John Edwin Sandys

“ At the moment when the university of Paris was, by the absence of its rivals, placed in complete control of the education of France, Classical education attacked. she found herself driven to defend the principles of classical education against a crowd of assailants. All kinds of devices were suggested for expediting the acquisition of Latin; grammar was to be set aside; Latin was to be learned as a “living language”; much attention was to be devoted to acquiring an extensive vocabulary; and, “to save time,” composition was to be abolished. ”

“ In that treatise the essential marks of an educated person are, not only ability to write Latin verse, but also, a point of “at least equal importance,” “familiarity with the language and literature of Greece.” “Without a knowledge of Greek, Latin scholarship itself is, in any real sense, impossible” (1459) .
By the fall of Constantinople in 1453, “Italy (in the eloquent phrase of Carducci) became sole heir and guardian of the ancient civilization,” but its fall was in no way necessary for the revival of learning, which had begun a century before. ”

“ Latin continued to be the living language of learning and of literature, and a correct and elegant Latin style was regarded as the mark of an educated person. Greek was taught in all the great schools, but became more and more confined to the study of the Greek Testament. ”

“ They opened the doors of their schools to the Greek and Latin classics, but they represented the ancient masterpieces dissevered from their original historic environment, as impersonal models of taste, as isolated standards of style. They did much, however, for the cultivation of original composition modelled on Cicero and Virgil. They have been charged with paying an exaggerated attention to form, and with neglecting the subject-matter of the classics. ”

“ The preamble includes a striking tribute to the advantages that France had derived from the study of the classics:—
“L’étude de l’antiquité grecque et latine a donné au génie français une mesure, une clarté et une élégance incomparables. C’est par elle que notre philosophie, nos lettres et nos arts ont brillé d’un si vif éclat; c’est par elle que notre influence morale s’est exercée en souveraine dans le monde. Les humanités doivent être protégées contre toute atteinte et fortifiées. ”

“ Like many of the finest spirits under the early empire, Pliny was an adherent to the Stoics. He was acquainted with their noblest representative, Thrasea Paetus, and he also came under the influence of Seneca. The Stoics were given to the study of nature, while their moral teaching was agreeable to one who, in his literary work, was unselfishly eager to benefit and to instruct his contemporaries (Praef. 16, xxviii. 2, xxix. 1) . He was also influenced by the Epicurean and the Academic and the revived Pythagorean school! But his view of nature and of God is essentially Stoic. ”

“ By the scheme of 1901 the pupils of the Realgymnasium, the Oberrealschule and the Gymnasium were admitted to the university on equal terms in virtue of their leaving-certificates, but Greek and Latin were still required for students of classics or divinity.
For the Gymnasium the aim of the new scheme is, in Latin, “to supply boys with a sound basis of grammatical training, with a view to their understanding the more important classical writers of Rome, and being thus introduced to the intellectual life and culture of the ancient world” ”

“ Voyage du jeune Anacharsis (1789) , but the study of Greek was menaced even more than that of Latin. For fifty years before the Revolution there was a distinct dissatisfaction with the routine of the schools. To meet that dissatisfaction, the teachers had accepted new subjects of study, had improved their methods, and had simplified the learning of the dead languages. But even this was not enough. In the study of the classics, as in other spheres, it was revolution rather than evolution that was loudly demanded. ”

“ Pliny’s view of life is gloomy; he regards the human race as plunged in ruin and in misery (ii. 24, vii. 130) . Against luxury and moral corruption he indulges in declamations, which are so frequent that (like those of Seneca) they at last pall upon the reader; and his rhetorical flourishes against practically useful inventions (such as the art of navigation) are wanting in good sense and good taste (xix. 6) .
With the proud national spirit of a Roman he combines an admiration of the virtues by which the republic had attained its greatness (xvi. 14, xxvii. 3, xxxvii. 201) . ”

“ In 1392 Vergerio addressed to a prince of Padua the first treatise which methodically maintains the claims of Latin as an essential part of a liberal education. Eight years later, he was learning Greek from Chrysoloras. Among the most distinguished pupils of the latter was Leonardo Bruni, who, about 1405, wrote “the earliest humanistic tract on education expressly addressed to a lady.” He here urges that the foundation of all true learning is a “sound and thorough knowledge of Latin,” and draws up a course of reading, in which history is represented by Livy, Sallust, Curtius, and Caesar ”

“ On reaching the province, Pliny celebrates the emperor’s birthday, and proceeds to examine the finances of Prusa. His request for a surveyor to check the outlay on the public works is refused on the ground that the emperor has hardly enough surveyors for the works he is carrying on in Rome. He asks the emperor to sanction the repair of the ancient baths at Prusa, the building of an aqueduct at Nicomedia and a theatre at Nicaea, and the covering in of a stream that has become a public nuisance at Amastris. ”

“ The scholars of the Byzantine age cannot be compared with the great Alexandrians, but they served to maintain the continuity of tradition by which the Greek classics selected by the critics of Alexandria were transmitted to modern Europe. ”

“ Thomasius (d. 1728) , was never weary of attacking scholarship of the old humanistic type and everything that savoured of antiquarian pedantry, and it was mainly his influence that made German the language of university lectures and of scientific and learned literature. A modern education is also the aim of the general introduction to the nova methodus of Leibnitz, where the study of Greek is recommended solely for the sake of the Greek Testament (1666) . ”

“ In the general scheme of education the authority followed was Quintilian. John of Salisbury (d. 1180) , the ripest product of this school, is the most learned man of his time. His favourite author is Cicero, and in all the Latin literature accessible to him he is the best-read scholar of his age. Among Latin scholars of the next generation we have Giraldus Cambrensis (d. c. 1222) , the author of topographical and historical writings on Ireland and Wales, and of other works teeming with quotations from the Latin classics. During the middle ages Latin prose never dies out. ”

“ The scholars of these times are the natural precursors of the earliest representatives of the Revival of Learning in the West. Of these later Byzantines the first in order of date is the monk Planudes (d. 1330) , who devoted his knowledge of Latin to producing excellent translations of Caesar’s Gallic War as well as Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Heroides, and the classic work of Boëthius; he also compiled (in 1302) the only Greek anthology known to scholars before the recovery in 1607 of the earlier and fuller anthology of Cephalas (fl. 917) . ”

“ In A.D. 88 Quintilian was placed at the head of the first state-supported school in Rome. His comprehensive work on the training of the future orator includes an outline of general education, which had an important influence on the humanistic schools of the Italian Renaissance. It also presents us with a critical survey of the Greek and Latin classics arranged under the heads of poets, historians, orators and philosophers (book x. chap. i.) . The lives of Roman poets and scholars were among the many subjects that exercised the literary skill of Hadrian’s private secretary, Suetonius. ”

“ Cleland’s Institution of a Young Nobleman (1607) owes much to the Italian humanists. The author follows Ascham in protesting against compulsory Latin conversation, and only slightly modifies his predecessor’s method of teaching Latin prose. When Latin grammar has been mastered, he Cleland. bids the teacher lead his pupil “into the sweet fountain and spring of all Arts and Science,” that is, Greek learning which is “as profitable for the understanding as the Latin tongue for speaking.” In the study of ancient history, “deeds and not words” are the prime interest. ”

“ The only fruit of all this unwearied industry that has survived to our own times is the Naturalis historia, a work which in its present form consists of thirty-seven books, the first book including a characteristic preface and tables of contents, as well as lists of authorities, which were originally prefixed to each of the books separately. ”

“ There were others no less "demented," who, being Roman citizens, would be sent to Rome for trial. Soon, as the natural consequence of these proceedings, a variety of cases had come under his notice. He had received an anonymous statement giving a list of accused persons. Some of them, who denied that they had ever been Christians, had consented to pray to the gods, to adore the image of the emperor, and to blaspheme Christ; these he had dismissed. Others admitted that they were Christians, but presently denied it, adding that they had ceased to be Christians for some years. ”

“ He is more original when he insists on the value of translation and retranslation for acquiring a mastery over Latin prose composition, and when he protests against compelling boys to converse in Latin too soon. Ascham’s influence is apparent in the Positions of Mulcaster, who in 1581 insists on instruction in English before admission to a grammar-school, while he is distinctly in advance of his age in urging the foundation of a special college for the training of teachers. ”

“ The first great school of the Renaissance was that established by Vittorino da Feltre at Mantua, where he resided for the last twenty-two years of his life (1424–1446) . Among the Latin authors studied were Virgil and Lucan, with selections from Horace, Ovid and Juvenal, besides Cicero and Quintilian, Sallust and Curtius, Caesar and Livy. The Greek authors were Homer, Hesiod, Pindar and the dramatists, with Herodotus, Xenophon and Plato, Isocrates and Demosthenes, Plutarch and Arrian. ”

“ In the same century an eager interest in the Latin classics is displayed by Servatus Lupus, who was educated at Fulda, and was abbot of Ferrières for the last twenty years of his life (d. 862) . In his literary spirit he is a precursor of the humanists of the Renaissance. Under Charles the Bald (d. 877) there was a certain revival of interest in literature, when John the Scot (Erigena) became, for some thirty years (c. 845–875) , the head of the Palace School. ”

“ While Latin was declining in Gaul, even Greek was not unknown in Ireland, and the Irish passion for travel led to the spread of Greek learning in the west of Europe. The Irish monk Columban, shortly before his death in 615, founded in the neighbourhood of Pavia the monastery of Bobbio, to be the repository of many Latin MSS. which were ultimately dispersed among the libraries of Rome, Milan and Turin. ”

“ Pliny mentions the works of art collected by Vespasian in the Temple of Peace and in his other galleries (xxxiv. 84) , but much of his information as to the position of such works in Rome is due to books, and not to personal observation. The main merit of his account of ancient art, the only classical work of its kind, IS that it is a compilation ultimately founded on the lost textbooks of Xenocrates and on the biographies of Duris and Antigonus. He shows no special aptitude for art criticism ”

“ Meeting with an accident while he was wandering on the Palatine, and being detained in Rome, he passed part of his enforced leisure in giving lectures (possibly on Homer, his favourite author) , and thus succeeded in arousing among the Romans a taste for the scholarly study of literature. The example set by Crates led to the production of a new edition of the epic poem of Naevius, and to the public recitation of the Annals of Ennius, and (two generations later) the Satires of Lucilius. ”

“ It is obvious that one who spent all his time in reading and in writing, and in making excerpts from his predecessors, had none left for mature and independent thought, or for patient experimental observation of the phenomena of nature. ”

“ Ludwig Wiese’s scheme of 1856 insisted on the retention of Latin verse as well as Latin prose, and showed less favour to natural science, but it awakened little enthusiasm, while the attempt to revive the old humanistic Gymnasium led to a demand for schools of a more modern type, which issued in the recognition of the Realgymnasium (1859) . ”

“ The emperor agrees that the custom might lead to “political factions,” and should therefore be strictly controlled (117) . Owing to a destructive fire at Nicomedia, Pliny suggests the formation of a volunteer fire-brigade, limited to 150 members. The emperor is afraid that the fire-brigade might become a “political club” and cautiously contents himself with approving the provision of a fire-engine (34) .
Trajan’s fear of factions and clubs in these two last cases has sometimes been connected with the question of his attitude towards the Christians in Bithynia. ”