^$ 44 / 
 
 *1 
 
 THE MIAMI BULLETIN 
 
 Series V. 
 
 January 1907. 
 
 Number 11 
 
 (Published monthly by 
 
 Miami University and entered at the 
 Ohio, as second-class mail matter.) 
 
 Post-office, Oxford, 
 
 AIMS OF THE STUDY OF LATIN AND GREEK IN THE 
 
 HIGH SCHOOL, 
 
 A recent writer in the New York Latin Leaflet (Brooklyn, 
 Nov. 19, 1906) makes a helpful contribution to this much vexed 
 discussion by frankly recognizing that there are several more or 
 less distinct ends which the study of Latin in our secondary 
 schools subserves. The fact that different advocates of the 
 classics emphasize, some one, some another, of the reasons for 
 studying Latin is sometimes treated as evidence that no valid 
 and satisfactory reason for the study exists — a kind of logic 
 which should find favor only with those who are wedded to cut- 
 and-dried formulas and convenient catchwords in the domain of 
 educational discussion. 
 
 After enumerating some of the chief uses which are claimed 
 for Latin, the writer just referred to observes: “But after alb it 
 is by no means indispensable that we come to an exact agree- 
 ment on this point, [i. e. as to the pre-eminent use of latin]. 
 So long as Latin study does any one of the above things thor- 
 oughly well and better than does any other study, it will retain, 
 and rightly, a place in our scheme of education. If it can do 
 two or more of them thoroughly well, so much the stronger its 
 position.” This sounds, to one reader at least, like a common- 
 sense view of the matter. But the author is also right in 
 insisting that, in order to make the subject yield its legitimate 
 fruits, the teacher must realize clearly what the most useful 
 results of Latin study are, decide which of them are most at- 
 tainable in the several classes which he has to teach, and then 
 shape his work consciously and intelligently toward securing 
 these results. Definiteness of aim we must have, whether our 
 weapon be a single-barreled one or a six-shooter. 
 
 / 
 
The purpose of the present writer is to stimulate to fresh 
 thinking along these lines by suggesting what seem to him 
 some of the ends most worth striving for in the teaching of 
 Latin in High Schools; and incidentally, what attitude the 
 teacher may reasonably take with regard to the question of 
 teaching the subject at all. 
 
 i. The first service of a study of Latin to the mind of the 
 young student to which I would direct attention is one which 
 the beginner himself, as well as the older person who has no 
 knowledge of the language, is, from the nature of the case, least 
 likely to appreciate. But it is the one which, I believe, the man 
 of mature mind, reviewing the question of what a rigid linguistic 
 training has done for him, generally thinks of first. I mean the 
 training in analyzing the fundamental thought-relations as ex- 
 pressed in language. One awakens most fully to consciousness 
 of these thought-relations when he is compelled, as in learning a 
 foreign language, to abstract them from the form, to recognize 
 them in their essence, in order to reproduce them in other forms. 
 The more the foreign language differs in structure from his own 
 the better. The more highly inflected it is, the better. Latin 
 differing widely from English, requires the student to so analyze 
 and grasp the relations of the thought with which he deals that 
 he can recognize them under, or reproduce them into, these 
 quite different forms of expression; and not only different, but 
 more concise and condensed forms. That is, he must recognize 
 them by a slighter external indication; he does not have them 
 spelled out large, so to speak, by the use of several words, but is 
 dependent on a mere inflectional change; he must have the 
 relation so clearly held in mind that a single inconspicuous label 
 shall suffice to call it up, quickly and surely, before him. This 
 is a very different thing from simply having to replace the words 
 of one language by the words of another, with little difference of 
 structure. While the close observation of forms trains the mind 
 for scientific studies, the close analysis of thought quickens the 
 faculties requisite for philosophical studies. Perhaps the best 
 thing which a thorough study of Latin gives the student is the 
 ability to read intelligently in any language — not to “skim” and 
 carry away the more or less disconnected ideas which separate 
 words and phrases suggest, but to grasp the organization of the 
 thought as a whole by a process of observation and conscious 
 analysis. This is the power which the lawyer or legislator 
 
needs in interpreting the terms of a statute, the preacher in ex- 
 pounding a text, the man of business in understanding a con- 
 tract, the advanced student in following a scientific or philoso- 
 phical discussion, the serious reader in any sphere of language 
 above the simplest. 
 
 2. A second advantage to be expected and aimed at is a 
 more obvious one and one almost universally recognized, — viz., the 
 help given by a knowledge of the Latin vocabulary toward an 
 understanding of English derivatives. A large part of our words 
 are of Latin origin, and this the less familiar part, the more 
 abstract part, the words which especially need defining. A 
 knowledge of Latin saves looking up and learning definitions. 
 And the mere dictionary definition will never give the accurate 
 notion which he has who has met the word in its context, knows 
 its various shades of meaning, its historical associations and 
 connotations. Many words represent ideas which are distinct- 
 ively Roman and can only be carried away by one who has 
 been in contact with the Roman mind in its literature, has 
 breathed the Roman atmosphere. 
 
 The gain in knowledge of English derivaties is not measured 
 by the number of separate Latin words the boy knows. Single 
 roots become the parents of whole families of English words. 
 The student who knows one of these roots in the several forms 
 which roots often assume in Latin, and who knows the value of 
 the prefixes and suffixes commonly employed in the parent speech, 
 often commands at a glance the meaning of a half-dozen words 
 in English which the student without Latin has to look up, as 
 so many different words, in a dictionary. 
 
 3. I would place next the opportunity which the practice 
 of translation from Latin and Greek affords for training in 
 English. By translation, I do not, of course, mean the same 
 thing as reading. Reading is mental interpretation; and as the 
 student gains command of the facts and laws of the language he 
 should be encouraged to read directly — to let the language speak 
 immediately to his mind, as it did to the original hearer or reader, 
 without any intervening medium. Nor do I refer here to that 
 somewhat bald and literal rendering of a Latin or Greek con- 
 struction by the construction most closely analogous in English 
 which the teacher may require, especially in the earlier stages of 
 the study, as a practical way of keeping track of the analytical 
 processes of his pupil — as a guarantee that he has correct data 
 
of interpretation and a safeguard against mere guesses, more or 
 less happy, at the meaning. By translation, in this place, I 
 mean a superadded discipline, a distinctly literary exercise, in 
 which we attempt to convey, as nearly as possible, the thought, 
 form, and total effect of a Latin passage through the medium of 
 English. Such translation is, like that spoken of above, a test 
 of knowledge of the original. But it is also a test of the student’s 
 power of expression, his command of resources, in English; and 
 much more than a test — it is a highly effective means of develop- 
 ing that power and enlarging those resources. When the 
 student attacks this problem, it means that, for his Latin word, 
 he must marshal the possible more or less exact equivalents 
 which English affords and choose from these the one which 
 most nearly hits the conception. In like manner, in order to 
 render the force of the Latin construction, he must think of the 
 approximately equivalent constructions and choose the one which 
 would be most likely to be used in that place by a writer of 
 natural and idiomatic English. And in all this he must seek to 
 convey correctly not only the exact meaning, but the general 
 effect — the emotional and aesthetic elements, as well as those 
 which appeal directly to the understanding. In essaying this 
 task, under competent guidance, he will develop exactness, taste, 
 and judgment in the use of English and will catch some notion 
 of what that elusive and indefinable thing is which we call style. 
 Of course, translation from any language will serve these ends to 
 a degree, but the advantages will be greatest in translating from 
 languages, like Latin and Greek, which seek to express by form 
 the most subtle distinctions, and whose forms of expression 
 differ most widely from our own. And not the least of the 
 benefits reaped from the study will be the clear perception arrived 
 at of the impossibility of absolute translation and the immense 
 importance of reading a literature in the original. 
 
 4. This brings us naturally to our fourth point. The crown- 
 ing good of a knowledge of Latin and Greek lies, of course, in 
 the first-hand acquaintance afforded with the immortal literatures 
 embodied in these languages. It is needless to repeat here what 
 every intelligent person knows. Modern thought, modern 
 civilization, modern literature are rooted deep in the soil of 
 Greece and Rome. We are largely what the past has made us. 
 To seek to comprehend the present with the door of the past 
 barred behind us is to work in the dark and narrow hopelessly 
 
our field of vision. No recognition of new factors that have 
 arisen, no pressing of the claims, however deserving, of modern 
 literatures, can alter the plain facts of history. Nothing has hap- 
 pened, nothing can happen, to weaken the claim of the classics. 
 Some sort of acquaintance with the Latin and Greek literature every 
 cultured man or woman must have, to-day as always. The only 
 question is, shall it be a first-hand or a second or third hand 
 acquaintance ? Why a first hand acquaintance is vastly prefer- 
 able has been partly suggested above. In the best translation 
 something, even of the essential meaning, is lost; of the form, 
 immeasurably more. And the mere element of time and atten- 
 tion counts for something. The average person who reads a 
 classic in translation, apart from the specialist with a keen interest 
 in some particular subject, is not likely to carry away so deep an 
 impression of its content, to have it so fixed in his memory, as he 
 who has lingered long over it in the effort to extract the meaning 
 from the original. Reading the ancient classics in translation is 
 highly desirable for those to whom nothing better is possible; it 
 is not an ideal with which one who has enjoyed opportunities for 
 a liberal culture in his early years should rest content. 
 
 Recognizing thus fully that an acquaintance with classic 
 authors is the richest fruit of classical studies, I have 
 yet chosen to rest my argument for Latin chiefly on the in- 
 cidental advantages enumerated above — on what have been 
 happily called “the by-products” of the study of Latin. 
 
 I have done this because I am speaking primarily to high 
 school teachers, because I wish to recognize fully existing con- 
 ditions, and to give advice that can reasonably be followed. We 
 have to face the fact that, with the claims of new and important 
 studies and the introduction of the elective principle into college 
 curricula, a far smaller number than formerly of our students who 
 go to college will carry on their Greek and Latin studies there. 
 For those who do not, acquaintance with classic literature will 
 probably, though by no means necessarily, be limited to the 
 portions read in the high school. And these portions, say many 
 critics of these studies, are so small as to be not worth considering 
 as a study of literature. Lamentably small they indeed are. 
 Even so, I am not at all sure that their worthlessness as a 
 literary study should be so readily assumed. There is a good 
 deal of wisdom underlying the old adage “Fear the man of one 
 book.” There are many men now living who believe that a 
 
close study of a few orations of Cicero, a few books of Vergil, 
 Xenophon, or Homer have been worth to them all the labor 
 spent in learning to read Latin and Greek. But, waiving this 
 point, there is another question that is worthy of serious con- 
 sideration. If we may not regard our pupils as actual , ought we 
 not to consider their interests as potential , students of classical 
 literature? In view of the great importance of the field, it would 
 seem reasonable to give high school students the preliminary 
 instruction which will at least make it possible for them to 
 choose it when the time for choice comes. We teach mathe- 
 matics in the lower school, as we should teach Latin, parti}’ for 
 the peculiar mental training it imparts; but we teach it partly 
 also, if I mistake not, because we recognize that a considerable 
 number of our students will, in their higher studies or life calling, 
 wish to pursue subjects for which mathematics form an indis- 
 pensable preparation. If the chance, so to speak, that any given 
 student may hereafter elect a group of studies dependent on 
 mathematics warrants us in exacting of him a prolonged pre- 
 paratory course in that subject, why does not the chance that he 
 may decide to enter another important sphere of studies, for 
 which Latin and Greek furnish the best preparation, warrant us 
 in seeing to it that he acquires at least the elements of those 
 languages ? What fairness is there in sending him up to the 
 point where the main avenues of learning diverge furnished with 
 the key which will enable him to enter the portals of the one, 
 deprived of the key which is needful to admit him to the other ? 
 
 But, if we are to abandon the theory of an all-round elementary 
 preparation in the great outstanding departments; if the elective 
 policy, already carried down from the graduate school to the 
 college, is to be pushed down into the secondary school; if the 
 teacher must assume the responsibility of ascertaining the apti- 
 tudes and intentions of his pupil and shape his course with a view 
 to helping on his probable future studies — what then ? The very 
 least he can do is, when he finds a pupil who seems destined for 
 professional — in the older and narrower sense of the word — 
 humanistic, or literary studies, to encourage and influence him 
 in every way in his power to undertake the study of at least one 
 of the ancient languages. 
 
 As to which of these languages should be studied, where 
 only one is considered possible, the question is hardly an open 
 one under existing conditions Common practice has fixed on 
 
Latin as the favored sister, and the linguistic preparation of the 
 teacher to-day often comes in to confirm the limitation. The 
 more practical question then, is what are the claims of Greek as 
 a second ancient language in our schools ? And this can be 
 conveniently answered by a comparison with those made for 
 Latin. As to the advantages enumerated above under the first 
 and third heads — which are naturally closely related — Greek and 
 Latin stand on much the same footing though the somewhat 
 greater flexibility of the Greek, and its consequent power of 
 expressing by the form in some instances, more exact shades of 
 relation in thought, give it some points of superiority. It is the 
 second consideration in the list, doubtless — the far closer con- 
 tact of the Latin vocabulary with that of English which has 
 inclined the balance in favor of Latin as a school study. Yet the 
 influence of Greek even on the general vocabulary of English is 
 by no means inconsiderable. And in the technical vocabulary 
 of certain departments of study the Greek elements are more 
 important than the Latin. 
 
 In respect to the fourth point — the study of the literature — - 
 Greek as the more original and, on the whole, the more sig- 
 nificant literature, has stronger claims than Latin. Indeed, it 
 would be easy to show that one can not fully appreciate the 
 Latin literature without an acquaintance with the Greek. To 
 conclude then, with a word of practical counsel on this point 
 also. I should say that, where it is possible to have a course 
 that will admit both ancient languages and where a teacher of 
 Greek is available, school authorities should see to it to the ex- 
 tent of their influence, that those students who seemed likely to 
 pursue literary or philosophical studies in their later careers — 
 and especially those who plan to become special students or 
 teachers of English literature— take a thorough preparatory 
 course in Greek, and for those who propose to work in certain 
 technical lines whose vocabulary draws largely on Greek, a 
 briefer course in the language should be strongly advised. 
 
 In view of the great value of the study to these groups of 
 students, a liberal attitude might well be taken in the matter of 
 allowing Greek to be given even to very small classes. The 
 number of applicants required in order to justify the formation 
 of a class in Greek in many schools is now so high as practically 
 to exclude the study. 
 
 William A. Eckels.. 
 
MODERN FOREIGN LANGUAGES IN THE HIGH SCHOOL. 
 
 The day when every student in the high school, whatever 
 his taste, capacity or discretion, must study Latin, for a larger or 
 shorter period is happily past in most schools, and will soon be 
 past in the few that still cling to the tradition. Teachers, how- 
 ever, feel, some instinctively, and others as a result of careful 
 observation and pedagogic inference, that the pupil who finishes 
 his high school career without the study of a foreign language 
 has missed one of the best features of the course. To say nothing 
 of the linguistic training incident to the study of a lan- 
 guage other than the mother tongue, the so-called English or 
 scientific course is not well balanced. There is nothing really 
 new or engaging on the humanistic side. Different subjects in 
 mathematics and different sciences open new vistas in those di- 
 rections, but English is regarded by the pupil as the same time 
 worn subject that he pursued in the grades, and history, although 
 it be general or English history, is but a continuation of a branch 
 already begun. 
 
 Something must always be substituted for the Latin in such 
 a course that will fill out the curriculum on the side of the 
 humanities. No other subject so well fills the gap as a modern, 
 foreign language. It preserves the due balance between the 
 ■scientific and the humanistic studies; it affords real linguistic 
 training, and is distinctly a high school branch. Furthermore, 
 it raises the English or scientific course in the estimation of both 
 patrons and pupils to an equality with the classical. If the force 
 of example lends strength to the argument, it might be added 
 that such a curriculum is in close conformity with the last evolu- 
 tion in European secondary education, where the two curricula 
 run side by side; where the “classical education” and the ‘‘mod- 
 ern education” are parallel and afford the pupil the same rank 
 and dignity. 
 
 These ideas are but axioms to those who have kept apace 
 with educational science, and they have already been incorporated 
 into the courses of study in the best high schools. But some- 
 thing else remains to be said, which is. perhaps, not so widely 
 disseminated, and, where known, is not so strongly believed. 
 
Judging from the most recent type of text books, and from the 
 results obtained in many schools counted among the best, modern 
 language teaching in the United States is far inferior to that of 
 continental Europe, and, in fact, varies little in methods of in- 
 struction from the dead languages. A grammar-dictionary-trans- 
 lation system of teaching a living tongue is certainly out of 
 place anywhere, but especially so in a high school, and with 
 pupils of that age. The enthusiasm that such a study should 
 awaken is, by dead methods, either largely or wholly destroyed. 
 The linguistic training is narrowed to simple grammatical training, 
 and the pupil, never attaining the ability to do aught but trans- 
 late, misses the beauty of the diction, and fails to comprehend 
 the humor or the pathos or the inspiration of the original. He 
 does not get the best linguistic training the study affords and the 
 literary training is practically nil. 
 
 When the possibilities, advantages and adaptibility of the 
 modern languages for high schools are so apparent one is tempted 
 to inquire why the methods are uniformly so antiquated in this 
 day when methods are receiving so much attention. 
 
 It is not always because the teachers do not know in a 
 living way the tongues they teach. Many who read and speak 
 a language with ease teach only by grammar, vocabulary and 
 translation. Even many foreign born teachers who learned 
 English in a practical way and would spurn set transla- 
 tion for themselves, practice no other method in the class room. 
 
 It is not because teachers are satisfied with present results. 
 All with one accord will admit, no matter what their successs in 
 preparing pupils for college entrance or other school examina- 
 tions, that after all the hard study of the faithful 
 pupil, it is a pity that he cannot read a simple page without the 
 use of a dictionary, or understand the thought without stating it 
 orally or mentally in his mother tongue; thus losing the charm 
 of the imagery and the beauty of the expression. 
 
 One reason for the present unpedagogic methods is tradition- 
 Ancient foreign languages have been taught for generations by 
 the grammar-dictionary-translation process, and the same methods 
 have been unconsciously adapted to the modern living tongues. 
 
 Another reason, undoubtedly, is that teachers who have ac- 
 quired a translating knowledge only of a foreign tongue honestly 
 doubt if anything more can be acquired in the length of time 
 given to the language in, the school curriculum, and therefore 
 
argue that all the time and all the exercises should tend to that 
 end and to that alone. 
 
 Other teachers, despairing of achieving any real results by 
 their traditional type of instruction have fallen back upon the com- 
 forting but delusive notion that the great aim of foreign language 
 teaching is merely disciplinary, and imagine that any variation 
 from the grammar and translation process will impair the value 
 of the study as a mental training. 
 
 Others still, who know, appreciate and can use the language 
 fluently, while they think it would be advantageous for the pupils 
 to acquire a practical command of it and will admit that such 
 a result can be obtained through private instruction, do not 
 believe that any appreciable results of that nature can be ob- 
 tained in the classroom. 
 
 Another class of teachers have seen, have even perhaps been 
 the victims of the travelling “Professor” who advertizes “Ger- 
 man in two weeks,” “French in ten lessons,” and, being natural- 
 ly disgusted with such quackery, have refused to investigate 
 any and all methods, no matter how reasonable or how scien- 
 tific, that purpose to give a practical knowlege of a foreign 
 language and at the same time preserve its dignity and influence 
 as a branch of scholastic training. 
 
 No one of these reasons is any longer an adequate excuse 
 for irrational, unpedagogic teaching of modern languages in the 
 high school. Even tradition, the strongest, notwithstanding that 
 it is least reasonable, argument no longer holds. Changes here 
 come rapidly. Only a decade ago the “Committee of Twelve/’ 
 composed of leading college professors, published a report, which, 
 although presumably neutral in the matter of method was neverthe- 
 less strongly reactionary, and gave much comfort to the adherents 
 of old-time ideas. Many of those same professors have since 
 come to advocate striking reforms. In the institutions of higher 
 education to which high school teachers naturally look for ideals 
 there has come a new light. The University of Chicago has 
 adopted living methods of teaching modern languages, and 
 Harvard offers to the student a choice between a translation 
 method and an oral, practical method. These two leading insti- 
 tutions are mentioned by name only as examples. It is safe to 
 say that there is scarcely a college in the land in which some ef- 
 fort is not made to give a practical turn to the teaching of mod- 
 ern languages, although it must be confessed tha& the concession 
 
is too often merely on the surface. However, even that much 
 shows the drift of thought. 
 
 The forward movement in American colleges came in the 
 wake of a similar movement in continental Europe. In the late 
 Eighties and early Nineties an agitation began in European sec- 
 ondary schools for a reformed course of study. The struggle cen- 
 tered about the position of the modern languages in the curricu- 
 lum and the manner of teaching them. The agitation gained 
 strength with every discussion. The principles advocated were 
 founded on pedagogic axioms. Since that time there has been a 
 reconstruction of the secondary schools throughout nearly all 
 Europe and the instruction in modern languages by living, 
 rational and practical methods has become the accepted principle. 
 
 Since this revolution in traditionary Europe the high school 
 teachers of America need not fear to cut loose from a system that 
 their good sense has long told them was irrational and their ex- 
 perience has shown to be barren of results. It is a safe predic- 
 tion that they will be only too eager to make the change. It 
 only remains to make them acquainted with the better ways, and 
 for the publishers to provide the proper apparatus to do the 
 work according to the new ideas. The reformed method (or 
 methods, for as there is only one principle back of the movement, 
 there are numberless systems and devices for working out the 
 principle) has nothing in common with the quackery of the 
 “travelling professor.” It is simple, rational, pedagogic, viz: the 
 language itself taught, not translated; the ability on the part of 
 the pupil to understand and to read in the original without trans- 
 fering the ideas into words of the mother tongue, also the ability 
 to use the language with a reasonable degree of correctness in 
 speaking and writing. 
 
 Such a result can be obtained in classes of ordinary size. 
 Private instruction is no more advantageous in this branch than 
 in any other. It might easily be maintained that numbers within 
 limits were an advantage, as they provide useful emulation and 
 variety. 
 
 Teaching a modern language merely for the mental gymnas- 
 tics it provides has no place in the school of the twentieth cen- 
 tury, and the teacher of modern language who advances such an 
 argument is either incapable of teaching well or too indolent to 
 keep abreast of the latest thought in his profession. 
 
 The duty of preparing pupils for college entrance and other 
 
3 0 
 
 12 105657529 
 
 examinations where modern ideas have not yet made their way 
 is no adequate reason for clinging to worn-out methods. Pupils 
 prepared in - the new way will acquire in the same time, and in 
 addition *to a practical grasp of the language, the ability to parse 
 sentences, indicate word formations and translate paragraphs. 
 
 Tfce reform in modern language instruction is not an isolated 
 movement. On the contrary, it is world wide. It is not based 
 on the deductions of obscure teachers or men of narrow views. 
 It is backed by the greatest scholars of the age and forwarded by 
 the leaders in educational science. Teachers who doubt the 
 wisdom of the reform or its abundant advantages, or those who, 
 in an open and inquiring mind, would know how to accomplish 
 what has long been their ideal, but which they have thought im- 
 possible, should consult the bibliography of the subject. (A short 
 list of the works most easily accessible to the American teacher 
 is given at the end of this article.) 
 
 Modern languages so taught will occupy a prominent place 
 in the high school curricula. They will take the place of Latin 
 for many pupils who otherwise would have no foreign language. 
 They will be a valuable “minor” to English, geography and his- 
 tory. They will be an important means of linguistic training. 
 They will be a “practical” study in an age when rightly or 
 wrongly all branches are measured by this standard. They can 
 be all this and more, if taught as living languages, by living 
 methods, by teachers who know the best methods that are used 
 today and who will strive for still better ones. 
 
 — Edgar Ewing Brandon. 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY.— 
 
 SwEET — The Practical Study of Languages. 
 
 JESPERSEN — How to Teach a Foreign Language. 
 
 Gouin — The Art of Teaching and Studying Languages. 
 
 Bahesen — The Teaching of Modern Languages. 
 
 Brebner — The Method of Teaching Modern Languages 
 in Germany. 
 
 [The foregoing articles were written at the request of the 
 editor of the Bulletin, independently, and with no thought of 
 controversy, but with the sole purpose of setting forth the just 
 claims of these two important groups of studies — A. G. H.]