The youthful votary of knowledge, naturally infirm of purpose, is ever
prone to despond and falter in a pursuit the utility of which is not
immediate and palpable; yet he listens with amiable credulity to the
matured in judgment and the ripe in scholarship. It should therefore
be the duty and pride of such to cheer onward the ingenuous, even in
those studies whose inceptive difficulties alarm him. Hence we read
with feelings of regret and surprise an article in the August number
of the Messenger, from the pen of Mathew Carey, Esq., the inevitable
tendency of which will be to discourage students of the Classics, and
to diminish the estimation, already too low, in which they are held in
the south. We should be deterred from entering the list against a name
so imposing, and one which deserves so well of his adopted countrymen,
if we did not reflect that the inherent strength and self-tenability
of a good cause greatly outweigh the most splendid abilities in
sustaining a bad one. _Magna est veritas et prævalebit._ So thus we
hurl our white pebble from the river of Truth at the forehead of
Goliah.
Before we rush in _medias res_, permit us to premise that, if we chose
to decide this question with Mr. Carey by a preponderance of
authorities, the rich libraries of our university would supply an
array of illustrious names as long as that of John Lackland's barons.
But reason and experience shall be our only authorities, than which
there are none greater, not even Locke or Carey.
The universality of the study of the dead languages is objected to. “A
young Englishman, unless he goes to the University of Cambridge, has
scarcely a notion that there is any other kind of excellence.” But one
would suppose that the practice of studying them by all enlightened
nations, for so many centuries, ought to be conclusive evidence of
their utility; because mankind are so much influenced by interest,
that they are ever ready to abandon whatever does not promote it. Our
opponents, however, tell us that they were engrafted into seminaries
of learning in ages less enlightened than the present—that such is the
force of prejudice and custom, they have been continued as a course of
education despite their many disadvantages. Is this true? Have not
mankind long since shaken off their idolatrous veneration for
antiquity? The whole cumbrous and chaotic mass of feudal error has
fallen before the full blaze of modern discoveries and improvements.
But modern reformers and experimentalists, in removing the rubbish of
ignorance, and the rust of antiquity from literary institutions,
spared the languages in which Mæonides and Maro bequeathed to
posterity models more potent for inspiring genius than all the waters
of Castalia, in which Demosthenes and Cicero gave utterance to
sentiments which, even at this distant day, have impelled many to
deeds of noblest patriotism. Spared did we say? They have done more;
they have recommended redoubled attention to them. It is a fact, that
the learned languages are more extensively cultivated now than at any
former period, and that too by utilitarian and practical Englishmen—by
intellectual and acute Germans—by scientific Frenchmen—by economical,
pence-counting Scotchmen, in the teeth of opponents, powerful, gifted,
active. If they are worthy of so much attention in Europe, _a
fortiori_, they are worthy of it here, for the obvious reason that,
breathing as they do the spirit of liberty and republicanism, they
furnish ideas more congenial and valuable to that form of government
in which these principles are recognized, than to an oppressive one,
where Brutus is stigmatized as a murderer, and the burning words of
the two mighty scourges of tyranny regarded as dangerous food for
popular lips. In a free country eloquence is the lever that heaves the
body politic. In the Classics the purest models are found. Hence we
infer that they are the appropriate study of American youth, and that
it would be our highest glory to outstrip Europe in a knowledge of
them, as we have already done in the science of government.
In reply to the argument that the languages consume too much time from
the acquisition of English, we assume high ground, and lay down the
predicate that the study of them is the shortest, best and easiest way
to learn English. This idea will be illustrated by attending to the
_modus operandi_ of teaching. Before a student can acquire the idea
contained in the simplest sentence of a dead language, he must
ascertain the English meaning of every word in it; and before he can
render it correctly, he must study into what English moods, tenses,
and cases the words of his translation are to be put. If he do not
this, he will be liable to render a Latin or Greek imperfect by an
English future, and vice versa; hence it is evident that he must have
not only his classical books, but that an English Grammar, a
Geography, and a Dictionary must be ever at his side. Take an
illustration. The crude, disarranged sentence, “vinco Scipio Hannibal
in Africa,” and the English translation, (Scipio conquered Hannibal in
Africa) are given him to reduce to good Latin, and to explain the
three proper names. To do this he must refer to his English Grammar,
to find in what mood, tense, number, person and voice the verb
“conquered” is, and then take up the English books containing the
required information concerning Scipio, Hannibal and Africa: thus, in
correcting this short sentence, learning, perhaps, more of English
Grammar, Geography, and History, than of Latin. We are persuaded that
nine-tenths of our southern teachers will tell Mr. Carey, that in
their schools, consisting of Classical and English students, the Latin
scholars are the better English scholars—that they are the better
writers and speakers, the more cheerful and industrious, the more
influential with their fellows, and that they require in their studies
a larger number of English books than the other.
But if we are answered by Mr. Carey that he did not mean to assert
that the verbal and grammatical knowledge of English which has been
shown to be the result of the study of the Classics was lost thereby,
but that knowledge of a higher order, science and literature were
sacrificed to them, we have a reply ready at hand, which obviates this
objection, viz: that they are chiefly studied at that infantile period
of the intellect, when common sense teaches that it is not prepared to
comprehend either the abstrusities of Mathematics, the minutiæ of
Chymistry, or the mysteries of Philosophy. To require so much of mere
tyros, is as absurd as to exact of one of tender years and feeble
frame the labors of a Hercules. Mr. Carey need not be afraid that the
nascent stage of the mind above referred to, will be {694} left
without its appropriate food, even if the sciences are forbidden to
it. It is an established principle of the present day to educate the
faculties in the order of their development. In the spring time of
existence, Memory is the first to put forth its buds; and therefore,
in accordance with the truism just laid down, should receive the
earliest culture. What is more proper for this purpose than getting by
rote the simple rules of Grammar, tracing out and remembering the
definitions of words, and passing from author to author in the order
of their difficulties? In thus proceeding from what is easy to what is
comparatively difficult, the student would be obeying a law both of
reason and nature; his mental powers would be gradually invigorated
and expanded, until he would be prepared to enter with greater
probability of success on the dreaded path of Mathematics and
Philosophy; for the derivation and composition of their abstract and
scientific terms, would in many cases instantaneously and perfectly
suggest their meaning to the Classical scholar, whilst the English one
would be compelled to learn them laboriously and imperfectly from
English Dictionaries. It is this happy fitness of ancient languages to
that period of youth which, without them, would want a proper object
of study, that gives to them a crowning pre-eminence over every other
substitute.
We will now examine that extraordinary argument by which Mr. Carey
attempts to prove that too much time is consumed in the study of
languages, even in those few cases in which he would tolerate them at
all. Here it is. “That lads of moderate capacity, and no very
extraordinary application, frequently acquire the French language in
twelve or eighteen months,” &c. Again—“That the Latin language is not
more difficult than the French—indeed I believe not so difficult.”
From these _petitiones pricipii_, he draws the _non sequitur_
conclusion, “that it's an error to consume three, four, five or six
years in the attainment of the Latin.” Now every person at all
acquainted with Philology, knows that foreign language to be easiest
to himself which bears the greatest resemblance to his vernacular
tongue in its structure, syntax, the sequence of its words in
sentences, and the identity or similarity of many of its terms with
corresponding ones in his own language. It will be evident to any
individual, that in these particulars the French resembles our
language much more than the Latin. If he will only reflect, the whole
intricate machinery of declensions and conjugations, which constitutes
one of the greatest difficulties of ancient languages, is almost
entirely wanting in the French, and indeed in all modern languages.
Here I cannot do better than to quote the words of that elegant
rhetorician, Dr. Blair. “There is no doubt that in abolishing cases,
we have rendered the structure of modern languages more simple. We
have disembarrassed it of the intricacy which arose from the different
forms of declension. We have thereby rendered modern languages more
easy to be acquired, and less subject to the perplexity of rules.”
Again, in a subsequent chapter, he says, “Language (modern) has
undergone a change in conjugation perfectly similar to that which I
showed it underwent with respect to declension; the consequence was
the same as that of abolishing declensions; it rendered language
(modern) more simple and easy.” But the proof of the pudding is in the
eating; so the universal practice among teachers of giving much longer
French than Latin lessons, to be prepared in the same given time, is
conclusive of the more easy attainment of the former. Most opportunely
for the tenability of our argument, while we were preparing this
article, an intelligent student of the University stated to us that he
found he was making very little progress in French, and could assign
no reason for it, unless it was because French is so easy that it does
not take hold upon and engage the mind. But Mr. Carey would not only
limit the time during which the ancient languages ought to be studied;
he goes a good deal farther in his hostility to them, by advising that
they should be studied even during the short period of twelve or
eighteen months through the medium of translations. Now simply to
state that this plan would utterly destroy that strengthening of the
memory, disciplining of the mind, and refining of the taste, which
languages are known to afford, is to prove its absurdity. If his plan
should recommend itself to public adoption, the friends of Classical
literature would abandon its defence in despair. The followers in any
vocation are the best authority in the world in relation to the
vocation, whether they be statesmen, teachers, or shoemakers. The
united voice of teachers denounces translations as ruinous to the
minds and habits of their pupils; hence they are regarded as
contraband commodities, and as such, lawful confiscations to the
dominion of Vulcan. These labor-saving machines of the mind, like
those in mechanics, engender habits of idleness, by shortening the
time and toil of accomplishing a task, smoothing the way, leaving the
student nothing to elaborate for himself, until his mind is reduced to
a state of wretched imbecility and servile dependence. Can a mind thus
educated be prepared to make nice discriminations, to trace effect to
cause, to winnow away the chaff of error from the golden grains of
truth and wisdom? Even the little gained in this way is
evanescent—takes no root in the memory. To look for enduring and
accurate knowledge from him, would be as unreasonable as to expect a
correct description of a country from one who flies through it in a
steam car. But we might give up all that has yet been said about
translations, and still maintain our argument against them, upon the
ground that they do not express the meaning of the translated authors.
At least the fire, spirit, enthusiasm are squeezed out and
_skeletonized_ in dull, vapid, prosaic copies. And is not this the
case with all translations? Have not the French vainly essayed to
translate Milton and Shakspeare? Are not their abortive attempts
miserable caricatures? What becomes of the halo of glory which the
ancient artists threw around the forms of Apollo Belvidere, and the
Venus de Medicis, when copied—of the coloring of Titian, the sublimity
of Claude, and the grandeur of Raphael, when attempted to be
transferred to the canvass of some impotent imitator? Gone! Why should
we contemplate Homer and Virgil through those smoked glasses,
translations, when we can do it in the bright mirror of their own
languages? There remains yet another disadvantage of studying ancient
authors by translations. They cannot infuse that self-sacrificing
patriotism, that high moral, and almost romantic elevation of
character, which even Mr. Carey admits the poets of antiquity have a
tendency to create. These virtues must be contemplated, turned and
{695} returned in the mind, as they are portrayed in the originals—not
conned from “Horace's three hundred and seventeen lines introduced
into the Latin primer, to illustrate the rules of Grammar.”
But if Mr. Carey cannot argue down the ancient languages, he will
frighten parents from putting their sons to the study of them, and the
sons from studying, by asking, “how many years of life are spent in
learning—how much labor, pain, and imprisonment are endured by the
body—how much anxious drudgery by the master—how many habits are
formed of reluctance to regular employment, and how——” and the rest of
the bugbears. Oh, how will the preceding paragraph be hailed as
pregnant with wisdom by all our vigorous, idle, southern youth, who
long for more time out of school, to hunt, fish, and scamper over the
broad, umbrageous Campus. If Mr. Carey only knew the quantity of swine
and pancakes devoured by our students at a meal, and then behold them
rush to their sports, and jump twelve feet in the “clear,” he would
never again say that Latin kills boys. There might be some truth in
the assertion contained in the quotation now before us, if predicated
of German seminaries, where we are told the youth frequently study
fourteen hours out of the twenty-four. But let any one carefully
examine the pupils of an American academy, and he will be convinced
that they enjoy more happiness, health, and leisure than any other
class of the community. This fact is farther proven by the common
observation of educated men, that their school-boy days were the
happiest of their whole life, and that they never pass a group of
students, and witness the joyous outpourings of youthful feelings,
without envy. There is no royal road to learning. It is admitted that
the languages are not to be acquired without labor—hard labor. Is this
an evil to be deprecated? No. Whatever is acquired without it is
generally worthless, not prized—because no price, no toil, no sweat
has been paid for it. Constituted as society is, the original curse
denounced against man, “in the sweat of thy brow thou shall eat
bread,” has proven a blessing. Truly says the adage, “an idle brain is
the devil's work-shop.” An industrious one is the chosen abode of the
sister virtues. Why, then, should we increase the temptation to
idleness, already great to the youth of the south, by the banishment
of the only study, perhaps, suitable to the idlest stage of human
life? We should thus leave a chasm in the plan of instruction, and
that precious time unfilled up, when a regard to the formation of good
habits would imperiously require that it should _be filled up_ as far
as is consistent with health. Substitute something else, you say. If
what has already been said, does not prove that nothing else
effectually supplies their place, perhaps the following reflection may
assist to do it. The principal point in which we fall short of our
northern brethren, and of most European nations, is in our want of
system in our employments, and attention to the _small things_ of
business. Now the Classics demand constant attention to the most
minute marks and letters, together with the exercise of judgment,
patience, memory, classification—all of which are component parts of
system.
No disposition is felt to controvert the position taken by Mr. Carey,
that great men have been made under systems from which the learned
languages were excluded—or to discourage the gifted child of poverty,
who can never enjoy their advantages. Let such a one reflect that
there have been orators who never tasted the honied eloquence of
Cicero—bards whose lips were never touched with a “live coal” from the
poetic fire of Homer and Virgil—patriots whose bosoms were never
warmed, whose arms were never nerved by the story of Aristides and
Brutus. There are men to keep whom down would be as impossible as to
suppress the fires of Ætna. They ask—they need no aid from their
predecessors or cotemporaries. They will create opportunities and
modes of development and action for themselves. Very properly,
therefore, the institutions of society, the systems of education, are
not framed for them; but for ordinary beings—persons of mediocre
intellect, of which a vast majority of mankind are composed.
In reviewing the field of our argument, we find that the Classics have
been mainly defended upon the ground of the mental training and good
habits which result from the study of them—dry objects of pursuit
certainly to boys, but still most necessary. But we might long since
have cut this question short, by holding up the argument, the truth of
which is now generally admitted by competent judges, that it is
impossible to understand English in all its power, beauty,
copiousness, without a previous acquaintance with the Classics. But
the multitude, in the true spirit of English vanity, are constantly
proclaiming the entire independence of their language, and vauntingly
assert that it needs no plumage borrowed from any tongue under heaven.
Mark you! this was not said until the huge, misshapen skeleton of the
Anglo-Saxon had received a filling up—a beauty and proportion from
much abused Latin and Greek. Now, as the English language has declared
her _Independence_, and set up for herself, it is but fair that she
should surrender back to Greek and Latin the harmonious and expressive
words, the poetical imagery and rich mythology which she has stolen
from them, but which she has just found out she does not need. Let her
do this, and what does she become?—what she was originally. _Rudis
indigestaque moles_. We have never known the common-sense rule, viz:
That to know the _whole_ we must know all the _parts_, to be dispensed
with except in the case of the English language, which it appears can
be perfectly known without previously studying the languages of which
it is made up.[1] We however have no fears that our boasted vernacular
will be able to sustain her declaration, since Greek and Roman ideas,
illustrations, and allusions are so interwoven with it that they have
become an inseparable part and parcel of it. Those who would know the
nice and delicate shades of meaning belonging to English derived
terms, will ever betake themselves to the fountain-head for this
knowledge. What praise do we unwittingly bestow upon the two noble
tongues of antiquity, when we consider that the highest compliment we
can pay our illustrious characters is to compare them to some Greek or
Roman worthy—to say of a Washington he is a Fabius, of a {696}
Franklin he is a Socrates, of a Henry he is a Demosthenes!
[Footnote 1: Since this short article was penned, the number of words
of Greek and Latin derivation in it was roughly estimated to be eight
hundred, though the writer made an effort to use words purely English
in all cases where they would answer the purpose as well.]
The department of poetry would lose the most by a neglect of the
Classics. As the bards of antiquity were the first to walk forth into
the garden of poetry, they did not fail to appropriate to themselves
their most beautiful flowers; they, having the gathering of the
harvest, have left to the moderns in many branches of the poetic art
naught but the mere gleanings of the field. These ancient poems have
been so translated, paraphrased, metamorphosed by modern poets, that a
mere English scholar would find nearly as much difficulty in the works
of the latter, as in those of the former. A glance at one more
argument in favor of the learned languages, and this discussion is
closed. The history of the forum and halls of legislation proves that
in the actual conflict of mind against mind, the Classical orator has
a decided advantage over an antagonist who has merely an English
education, though in every other respect they be entirely equal. His
knowledge of the variety and flexibility of his own tongue, will place
at his command a greater copiousness of words, a wider range of
selection, a greater fluency and facility in the utterance of them
than his unfortunate antagonist can possibly pretend to.
In conclusion, we would say to the ingenuous of the Old Dominion—of
the whole south, be not discouraged, be not deluded. The inceptive
steps of all great undertakings are slow—sometimes unpleasant. If the
beauty, perfection, and pre-eminent usefulness of the Classics are not
at present obvious, you will at your docile age be willing to take
something on trust, and to pursue your studies under the assurance,
that by degrees the circumference of your vision will be enlarged, the
point from which you take it in will be elevated, until you shall
stand on the pinnacle of the temple of knowledge. Although you will
not be so unreasonable as to expect to behold the interior and
brighter glories of the temple, while you are merely entering the
vestibule, yet along your path you will meet with many flowers to
cheer you onward. You have every encouragement to proceed. Are you
emulous to serve your country in the halls of legislation? You will,
at the completion of your scholastic education, come forth armed with
weapons from the armory of Demosthenes and Cicero. Would you create a
southern literature? Your present studies are the very first step
towards it. Your discouragers may be defied to point you to a single
nation eminent in literature, and at the same time proscribers of the
Classics. Contribute your mite to demonstrate to the world that this
is not the land where “Genius sickens and Fancy dies,” and to enable
your countrymen to point proudly to our sister band of states, and say
of one, this is our Arcadia—of another, this is our Laconia—of a
third, this is our Attica. Do not suppose that this is too much to
expect. By the blessing of God, and the operation of causes now at
work, to this pitch of glory we must arrive. You live in the region of
great men; you daily tread upon the same lines of latitude once
trodden by Homer, Demosthenes, and Plato. _Macte nova virtute puer,
sic itur ad astra._
Hæc exempla—
Nocturna versate manu, versate diurna.
Hæc studia adolescentiam alunt, senectutem oblectant, secundas res
ornant, adversis solatium et perfugium præbent, delectant domi, non
impediunt foris, pernoctant nobiscum, peregrinantur, rusticantur.
_University of North Carolina, October, 1836._
LINES TO A WILD VIOLET,
FOUND IN THE WOODS OF ALABAMA.