Latin scholar

“ Let us bear in mind that we limit our disquisition to the Latin classics for the present. What we say about them will be equally applicable to the Greek, as well as to the authors of all nations.
It seems to us abundantly easy to prepare books for this department. Let a certain number of colleges, schools, and seminaries join together, and through their faculties make choice of a competent scholar. Set him apart for one year for the purpose of preparing a neat, cheap school edition of the Latin classics for our Catholic schools. ”

“ II. A review of the revival of Augustan diction in a long list of humanists proves nothing specific concerning imitation, much concerning pride in humanistic Latin. Scholars, however, are not well paid. Doctors and lawyers write bad Latin. Teachers are incompetent. The vernacular has come even into the schools; and even Cicero is translated. Let us all combine to save Latin style. ”

“ Classical studies are one of the most powerful means of intellectual and moral influence on the Anglo-Saxon and German civilisations that the Latins possess, representing under modern conditions, for the Latin nations, a kind of intellectual entail inherited from their ancestors. ”

“ For scholars who follow, as we have tried to, the intellectual and the deeper emotional life of the Middle Ages, the Latin literature yields the incomparably greater part of the material of our study. It has been our home country, from which we have made casual excursions into the vernacular literatures. ”

“ The intellectual powers were made dormant by devoting a greater part of the time to the study of Latin, to which they attached an extraordinary importance, for the purpose of discouraging pupils from studying the exact and experimental sciences and from gaining a knowledge of true literary studies. ”

“ Not only were the Sacred sciences taught with the utmost care, but the classic authors were likewise explained; Cicero, Horace, Virgil, Lucan, and Terence were read by the scholars, and none but the very little boys presumed to speak in any tongue but Latin. ”

“ Why study Latin? The foregoing paragraphs make it clear why Latin forms so important a part of modern education. We have seen that our civilization rests upon that of Greece and Rome, and that we must look to the past if we would understand the present. It is obvious, too, that the knowledge of Latin not only leads to a more exact and effective use of our own language, but that it is of vital importance and of great practical value to any one preparing for a literary or professional career. ”

“ But the increase in the knowledge of Latin was mainly such as a mature man may realize within himself, if he has kept up his Latin reading, however little he seem to have added to his knowledge since leaving his Alma Mater. ”

“ A knowledge of Latin, and partly, also, a knowledge of Greek, is still a necessity for the members of a few professions by nature more or less directly concerned with the civilisations of antiquity, as for lawyers, theologians, philologists, historians, and generally for a small number of persons, among whom from time to time I count myself, who are compelled to seek for information in the Latin literature of the centuries just past. ”

“ Yet the Latin language is still the necessary foundation of one half of human knowledge, and the forms created by Roman genius underlie the whole of our civilisation. So long as mankind look before and after, the name of Rome will be the greatest of those upon which their backward gaze can be turned. ”

“ In conclusion I should like to say that it has been my aim throughout to adhere to what is best in Roman literature, and to omit passages the choice of which can only be justified by regarding their literary form apart from their moral value. Latin literature contains so much that is at once excellent in style and noble in thought that it seems a grave mistake to exalt the one at the expense of the other. ”

“ If they served no other purpose than to demonstrate beyond cavil how profoundly the scholars of this generation succeeded in possessing themselves of the genius of the Latin language, they would serve to contradict the foolish critics who talk of the education of the period as superficial, or as negligent of everything but scholastic philosophy and theology. ”

“ For exercising the intellectual faculties, and for awakening and developing a sense of the fundamental properties of a good style—namely, correctness, precision, and brevity of expression—there is no doubt that Latin with its limpid clearness, its rigorous precision, and its absolute definiteness of meaning, is a better object of study than Greek with its multitudinous forms and particles, the import of which is matter rather of skilled conjecture and artistic feeling than of logical analysis. ”

“ If ever there be a true Latin renascence, which is scarcely to be hoped for, it will come, not from a writer who is saturated with French, Russian, German, and English influences, but one who has the Latin genius, the Latin temper, unalloyed. ”

“ The clever boys are, as a rule, well provided for; but, even for them, the methods of this book have been found to be the shortest road to accuracy and style in translation. Moreover by this means they have gained a firsthand acquaintance with Latin literature and the sources of Roman history.
It is impossible here to enter into ‘the question of the close and striking correspondence between the history, the literature, and the language of Rome. It was not until the history of Rome threw its mantle over her poetry that the dignity of the poet was recognised and acknowledged. ”

“ The pupil who has mastered this book ought to be able to read and write the easiest kind of Latin with some degree of fluency and without serious mistakes: in a word, Latin ought to have become in some degree a living language to him. ”

“ The studies were logic, various sciences,—physics, astronomy, etc.,—studied in Aristotle's treatises, and some philosophy and ethics. There was no history, no Greek. Latin had to be learned in order to carry on the work at all, but little attention was given to the Roman classics. The new modern languages were considered entirely unworthy of the learned. It must of course be remembered that none of the books which we consider the great classics in English, French, Italian, or Spanish had as yet been written. ”

“ Latin is no longer necessary as a medium for the interchange of thought, and the increasing number of arts and sciences restricts the prominence of any one study. On the other hand it is no less true that almost every considerable writer and speaker of the century had received that more recent form of Latin education which consists in an accurate and tasteful study of the words, styles and thoughts of the best, or most classic, of the Roman writers—Catullus, Lucretius, Cicero, Virgil, Horace, Livy, Ovid—rather than Lucan or Statius. ”

“ I am convinced that much can be done to stimulate and invigorate the young student’s feeling for Latin literature by helping him to feel for himself how each author’s words spring from his life, and conversely how facts and circumstances of his life can be elicited from his words. There will always remain doubts as to the facts and dates, e.g., in Horace’s or in Catullus’ life; but any reasoned theory has its interest, and is better for the pupil than no theory. ”

“ The word-order is modern with scarcely a trace of the antique. Perhaps we may say that he wrote Latin like an Englishman of vehement temper and great intellect. He is powerful in continuous exposition; yet instances of his general, and very striking statements, will illustrate his diction at its best. In the following sentence he recognizes the progressiveness of knowledge, a rare idea in the Middle Ages:
[Pg 180] “Nam semper posteriores addiderunt ad opera priorum, et multa correxerunt, et plura mutaverunt, sicut maxime per Aristotelem patet, qui omnes sententias praecedentium discussit.” ”

“ Notwithstanding that the period in which he flourished was remarkable for its number of men, who, by their genius and learning revived the golden ages of ancient literature, he was admitted by all to be without his equal, be it in erudition or intellect, power of writing or intimacy with Latin. ”

“ In brief, some of the chief influences upon the writing of Latin in the Middle Ages were: the classical genius dead, leaving only its works for imitation; the school education in Latin grammar and rhetoric; endeavour to follow classic models and write correctly; inability to do so from lack of capacity and knowledge; conscious disregard of classicism; the spirit of the Teutonic tongues clogging Latinity, and that of the Romance tongues deflecting it from classical constructions ”

“ Latin was the common language of scholars and remained so even down to the days of Shakespeare. Even yet it is more nearly than any other tongue the universal language of the learned. The life of to-day is much nearer the life of ancient Rome than the lapse of centuries would lead one to suppose. You and I are Romans still in many ways, and if Cæsar and Cicero should appear among us, we should not find them, except for dress and language, much unlike men of to-day. ”

“ Christianity, giving a larger place to the affections than did Stoicism, was already fast winning the hearts of men.
Writers of the Early Latin Church.—The Christian authors of the first three centuries, like the writers of the New Testament, employed the Greek, that being the language of learning and culture. As the Latin tongue, however, came into more general use throughout the extended provinces of the Roman empire, the Christian authors naturally began to use the same in the composition of their works. ”

“ In so far as Latin is concerned, it is evident that those who aim at anything more than the degree of knowledge requisite for understanding better the modern languages, and the terms which are in common use derived from Latin, or, perhaps, for a more intelligent appreciation of church offices, ought to master the language fully, together with its classical literature. The reasons which prove this statement apply with tenfold force to ecclesiastics, for whom Latin ought to be a second mother-tongue. ”

“ However, with three genders, five declensions for nouns, a fixed method of comparison for adjectives and adverbs, an elaborate system of pronouns, with active and deponent, regular and irregular verbs, four conjugations, and a complex synthetical method of forming the moods and tenses, the pitfalls for the unwary Roman were without number, as the present-day student of Latin can testify to his sorrow. That the man in the street, who had no newspaper to standardize his Latin, and little chance to learn it in school, did not make more mistakes is surprising. ”

“ Did it seem to be practicable, we should strongly favor making the study of Latin a part of the education of all who go beyond the common rudiments, as well girls as boys, to such an extent that they could understand the divine offices of the church. For all other uses or advantages, we are inclined to think that many pupils who occupy a great deal of time in gaining a very imperfect smattering of Latin and Greek, might better spare it for other studies. ”

“ Instruction, he declares, is but the least part of education; his aim is to train, not men of letters or men of science, but practical men armed for the battle of life. Latin was, above all, to be learned through use, with as little grammar as possible, but with the reading of easy Latin texts, and with no repetition, no composition. Greek he absolutely proscribes, reserving a knowledge of that language to the learned and the lettered, and to professional scholars. ”

“ Do not our young men, I say, when they are taught to preach, learn besides piety and knowledge of God's word, eloquence as well? It is obvious to all that many of these young men, though they do not know Latin, are more learned in their speech, and more eloquent than some fairly learned Latinists. ”

“ In another connection, a year or two ago, I had occasion to speak of the literary merit of some of these metrical epitaphs,52 of their interest for us as specimens of the literary compositions of the common people, and of their value in indicating the æsthetic taste of the average Roman. It may not be without interest here to speak of the literary form of some of them a little more at length than was possible in that connection. Latin has always been, and continues to be among modern peoples, a favored language for epitaphs and dedications. ”

“ Next let them intermingle with the vernacular what they have heard in Latin from their teacher, or what they themselves have learned. Thus, at first, their language should be a mixture of the mother-tongue and Latin. But outside the school they should speak the mother-tongue so that they should not become accustomed to a hotch-potch of languages.... Gradually the development advances and the scholars become Latinists in the narrower sense. ”

“ IN the following pages I propose to offer a little picture of school-life four hundred years ago, culled from an old Latin dialogue book which was published anonymously in the fifteenth century under the title 'Es tu scholaris?' and went through many editions in different countries. All through the Middle Ages boys were supposed to speak Latin in school, and this with some reason, since if they meant to be scholars when they grew up, to be able to speak and write Latin fluently would be far more useful to them than the acquisition of any single modern language. ”

“ One who undertakes to express the thoughts of antiquity in modern idiom goes to his task with his eyes open, and has no right at every stumbling-block or pitfall to bemoan his unhappy fate. So also with the particular difficulties presented by the great founder of Latin style—his constant use of superlatives, his doubling and trebling of nearly synonymous terms, the endless shades of meaning in such common words as officium, fides, studium, humanitas, dignitas, and the like—all these the translator has to take in the day's work. ”