siee the whole proiblem in connection with the study of the Bible 
 and the Classics, and to appreciate the force of the argument in 
 their favor. 
 
 The interest in the phenomena and natural laws of this world, 
 an interest natui^ally bred of the humanistic development in the 
 fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, gives us, as every sidhoolboy 
 knows, a clear beginnling for what we eall modepn science and 
 marks an equally clear depairture from the mysterious formulae of 
 the Middle Ages. The development of a rationalisitic philosophy 
 and out of that of an easy-going secularism is also an obvious con- 
 sequen'ce. Following this line of development, we find many 
 phases of the middle eighteenth eentury clear as crystal. It is not 
 perturbing, either, to meet a counter-Renaissance, with a gradually 
 gathering Puritanism and a later Evangelicalism to step in when 
 it h>ad run its course. Nor does it surprise us to find the strong 
 Bible tradition joining hands with an off -shoot of the fundam-ent- 
 ally ho'stile Classsieal tradition and making humanitarianism out of 
 humiamism. We can move serenely enough through these phases to 
 the Age of Romanticism, with its strong humanitarian eolor. But 
 '^v'lien we begin to set an (isolated Humanitarianism against Human- 
 ism, or Romanticism per se against Classlioism per se, we find our- 
 selves in a somewibat aoadeinic and futile exercise. We disicover, 
 in fact, that these two phases of our development are not isolated, 
 but complexly blended; that the two do not run pa'rallel nor yet 
 succeed on,e another ; that both inheritanlces, incongruously enough, 
 have during the nineteenth century beioome inseparable oom- 
 pianions. What lis more, thougih Humianism and Humanitarianism, 
 Rationalism and Transicendentalism, — 'and other large terms — 
 may be oonvenlient philosophic labels, they lose in their impurity 
 and confusion much of their identity. At times, the one amounts 
 to little more than small lo'gic ; the other, to little more than un- 
 ne^cessary tears. We must recogniize the fact thalt they exiist only 
 in composite and adulterate forms. 
 
Toward's this complex resuiltaait shiould be added of course a 
 multitude of minor forces. Not least by any means is the man in 
 whom ithe forces work, the liberated individual, who in suocessiive 
 geaierations siirace 'tihe Bemaissamc'e has grown increalsingly consciious 
 of scilf, of his majestic desttdny, — ^to m-ake fit ancestry for the 
 miodern superm-an. Beautifully sim^ple, then, as the development 
 may appelar viewed in one of its phases, it becomes startlingly 
 complicated when we view it as a com.posiite inherit'ance, not only 
 of ourselves, but in some measure of everyone since those moment- 
 ous sixteenth land sevententh centuries. We have to recognize the 
 astonishing fact that the process set in motion by Erasmus is re- 
 sponsible for both Francis Bacon and William Jennings Bryan. 
 
 My contention, then, in brief, is that the greater part of our 
 thought begins abruptly with the Renaissance,* that the sixteenith 
 and seventeenth centuries have been the chief source of that 
 thought, 'and that to understand this source land the literature 
 which reflects it our students must become familiar with the two 
 greatest informiing forces lof those cerituries — the Classics aoid the 
 King James Bible. To teach English literature to young men and 
 women igniorant lof these things is like teaching the wool business 
 to a mlan who doeisn't know a ^heep from a goat. 
 
 So far I have concemed myself only with certain arguments 
 in favor of the ^tudj;^ of the Bible and*the Classics a^ literary hack- 
 grounds. Arguments in favor of them for their own sakes — and 
 I believe that there is still much to be said on that score — are not 
 our affair in the present discussion. But, whatever the grounds on 
 which they are taught, the question of hoiv they are taught is 
 obviously of vital interest to the English teacher. Details of 
 method I shall have to leave largely to di^ussiion, for the half -hour 
 at my disposial has nearly -run its course, but I should like, in con- 
 clusion, to ventuire a few suggefeltions. 
 
 First, the teiaching of the Classics. The reasons I have ad- 
 vianced in favor of them imply not only a familiarity with the 
 language, in o»rder to aippreciate the stj^e of English writings, but 
 also a knowledge of a far wider range of reading than can relason- 
 ably be covered in the oiriginial 'texts. This second implication at 
 once denuands a great deal of reading in translation, — a, more 
 widely extended reading, to include, let us say, the chief authors, 
 Greek and Latin, who made the background of Petrarch and 
 Erasmus. This reading, moreover, should be accompanied by much 
 
 * It is a contradiction of terms, of course, to say that any development 
 begins abruptly; one must not lose sight of the fact that both Eenaissance 
 and modern inheritances from the Middle Ages, especially as regards literary 
 content, are considerable. At the same time, the modern world, except in the 
 case of a few conscious students of the past, is curiously shut off, particularly 
 in the direction and habit of its thought, from' the intellectual experience of 
 the thirteenth century. 
 
 8 
 
discussion of the ideas set fourth ; tlie studeaiit must undeo'sitaiid the 
 experieniee of ithe Arwjieait World, tand myt only of the convention- 
 ally Classioal per*iods, but of Alexandirfian times. Clelarly, only the 
 more narpative poii:iions of this reading «md the sampler discussions 
 can be puit in the secondary school, but I feel that a good deal could 
 be aiocomplished df the work were coorddnated with history and if 
 the teac^hers of the Clasisdcs would shifit their emphasis. At present, 
 in the majority of schools, girammar is given the diief emphasis, 
 accurate reading of a few pages is given next place, and an under- 
 standinig of how the Ancients Mved, of how they thought and felt, 
 is ocoaisionally thrown m df there is timie. 
 
 By ftjhis I do not mean that we should abandon study of the 
 language, nor minimize it to a smattering. Peirsonally, I should 
 like to see more time given to the Classics, but, even with present 
 schedules, much time could be gained if less devotiion were paid to 
 the di^plinary value of Latin grammar, if grammatr were always 
 taugtht .as a me'ains to an end. In a ithree-year course of four 
 periods a week in the high school, practically the whole of the first 
 year oonild be devoted to languiage, and half-time (or two periods 
 a week) in subsequent yea,rs to language and Ithe translation of 
 original texts. The difficulty does not lie mainly in the disciplin- 
 ary bogey, however; it lies partly in the college entrance require- 
 menlts, which force a meticulous intimacy with regular verbs; 
 and in the lack of oomipetent teachers of ithe Cliassics. The first of 
 these difficulties 'can be eliminuated if itihe colleges see fit. The 
 second can be eliminated only when s'chook eease to delegate the 
 teaxjhing of the Classics to amiable young men and women who can 
 t^ch nothinig else, who know the grammar by heart, a little Caesar, 
 Virgil, and Cicero, 'and nothing else. In the college, Latin or 
 Gretek should be required, in my oipinion, of all Freshmen prepar- 
 ing for the A. B. degree ; and there, if the grammar f etis'h is not 
 still set up, quite 50 per cent, of the coume could be devoted to the 
 reading and study of translated Classics. 
 
 It will be objected, I know, that such a eourse would spread 
 itself too vaguely over a vast area. It would derftainly not be an 
 easy course to teach ; the technique of it has not been worked out. 
 But this same 'difficulty has confronted teachers in newer subje<jts, 
 such as English and the Sciences. When English teachers dis- 
 covered about a generation ago that they were really teaching a 
 sort of Latiu made easy, they set about making a vital interpreta- 
 tion of 'thiedr subject ; and when they found that the new interpre- 
 tation left them without the old, comfortable technique, they 
 struggled on towards a neiw :technique. They 'are still struggling ; 
 their tedhnique is still very erude; but it is certainly to their 
 eredit that they did not return in despair to the easy futilities of 
 their youth. I maintain that the Cliassi'cs, if they are to survive, 
 
 9 
 
mus/t be given la new interpretation im sicliools, witlh thie empihiasis on 
 the ideas which they contain and itilie life whidi they shadow forth ; 
 and this initerpretation mieianls a mew type of teiacher and a new 
 technique. 
 
 In the case of the Bible, we cannot rely, especially in public 
 schools, on any definite instruction out side of the English class. 
 Even in private sichools, B.ible inisitruotion is usually so obscured 
 by religious ends that the book does mot take on the character of a 
 human documient. I have repeatedly found boys of eighteen, after 
 five yeiars of so-^called ''Bible Study," unaware that the Book of 
 Ruth differed in purpose or style from the Book of Job. We must 
 give time from ithe English allotment to the study of the Bible as 
 literature, and we must force it by requirement into the schools. 
 
 Five 'Minute Discussions 
 
 How Can the Student Secure a Knowledge of 
 the Classics ? 
 
 At the outset I wish to state that it is my belief that in any 
 education that is to be both broad and deep, that is to possess, so 
 to speak, botlh horizontal and vertical values, a knowledge of the 
 classics must be a constituent element. Yet only a brief expeirience 
 as a college instructor in literature is necessary to discover that it 
 is futile to refer to the classics to illuminate any phase of our own 
 literary history; from the average student the only response an 
 instructor , receives is an uncomprehending stare. This ignorance 
 becomes all the more serious when we bear in mind the real nature 
 of the loss sustained by the student through this prevalent neglect 
 of the classics. As I see it, this loss is threefold. 
 
 A first-hand acquaintance with the actual content of classioal 
 literature would again and again vitalize the student's under- 
 standing of lOur literature. The study of Chaucer, of Shakespeare 
 and his contemporaries, and especially of the Augusitans would be 
 immeasurably enriched by such a knowledge. Appreciation of the 
 finer mock-heroic flavor in Hudihras, in The Battle of the Books, in 
 The Rape of the Lock, and in many a hilariously burlesque passiage 
 of Fielding must now depend on some instructor's spoon-feeding. 
 This is but a makeshift, tand a pretty contemptible one. 
 
 More serious is the fact that a student is without a knowledge 
 that would, to his profit, infinitely lengthen his histordic perspective. 
 
 10 
 
Ignorance now threatens to narrow his consciousness of our cul- 
 tural history, to foster his indifference to origins, and to destroy 
 •his sense of spiritual and intellectual sympathy waith the greatest of 
 races. Even a man who voted for Harding — I voted for the heroic 
 vanquished — must agree with President Wilson : * * Your enlighten- 
 ment depends on the company you keep. You do not know the 
 world until you know the men who have possessed it and tried its 
 wares, hefore you were given your brief run upon it. ' ' And in this 
 realization that he is the humble inheritor of tihis an'cient culture 
 is, I feel assured, an excellent disicipline for the assertive student 
 of our time. I/t 'Chastens the flippant and unintelligent individual- 
 ism that loathes nothing so much as to be reminded of its duty to 
 respect the past. 
 
 The student suffers still another lossi : the power to under- 
 stand and ito enjoy those finer qualities that are the soul of classie 
 art — balianlce, reitioemee, anid the serene beauty of disciplined 
 emotion. It is only a sense for the abiding charm of these qualities 
 that can counteract the appeal of so much that is meretricious — 
 the jazz, the piundh, the pep — in contemporary art. In literature 
 this plebeian passion for excess appears as a brutal realism or a 
 languorous 'romanticism; in painting .as the geometric fervors of 
 the cubists; in music as the cacophon]ous literalism of the com- 
 positions that are now coming out of Russia and Italy. Surely 
 something would seem to be at fault in the education of a student 
 who does n'ot protest — ito use Pater's admiTJable phrase — ''against 
 the stupidity wihieh is dead to the substance and the vulgarity 
 which is dead to form." 
 
 I regret tliese losses because I feel ithat the study of literature 
 alwaj^s rests on the edge of an intellectual precipice; it may fall 
 into a shallow impressionlism' or into an over-mucih concern about 
 mere books, dates, land biographies. The larger — may I say? — the 
 nobler correlations possible (su'ch as might be assured witJi a train- 
 ing in the classics), the stronger the expectation that the study of 
 literature will be kept in the realm of ideas. I feel that advanced 
 courses in English eispecially should, if possible, have in them 
 something of the point of view of coimpanative literature, some 
 suggestion that tendencies that have appea;red in English, have 
 had paralMs in other countries and at other tinnes. Dean West 
 has said: "And no education is the best which does not aim at 
 universiality, which does not acquainit the student with all the 
 great categories, very few in number, which we must miaster, if we 
 are to undersitand ourselves and our world lin origin and progress. ' ' 
 Yet, if we are hottiest with ourselves, we must confess that among 
 English students there is an amazing ignoranice of sueh general 
 conceptions as sentimenitalism, optimism, pessimism, individualism. 
 How miany graduates in English can tell when, how, and why these 
 
 11 
 
tendorMjies .Imve manifested itjheniiselveis m our literature? Litera- 
 ture is supposed to 'be a >critioisttn of life, but yet there is only a 
 hialf-knowledge of those general terms that destoribe fundamental 
 and recurrent attitudes toward humam experience. 
 
 These are the values that the studenit loses Iby his neglect of 
 the elassics. Where are we to look for help to remedy this condi- 
 tion? Ironically enough, not to the teachers of Greek and Latin. 
 They have had their oppoirtuinity, and the majority have failed 
 miserably. Too many are mired in Alexandrianism, and do not 
 oommuoiicate the sfpirit of their subject. Not for adventitious 
 reasoins, mental discipline, training in loigic, philological practice, 
 must the classics be studded ; one does not examine The Last Judg- 
 ment or Mona Lisa to secure knowledge of the composition of the 
 pigmeu'ts. Most pungently a distinguished Latiaist of this Uni- 
 versity has said : ' * I should no more think of studying those lan- 
 guages purely for mental disicipline than of marrying a wife 
 purely foir oharaoter-building and the development of Stoic forti- 
 tude." With an unsparing sense of reality, Milton puts the case 
 thus- : * * And though a linguist shiould pride himself to have all the 
 tongues that Babel deft the world into, yet if he have not studied 
 the solid things in them as w^ell ^as the words and lexicons, he were 
 nothing so much to be esteemed a learned man las lany yeoman or 
 tradesman eoniipetently wise in his mother-dialect only." The 
 point is that the classics musit be studied as a source for ideas if we 
 would not do a profound injustice to their ereaters by putting 
 them to a use for which they were not intended. But enough of 
 this matter about which I feel very strongly and about w'hich so 
 much more might be said. Perhaps I should add, however, that I 
 do not speak as an outsider, but as an alienated friend of the 
 classics, for it was in this field that I began my teaching. 
 
 The remedy I have to suggest is not oiriginal. It has already 
 been adoj>ted in some colleges and universities. English depart- 
 ments must givte courses in the classics in translation. I am per- 
 fectly aware of the inadequacy of a translation as compared with 
 the original. But ean we believe that a student who pieices together 
 a gawky translation by means of the dictionary, more successfully 
 catches the subtle discriminations of his author ? I doubt it. One 
 advantage is evident; with the English depfairtment in charge, the 
 work could readily be shaped to bear upon our own literature. 
 Moreover, the loss, sustained by the use of translations, might be, 
 and could be, 'repaired by a parallel examination of those arts in 
 which less diminution of value was suffered, due to the conditions 
 of study. The knowledge of the inner spirit, the soul of the 
 classics, can be supplied by a course in Greek civilization, and 
 especially of its art — vases, sculpture, and architecture. It is 
 gratifying to disscover with what vigor of interest a student is 
 
 12 
 
attracted to these mattera. No apology is niecessary for such a 
 correlation lof Jiitenajture and the plastic airts. The perception, on 
 the part of the student of literaiture, of such a fundamental unity- 
 is thie beginning of true education; to multiply i>erceptions of a 
 similar chlaracter is to (build the foundation of true culture. Until 
 we bridge the gap ibetween the ancient world and the student of 
 our own time, we are cutting him off from a means of enriching 
 his mind, 'Cultivalting his taste, and deepening his spiritual 
 sympathies. 
 
 B. Sprague Allen, 
 
 New York University 
 
 C_y4 Course in Classics in Translation 
 
 I wifeh to speak this morning on a Course in the Classiics in 
 Translation, a course which, I think, may be justified on the 
 principle that if the mountain will not come, to Mohamet 
 Mohamet must go to the mountain. If the students in our 
 colleges will not study the classics in the original languages, 
 we, as educators, must take the classics of Greece and Rome to 
 them in our own language. The increasing number of courses in 
 the classics in translation seems to show that this generation is in- 
 terested in the classics and is willing to make an honest effort to 
 understand them v/hen they are presented in this form. In view 
 of this faJct I feel it would ndt be out of place to discuss briefly 
 the purpose and content of such courses. They should not be con- 
 sidered as substitutes for the study of the literature of Greece and 
 Rome in the original languages, but should rather be oonsideped as 
 courses of study for those wiho do not undferstand the languages or 
 have not advancefd to such a point that 'they could profit by read- 
 ing the works of the ancients in the original. Although something 
 of what we may call the original genius of the literature, a sort of 
 intangible flavor, is lost in the study of these works in translation, 
 nevertheless we have sufficient translations in Englisih which are 
 good both in fidelity to the original and in reproduction of the 
 spirit of the work to make sucli a course worth while. 
 
 The authors to fbe read and the extent of the reading in such 
 a course as this will depend largely upon the amount of time 
 allotted to the course. The basic principle, however, should be 
 kept in mind at all timies : the course is to furnish literary back- 
 
 13 
 
ground. It should not concern itself with 'the miinu'tiae of scholarly 
 criticism on the -wiorks studied ; it should laim rathier lat knowledge 
 and appre>ciation. For -this reason I believe thie student should be 
 introduced to la number of the great works of antiquity, presented 
 in som'e sort of logieal order, rather than oarried through a com- 
 plete outline of Greek .and Latin literature 'and made expert at 
 names of autihors of whose works we have only fragment. Such a 
 course should doncern itself with the epic. Homer and Virgil; 
 witih the drama, tihe great four of Greece, land Plautus 'and Terence 
 of Rome; with non-dram.iatic poetry, — and here the Greek must 
 necessarily be fragmentary, but the Romans are well represented 
 by Horace, Ovid, Juvenal, and others; land with prose in i-ts 
 various fields, but especially in those of philiosiophy land oratory. 
 A course built upon such a plam las this ougtht upon completion to 
 have given the student something of what we vaguely term 'liter- 
 ary background. ' ' 
 
 This literary background, however, will have been only half 
 constructed if the instructor fails to connect the ancient writers 
 with those of our own tonlgue. A course in the classics in transla- 
 tion presents lan excellent means of showing the .influenee of the 
 classics on English literature and of broiadening the student's 
 knowledge of Englisih writers. For instance: Aeschylus' Prome- 
 thus Bound at once suggests the reading of Shelley's Prometheus 
 Unbound; Plautus' Jfenaec/imiV Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors; 
 Euripides' Medea, William Morris' Life and Death of Jason; the 
 whole of Greek drama, Milton 's Samson Agonistes; Plato 's Re- 
 public, and Xenophon's Cyropaedia, More's Utopia and Bacon's 
 New Atlantis; Plutarch's Moralia, Bacon's Essays; and so on, 
 for the list is lonig. If the student should happen to be familiiar 
 already with any of these, so much the better, for the process of 
 learning is much aided by the coupling of the known and the un- 
 known. Incidentally the student may frequently be led to wander 
 in by-paths of literature which otherwise would lie neglected. 
 Indeed, this second part of the course is of almost as great value as 
 the first part, for it helps to reanimate the ancient literature which 
 so many peopile think is dead. 
 
 To teach such a course as I have outlined the instructor should 
 have special preparation, preparation which is based on a much 
 broader foundation than that of a reading of the translations in 
 the Bohn or Loeb libraries. He must be a student of the classics 
 who has read widely in English literature, or a student of Eng'lish 
 literature who has read widely in the classies in the original. The 
 instructor must know Greek and Latin, for he must have an ade- 
 quate undersitandin'g of and feeling for the spirit of those lan- 
 guages 'amd peoples. This I feel can be gained only through a 
 study of the original works. For, if the course is to be more than 
 
 14 
 
a mere readinig of a required ntimber of (books in English, the in- 
 structor must supply, as best he can, those elements whi<j:h will 
 produce what we usually eall a classical atmosphere. 
 
 In this cannectiotn and in eontelu&ion I wissh to quote a few 
 sentenoes from Sir Ar»thur Qiuiller-Couch 's On the Art of Beading. 
 He siays: "But, althougih a student of English literature be 
 ignoi^ant of Greek land Latin las languages, may he not have Greek 
 and Latin literature widely opened to him by intelligent transla- 
 tions ? The question has oiften been a^ked but I ask it again. May 
 not same translations open a door to him by which he can see them 
 through an atmosphere, and in that atmosphere the authentic gods 
 walking : so that returning upon English literature he may recog- 
 nize them there, too, walking and talking in a garden of values ? ' ' 
 Sir Arthur's question is so framed as to demand an affirmative 
 reply; and many of us agree with the affirmation. 
 
 F. M. K. Foster, 
 
 Delaware College 
 
 The Historical Development of Literature 
 
 It is yooir misfortune that I have no prepared speech. I felt 
 sure I eould recruit from the abundance of my pred'Coessors ; and, 
 since we are here to discuss, it is perhaps as well that some of us 
 should discuss. I therefore seize upon a remark of my good friend 
 Hiinohm'an's — "The greater part of our thought begins abruptly 
 with the Renaissance." I think I eould sstage a very vigorous 
 mock-com'bat with him over this point. It would be largely a mock- 
 combat, since we could doubtless settle our apparent differenees 
 quite amicably in the course 'of a few minutes' conversation. 
 
 I am no believer in abrupt beginnings or abrupt endings — ex- 
 cept in the case of five-minute speeches. I believe that our teach- 
 ing of literary history suffers from the fact that it conveys to the 
 minds of the students, by reason of necessary divisions into cen- 
 turies, into periods, subjects, courses, a wholly wrong sense of be- 
 ginnings and endings, and far too little of the more valuable siense 
 of contintiity. Among the many things which it might be desirable 
 to teach in conne'ction with literature there is at least one thing 
 which we can teach, and that is the 'historical development of liter- 
 ature, its movem-ent in time and place. This is not the only thinig 
 to be taught, nor necessarily tlie best thing, but it has always 
 
 15 
 
seemed to me somethin'g very nearly e^ential, and -at any rate it is 
 teachable. 
 
 In the lease of Eng-lish literature I venture to think tbat we 
 teach ithis historical development fairly well. And at precisely this 
 poiat there is a strikin'g contrast to what was my experience with 
 the teaohinig of Latin. I termiaated my study of Latin in college 
 with a feeling that Latin literature — or perhaps rather the * * class- 
 ical" literature whi^ch found full expression in Greek and was 
 echoed in La^tin — was the perfect pearl in the otherwise rather 
 commonplace oyster of this world. Apart from a conning of the 
 grammar, the study lof the -classics seetoed to concern itself so 
 much with thie reoonstruetion of ancient civilization — that is an 
 inheritanice from the Renaissance — ^with the topography of the 
 Forum or the Acropolis, with the procedure of the law courts and 
 the conduct of military campaigns, that it was only after a good 
 many years ' study of modern literatures that I was able by myself 
 to set up some sort of connection between them and those of the 
 ancient world. 
 
 I feel, therefore, that this static vjiew of 'classical literature, 
 which seems to be the one which gets to the average student, how- 
 ever far removed such a view may be from thiat held by some ex- 
 cellent teachers of the classics, is a reason for the lamented absence 
 of fruitful relations between what have 'come to be regarded as two 
 separate and distinct subjcts. I feel it to be a duty of teachers of 
 English to establish such relations. I think it is the duty of some- 
 body, somehow, to make clear the development of Latin literature 
 somewhat after the fashion th-at the development of English liter- 
 ature is made clear. Then the relations between the two could 
 quickly enough manifest themselves. 
 
 Is the student ever likely to hear, either in English courses or 
 in Latin, that the Romans whom we know looked back with re- 
 spect upon a classical literature labout which we know very little ? 
 that Cicero felt at the outset of his career a deep sense of dis- 
 couragement because the great days of oratory were over ? that he 
 met in his youth the last representative of the great Roman tragic 
 tradition? that Vergil leaned heavily upon a great epic tradition 
 of which we know only scraps ? that Horace felt a superiority to 
 his predefoessor in satire, Lucilius, in one thing and one thing only 
 — form, polish? Plainly, the Augustan Age of Queen Anne is 
 Augustan by its intention, by its attitude, if not by its accomplish- 
 ment. 
 
 Horace's Epistle to Augustus is a plea for modem literature — 
 how old does a poem have to be before it is good ? Might not a 
 student be made aware of the triumphant recognition which this 
 modern literature secured for itself in the first century, of the 
 universal admiration not only of Horace and Vergil, but of Seneca 
 
 16 
 
and Luoan ? Might he not 'advantageously hear soonething of the 
 change of -taste in the next century, and then of the rise of Chris- 
 tian poetry, so significant for a literature ithat contain Caedmon 
 and Milton, of the work of the great formulators, Ambrose, Augus- 
 tine, Jerome, in the fourth century, and of the epitomizers like 
 Boethius, Gregory, and Isidore in the sixth? Would he not be 
 interested to know something of the revival of letters under Charle- 
 magne through the agency of Alcuin of York, projected against a 
 background of the Irish contribution to Europeaji letters? Vv^'ould 
 it not be desirable for him to know that one reason why the study 
 of literature did not better prosper in the meidieval universities 
 was, 'apart from unequal competition with coinnmercial and in a 
 sense scientific studies, 'the large amount of really good modem 
 Latin literature which the twelfth and thirteenth centuries pro- 
 duced, good, that is, for the particular purposes of the twelfth and 
 thirteenth centuries? So the story might be carried on with very 
 considerable advantage to the student of Bacon and of Milton. 
 I do not pretend to say how much of this should be taught, nor 
 how, indeed, it should be taught, but if a student could have an 
 opportunity to form some such concept as this, no matter how 
 inadequately furnished with desirable detail it might here and 
 there be, he would be in possession of a principle of thinking which 
 would carry him further and faster, a^ opportunity presented 
 itself, than he could possibly go without it; he would know where 
 to place such information as he might later acquire. 
 
 Harry Morgan Ayres, 
 
 Columbia University 
 
 The Classics for their Own Sake 
 
 ''Classics in the background" has a rather ominous sooind, 
 but after all it still leaves us a little space on the stage. However, 
 if we are to serve our purpose there, we ought to know who is at 
 the footlights. To drop the figure, the Classics cannot — and should 
 not be asked to — aid High School English literature chiefly, nor 
 even the required college English, which usually comes in the 
 Freshman year. No foreign language, least of all an ancient one, 
 can be mastered in time to provide a considerable grasp of its 
 literature in the high school. If a foreign literature is to be 
 ni'astered in time to serve the needs of the teacher of ''required 
 
 17 
 
Eniglish," we must resort to transMions. Unfortunatly, transila- 
 tions are very seldom literature — ^one bas only to read Milton in 
 Italian, Blake in French, or Keats in German to see how impossible 
 that solution is. 
 
 The Classics are needed as a background for English, but it 
 must be the English of 'the long years of reading in and after 
 college. That is, after all, the time for which we are all preparing 
 the pupil. As soon as we demand that our colleague's subject 
 must be made to serve the immediate ends of our own 'courses in 
 high school and college we are in danger of wrenching his work 
 away from its proper object. Shall the mathematician be com- 
 pelled 'to limit himself to trigoniometry at the demands of engineer- 
 ing schools ; or shall 'the biologist b& oonfiuied to entymology to 
 satisfy the agricultural department? 
 
 "Wlien this subject is discussed we often hear the criticism that 
 the clas^sics have been used too long as a language drill. This we 
 are ready to confess and have, in fact, long confessed. We were 
 formerly too prone to olinig to leisurely methofds devised at a time 
 when the drill was followed by years of wide reading. Now the 
 period at our disposal has been cut down. We have been 'compelled 
 to telescope our course very much in consequence, and we have 
 done so. I wish particularly to point to a custom now growing in 
 our colleges of giving a large part of the college Sophomore (or 
 even the Freshman) courses in Greek and Latin to a history of the 
 literature. In such courses goodlj^ selections of the best poetry and 
 some prose are read in the original, while translations are used 
 frankly to cover a bulk of material important for the content 
 rather than form. Much oif the tilting at would-be gerund-grind- 
 ing is about twenty years out of date. In fact the classical teacher 
 long ago found that he had to step into the breach left by his 
 colleagues and teach Greek and Roman history, philosophy, reli- 
 gion, politics and economics, as well 'as literature. This leaves him 
 little tim-e for syntactical obscurities. I think it will be found that 
 in iour best schools and colleges the men in -classics are now teach- 
 ing the Greek and Latin literatures not as curious repositories of 
 ablatives and subjunctives but as artistic expressions of human 
 thought 'and feeling. 
 
 There is a point at which you can aid us to get better results. 
 A large number of the school superintendents and principals of to- 
 day have been brought up by schools of pedagogy which are tainted 
 with the modem utilitarian doctrines of education. They are not 
 giving literature its due. To be specific, they are doing their ut- 
 most to kill the classics by putting this work into the hands of 
 inferior teachers. You oan help us by insisting that in your 
 schools the teacher of language and literature be as carefully se- 
 lected and as highly paid as those of other branches. 
 
 18 
 
Finally, I beg that we all adopt the broad platform of educa- 
 tion. We eanniot do justice to our subject if we must get quick 
 results for the use of other departments. "We wish, as you do, to 
 give our students a solid foundation ui>on which they can continue 
 to build securely for a life time. 
 
 Tenney Frank, 
 The Johns Hopkins University 
 
 19 
 
Officers gf the Conference 
 1920-1921 
 
 Chairman 
 Professor E. P. Kuhl Groucher College 
 
 Y ice-Chairman 
 Proffesor H. M. Ayres Columbia University 
 
 Secretary -Treasurer 
 Professor W. 0. Sypherd Delaware College 
 
 Other Members of the Executive Committee 
 
 Professor Christabel Fiske Vassar College 
 
 Professor J. C. French The Johns Hopkins University 
 
 Copies of this Bulletin may be had of the Secretary-Treasurer at the nominal 
 price of ten (10) cents a copy. 
 
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