ARGUING 
 WITH BOB 
 
 Issued by authority of the Classical 
 Association of the Middle West 
 and South 
 
This pamphlet is published by the 
 Publicity Committee of the Classical 
 Association of the Middle West and 
 South. Copies may be obtained at the 
 rate of one cent each, 20 cents for 25, 
 or 70 cents a hundred from the chair- 
 man of the committee. Cash should be 
 sent-jyith each order. 
 
 Address : 
 
 Publicity Committee, 
 
 11 Hall of Liberal Arts, 
 Iowa City, Iowa. 
 
} P 75.85 
 £&C.563a 
 
 -c 
 \ Z} 
 
 Arguing with bob 
 
 “What’s the matter, Bob? You seem to be 
 puzzled about something.” 
 
 “Oh, I can’t do this Latin. Won’t you let me 
 drop it, Dad? I don’t see what good it’s ever 
 going to do me anyhow.” 
 
 “Can’t do it? You don’t mean that. Miss 
 Gates tells me you do it very well and that 
 she thinks you are a boy who is able to appre- 
 ciate it and profit by it. She says, however, 
 
 * that you have let up in your effort lately. Why 
 the slump?” 
 
 “Well, Joe Fordham has dropped it. His 
 
 * father says it isn’t practical and he wants Joe 
 to study things that he can use.” 
 
 “Ah, I see. You have got under the cold- 
 water bath of the ‘practical’ fellow, have you ? 
 Let me ask you. Do you especially admire the 
 kind of an education that Harvey Fordham 
 has?” 
 
 “I don’t know. I wish you had as much 
 money as Mr. Fordham has.” 
 
 “He surely can make money — but would 
 you call him an educated man?” 
 f “No, of course not. All he thinks of is 
 making money. I guess I wouldn’t want him 
 for a father. He doesn’t know anything but 
 ^soap, and Joe’s getting to be just the same.” 
 
 “This is sort of an argumentum ad homi - 
 mem , I fear, son, if you get the sense of that 
 
Latin; but I want you to get the idea firmly , 
 fixed in your brain that money is not the only 
 thing and that money-grubbers rarely give 
 good educational advice, although the nar- 
 rower they are the more likely they are to 1 
 think themselves educational experts. It is 
 not so simple a matter to be educated. ,, 
 
 “Joe says his father says he wants Joe to 
 know how to earn a living the first thing/’ 
 
 “So do I want you to know how to earn a 
 living. But any one can do that, Bob. One 
 may even become a millionaire and remain 
 ignorant. Isn’t that so?” 
 
 “I know that. Old Perkins is as rich as 
 anything, and his stenographer has to do his 
 spelling for him. She told mother ,so. I 
 heard her.” 
 
 “But he prides himself on being 'practical’ 
 and gives a lot of free advice to the school^ 
 board.” 
 
 “I shouldn’t want to be like him. But 
 what’s the use of studying a dead language? 
 Why not study French and German?” 
 
 “I want you to study French and German. 
 But you have plenty of time. 'Rome was not 
 built in a day.’ You are to live for a lifetime, 
 my boy. You can afford to prepare well. But 
 what do you mean by a 'dead language’ ?” 
 
 “Why, they don’t talk Latin any more, do 
 they ?” 
 
 “Don’t they? I suppose they don’t talk Eng- 
 lish any more either, since they do not use 
 the speech of Chaucer. Haven’t you learned 
 that Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, anc 
 several other languages are almost wholly 
 Latin? Latin is just as much alive as French.” 
 
 “You’ll be saying next that Greek is alive.” 
 
 “Indeed, it is, and it has been alive for three 
 thousand years in speech and literature. What 
 
language do you suppose they talk in Greece 
 ^ to-day ?" 
 
 “I don't know. I never thought. Do they 
 talk Greek the same as they used to?” 
 if “Not quite the same, of course, but the mod- 
 ern Greek is much more nearly like the ancient 
 Greek than modern English is like the lan- 
 guage of Chaucer. And from ten to twenty 
 millions of people speak it daily." 
 
 “But they don't learn to speak Latin or 
 Greek in the schools?" 
 
 “Sometimes they do. That is not the only 
 test of the value of learning a language, 
 however. Any hotel clerk or barber in Europe 
 can speak three or four languages besides his 
 own, but he is no more educated than the 
 average barber or clerk in America.” 
 
 “Frank Hamilton’s father says he wants him 
 , to learn to speak German and French so he 
 
 * can talk when he goes abroad." 
 
 “Well and good. But not one out of a thou- 
 sand boys in our schools will ever go abroad.” 
 
 * “But there are lots of foreigners in this 
 country." 
 
 “And in three months after they arrive they 
 can usually talk English better than Frank 
 will be able to talk German in three years. 
 Conditions in America are different from what 
 they are in Europe, and there are better rea- 
 sons for learning a language than to have to 
 speak it." 
 
 “Joe's father says that Anglo-Saxon is good 
 enough for him." 
 
 f “That reminds me. I recently read the ad- 
 vice : ‘Avoid Latin derivatives. Use terse, 
 pure, simple Saxon.' How many Saxon words 
 do you suppose there are in those two sen- 
 tences ?" 
 
 “How many?" 
 
“One; the word ‘Saxon/ The other seven 
 words are all Latin. Did you know that * 
 three-fourths of the words in English are 
 Greek and Latin?” 
 
 “No. Is that so?” 
 
 “Yes, and the Greek and Latin and Anglo- 
 Saxon words usually have such different mean- 
 ings. For example, ‘physician is Greek; ‘doc- 
 tor' is Latin; ‘healer' is Saxon. You couldn't 
 use ‘healer' for all three meanings, could you?” 
 
 “How did all those Greek and Latin words 
 get into English?” 
 
 “The majority of them entered in early days 
 as the language was developing. Scores, if not 
 hundreds, of words are coming in every year. 
 In fact, the principal additions to English to- 
 day come from Greek and Latin. Such words 
 as phonograph, telescope, and dynamo are 
 Greek and have come in with the inventions ^ 
 of which they are the names. Practically all 
 our scientific terms are Greek or Latin. Take 
 words like antiseptic, clinic, bacteria — and the 
 best joke on the ‘practical’ man is that the l 
 very word ‘practical’ is Greek.” 
 
 “Do you mean that a fellow ought to study 
 Latin and Greek so as to understand Eng- 
 lish?” 
 
 “Precisely. That is, if he expects to get 
 more than a superficial knowledge of English. 
 He ought to learn more English by the study 
 of Greek and Latin than in any other way.” 
 
 “More than by studying English itself?” 
 
 “Quite so. Say nothing of the time when 
 his own advances in science or invention may 1 
 make it necessary for him to bring new words 
 into the language himself.” 
 
 “If that is so, I think I begin to see why L 
 should keep on with my Latin.” 
 
 “Well, it is so. And there are other rea- 
 
sons. For one, the study of these rather com- 
 i plex languages teaches you the structure of 
 your own. There is nothing so good as the 
 practice of translating to make one able to 
 t understand what he reads, and capable of ex- 
 pressing his own thoughts in terse, vigorous 
 English. Another reason is that the litera- 
 ture which has been left us by the Greeks and 
 Romans is meatier and more crowded with 
 thought than any other literature. No won- 
 der it has served as a model for centuries. 
 By the way, here is still another reason. Our 
 best English writers have, fortunately, been so 
 filled with Greek and Roman thought that 
 they cannot be fully understood by one who is 
 not trained in the same way.” 
 
 “Mr. Hamilton says Latin is all right, if you 
 are going to teach Latin.” 
 
 , “Well, if that is the only reason for the 
 study, it would be better to cut it off at once. 
 - Why should we train teachers in a useless sub- 
 ject so that they may teach other teachers a 
 * useless subject?” 
 
 “That does seem absurd.” 
 
 “If the classics are not of use to doctors 
 and lawyers and preachers and business men, 
 I for one should be willing to have them 
 abolished.” 
 
 “Of what use are Greek and Latin to a law- 
 yer ?” 
 
 “For one thing, they make him better ac- 
 quainted with his mother tongue — and he 
 deals largely with language, you know. Then, 
 
 * better than any other study, they teach him 
 , to examine evidence with care and to weigh 
 it fairly. They mold his taste and give him 
 ^power to discriminate. They sharpen his mind 
 for the stern business of his profession. That 
 is more valuable than any amount of knowl- 
 
edge of law cases, that is, if he is to be any- 
 thing else than mediocre. Then there is the tj 
 direct value of the classics to the Christian 
 minister.” 
 
 “Yes, I can understand that. You have told l 
 me before that the New Testament is written 
 in Greek.” 
 
 “Not only that, but the Old Testament too 
 comes to English readers through the Greek 
 translation rather than through the Hebrew 
 Of course the minister must study other 
 things, social science and the like, but he can- 
 not really know the book on which his religion 
 is based unless he knows the Greek.” 
 
 “How about the physician?” 
 
 “I have told you that the language of sci- 
 ence is largely Greek and Latin. The physician 
 who does not know these in the original 
 learns his technical language only as a jargon. 
 
 It is hard to think that he could create any A 
 part of it for himself, if he is anxious to pro- 
 gress that far.” 
 
 “Well, I don't know what I want to become, 'i 
 Maybe I will become an engineer.” 
 
 “Wait a moment. Let me get this book. 
 Here! See what a distinguished professor of 
 engineering says about his own studies : With 
 a retrospect of twenty years, it seems to me 
 I am warranted in saying that I could have 
 better spared any other course that I took in 
 high school than the Latin.' That opinion 
 ought to be worth something. While I have 
 the book open, see what this Chicago lawyer 
 says: ‘We cannot forget that, with very few< 
 exceptions, lawyers who have come to dis- 
 tinguish themselves in their profession and to 
 be of use to the world have come through 
 Latin or through Greek.' A famous minister 
 and professor of theology says here : ‘What- 
 
. ever phase is given to other methods of train- 
 
 * ing for special work, Latin and Greek will re- 
 main as a necessary part of the equipment of 
 the theological scholar/ Here is the testimony 
 
 f of a well-known and wealthy New York busi- 
 ness man: ‘A classical education is a large 
 asset for any business man. His equipment 
 for his life work is that much better, and will 
 prove to be so in increasing measure as he 
 rises to positions of responsibility and influ- 
 ence in his business and elsewhere/ " 
 
 “I ^surely didn't know that these big fellows 
 thought so much of the classics/' 
 
 “Unfortunately some of them do not. On 
 some who have studied them the classics have 
 been wasted, but thousands of the best of these 
 men see the value of classical studies. There 
 are many reasons, too, that you are now too 
 y young to understand. We’ll talk about this 
 again some day." 
 
 “I suppose I ought to go over and look at 
 ^ Jack's guinea pigs now." 
 
 * “Ha ! ha ! All right, old man. Just let me 
 read you this one paragraph from a rich New 
 York banker. It will be good stuff for you to 
 think about till next time. This man says : 
 
 “ ‘The great and legitimate aim of a busi- 
 ness man is to make money, to provide for 
 himself and his family such luxuries and com- 
 forts as his tastes and social standing de- 
 mand. But when a man has reached the goal 
 of his desires, when he has made his pile and 
 desires to enjoy it, then comes the time for 
 the making of the real and only balance sheet. 
 ^ Then he must ask himself, “What are my re- 
 sources, now that I have everything that 
 > money can buy? What are my spiritual and 
 intellectual assets? How can I best spend 
 what is left to me of life?" Lucky is the man 
 
 
whose early training fits him for something 
 more than the golf-field, or the tennis-court, * 
 and for something better than the gaming- 
 table when his days of business activity are 
 over. He can taste the gentler pleasures that i) 
 await him in his study and by the blazing 
 hearth-fire. His Sophocles, or his Plato, his 
 Catullus or his Cicero, will make the winter 
 of life seems like its early spring when the 
 greatest struggle he knew was with the elusive 
 rules of grammar and syntax. This busy 
 world of ours cannot stop : it will always 
 whirl and rush and hustle. But some of us — 
 and the more the better — must learn that on 
 one side of the rushing stream of life lie the 
 peaceful backwaters, in which the clouds and 
 the sun, the shrubs and the birds of the air ap- 
 pear reflected in their true, undistorted image, 
 gently flowing on the limpid pool of reverie/ ” ^ 
 “Well, I guess I don’t want to drop the " 
 Latin, father. I can do it if I want to. L, 
 suppose I’ll get on to the ‘why’ of it better 
 later on. So long, Dad, I’m off.” ? 
 
“Mankind exists, or should exist, not to live 
 only, but, as Aristotle defines it, to live nobly. 
 A noble and enjoyable life demands an imag- 
 inative participation in all that the human race 
 has done, or said, or thought, that is excellent. 
 The outcasts of Poker Flat, in Mr. Bret 
 Harte's tale, consoling their last hours with the 
 Jstory of Asheels in Pope's Iliad, were living a 
 nobler life than the comfortable citizen, who 
 *Teads newspapers, and nothing but newspapers 
 sfrll day, and wakens with a fresh appetite for 
 mis morning journal. To keep up, to diffuse, 
 as far as we may, interest in the best literature, 
 is the duty of all who have been educated and 
 called to this task." 
 
 — Andrew Lang. 
 
THE TORCH P 
 CEDAR RAP 
 IOWA