language. Two nations may have corresponding words for the same ideas, yet
differ altogether in their _mode of using_ those words. For instance, ‘et’
_means_ ‘and,’ yet it does not always admit of being used in Latin, where
‘and’ is used in English. ‘Faire’ may be French for ‘do’; yet in a
particular phrase, for ‘How do you _do_?’ ‘faire’ is not _used_, but ‘se
porter,’ _viz._, ‘Comment vous _portez-vous_?’ An Englishman or a
Frenchman would be almost unintelligible and altogether ridiculous to each
other, who used the French or English _words_, with the idioms or
_peculiar uses_ of his own language. Hence, the most complete and exact
acquaintance with dictionary and grammar will utterly fail to teach a
student to write or compose. Something more is wanted, _viz._, the
knowledge of the _use_ of words and constructions, or the knowledge of
_idiom_.
“Take the following English of a modern writer:
“ ‘This is a serious consideration:—Among men, as among wild beasts, the
taste of blood creates the appetite for it, and the appetite for it is
strengthened by indulgence.’
“Translate it word for word literally into Latin, thus:—
“ ‘Hæc est seria consideratio. Inter homines, ut inter feras, gustus
sanguinis creat ejus appetitum, et ejus appetitus indulgentiâ roboratur.’
“Purer Latin, as far as _diction_ is concerned, more correct, as far as
_syntax_, cannot be desired. Every word is classical, every construction
grammatical: yet Latinity it simply has none. From beginning to end it
follows the English _mode_ of speaking, or English idiom, not the Latin.
“In proportion, then, as a candidate advances from this Anglicism into
Latinity, so far does he write good Latin.
“We might make the following remarks upon the above literal version.
“1. ‘Consideratio’ is not ‘_a_ consideration;’ the Latins, having no
article, are driven to expedients to supply its place, _e.g._, _quidam_ is
sometimes used for _a_.
“2. ‘Consideratio’ is not ‘a consideration,’ _i.e._, a _thing_ considered,
or a subject; but the _act_ of considering.
“3. It must never be forgotten, that such words as ‘consideratio’ are
generally metaphorical, and therefore cannot be used _simply_, and without
limitation or explanation, in the English sense, according to which the
_mental_ act is primarily conveyed by the word. ‘Consideratio,’ it is
true, can be used absolutely, with greater propriety than most words of
the kind; but if we take a parallel case, for instance, ‘agitatio,’ we
could not use it at once in the mental sense for ‘agitation,’ but we
should be obliged to say ‘agitatio _mentis_, _animi_,’ etc., though even
then it would not answer to ‘agitation.’
“4. ‘Inter homines, gustus,’ etc. Here the English, as is not uncommon,
throws two ideas together. It means, first, that something _occurs_ among
men, and _occurs_ among wild beasts, and that it is the same thing which
occurs among both; and secondly that this something is, that the taste of
blood has a certain particular effect. In other words, it means, (1)
‘_this_ occurs among beasts and men,’ (2) _viz._, that the ‘taste of
blood,’ etc. Therefore, ‘inter homines, etc., gustus creat, etc.,’ does
not express the English _meaning_, it only translates its _expression_.
“5. ‘Inter homines’ is not the Latin phrase for ‘among.’ ‘Inter’ generally
involves some sense of _division_, _viz._, interruption, contrast,
rivalry, etc. Thus, with a singular noun, ‘inter cœnam hoc accidit,’
_i.e._, this _interrupted_ the supper. And so with two nouns, ‘inter me et
Brundusium Cæsar est.’ And so with a plural noun, ‘hoc _inter homines_
ambigitur,’ _i.e._, man with man. ‘Micat _inter omnes_ Julium sidus,’
_i.e._, in the rivalry of star against star. ‘Inter tot annos unus (vir)
inventus est,’ _i.e._, though all those years, one by one, put in their
claim, yet only one of them can produce a man, etc. ‘Inter se diligunt,’
they love each other. On the contrary, the Latin word for ‘among,’ simply
understood, is ‘in.’
“6. As a general rule, indicatives active followed by accusatives, are
foreign to the main structure of a Latin sentence.
“7. ‘Et;’ here two clauses are _connected_, having _different_ subjects or
nominatives; in the former ‘appetitus’ is in the nominative, and in the
latter in the accusative. It is usual in Latin to carry on the _same_
subject, in _connected_ clauses.
“8. ‘Et’ here connects two _distinct_ clauses. ‘Autem’ is more common.
“These being some of the faults of the literal version, I transcribe the
translations sent in to me by six of my pupils respectively, who, however
deficient in elegance of composition, and though more or less deficient in
hitting the Latin idiom, yet evidently know what idiom is.
“The first wrote:—Videte rem graviorem; quod feris, id hominibus quoque
accidit,—sanguinis sitim semel gustantibus intus concipi, plenè potantibus
maturari.
“The second wrote:—Res seria agitur; nam quod in feris, illud in hominibus
quoque cernitur, sanguinis appetitionem et suscitari lambendo et epulando
inflammari.
“The third:—Ecce res summâ consideratione digna; et in feris et in
hominibus, sanguinis semel delibati sitis est, sæpius hausti libido.
“The fourth:—Sollicitè animadvertendum est, cum in feris tum in hominibus
fieri, ut guttæ pariant appetitum sanguinis, frequentiores potus
ingluviem.
“And the fifth:—Perpende sedulo, gustum sanguinis tam in hominibus quam in
feris primæ appetitionem sui tandem cupidinem inferre.
“And the sixth:—Hoc grave est, quod hominibus cum feris videmus commune,
gustasse est appetere sanguinem, hausisse in deliciis habere.”
Mr. Black, junr., studies this paper, and considers that he has gained
something from it. Accordingly, when he sees his father, he mentions to
him Mr. White, his kindness, his papers, and especially the above, of
which he has taken a copy. His father begs to see it; and, being a bit of
a critic, forthwith delivers his judgment on it, and condescends to praise
it; but he says that it fails in this, _viz._, in overlooking the subject
of _structure_. He maintains that the turning-point of good or bad
Latinity is, not idiom, as Mr. White says, but structure. Then Mr. Black,
the father, is led on to speak of himself, and of his youthful studies;
and he ends by giving Harry a history of his own search after the knack of
writing Latin. I do not see quite how this is to the point of Mr. White’s
paper, which cannot be said to contradict Mr. Black’s narrative; but for
this very reason, I may consistently quote it, for from a different point
of view it may throw light on the subject treated in common by both these
literary authorities.
2.
_Old Mr. Black’s Confession of his search after a Latin style._
“The attempts and the failures and the successes of those who have gone
before, my dear son, are the direction-posts of those who come after; and,
as I am only speaking to you, it strikes me that I may, without egotism or
ostentation, suggest views or cautions, which might indeed be useful to
the University Student generally, by a relation of some of my own
endeavours to improve my own mind, and to increase my own knowledge in my
early life. I am no great admirer of self-taught geniuses; to be
self-taught is a misfortune, except in the case of those extraordinary
minds, to whom the title of genius justly belongs; for in most cases, to
be self-taught is to be badly grounded, to be slovenly finished, and to be
preposterously conceited. Nor, again, was that misfortune I speak of
really mine; but I have been left at times just so much to myself, as to
make it possible for young students to gain hints from the history of my
mind, which will be useful to themselves. And now for my subject.
“At school I was reckoned a sharp boy; I ran through its classes rapidly;
and by the time I was fifteen, my masters had nothing more to teach me,
and did not know what to do with me. I might have gone to a public school,
or to a private tutor for three or four years; but there were reasons
against either plan, and at the unusual age I speak of, with some inexact
acquaintance with Homer, Sophocles, Herodotus, and Xenophon, Horace,
Virgil, and Cicero, I was matriculated at the University. I had from a
child been very fond of composition, verse and prose, English and Latin,
and took especial interest in the subject of style; and one of the wishes
nearest my heart was to write Latin well. I had some idea of the style of
Addison, Hume, and Johnson, in English; but I had no idea what was meant
by good Latin style. I had read Cicero without learning what it was; the
books said, ‘This is neat Ciceronian language,’ ‘this is pure and elegant
Latinity,’ but they did not tell me why. Some persons told me to go by my
ear; to get Cicero by heart; and then I should know how to turn my
thoughts and marshal my words, nay, more, where to put subjunctive moods
and where to put indicative. In consequence I had a vague, unsatisfied
feeling on the subject, and kept grasping shadows, and had upon me
something of the unpleasant sensation of a bad dream.
“When I was sixteen, I fell upon an article in the _Quarterly_, which
reviewed a Latin history of (I think) the Rebellion of 1715; perhaps by
Dr. Whitaker. Years afterwards I learned that the critique was the writing
of a celebrated Oxford scholar; but at the time, it was the subject
itself, not the writer, that took hold of me. I read it carefully, and
made extracts which, I believe, I have to this day. Had I known more of
Latin writing, it would have been of real use to me; but as it was
concerned of necessity in verbal criticisms, it did but lead me deeper
into the mistake to which I had already been introduced,—that Latinity
consisted in using good phrases. Accordingly I began noting down, and
using in my exercises, idiomatic or peculiar expressions: such as ‘oleum
perdidi,’ ‘haud scio an non,’ ‘cogitanti mihi,’ ‘verum enimvero,’
‘equidem,’ ‘dixerim,’ and the like; and I made a great point of putting
the verb at the end of the sentence. What took me in the same direction
was Dumesnil’s Synonymes, a good book, but one which does not even profess
to teach Latin writing. I was aiming to be an architect by learning to
make bricks.
“Then I fell in with the _Germania_ and _Agricola_ of Tacitus, and was
very much taken by his style. Its peculiarities were much easier to
understand, and to copy, than Cicero’s: ‘decipit exemplar vitiis
imitabile;’ and thus, without any advance whatever in understanding the
genius of the language, or the construction of a Latin sentence, I added
to my fine words and cut-and-dried idioms, phrases smacking of Tacitus.
The Dialogues of Erasmus, which I studied, carried me in the same
direction; for dialogues, from the nature of the case, consist of words
and clauses, and smart, pregnant, or colloquial expressions, rather than
of sentences with an adequate structure.”
Mr. Black takes breath, and then continues:
“The labour, then, of years came to nothing, and when I was twenty I knew
no more of Latin composition than I had known at fifteen. It was then that
circumstances turned my attention to a volume of Latin Lectures, which had
been published by the accomplished scholar of whose critique in the
_Quarterly Review_ I have already spoken. The Lectures in question had
been delivered terminally while he held the Professorship of Poetry, and
were afterwards collected into a volume; and various circumstances
combined to give them a peculiar character. Delivered one by one at
intervals, to a large, cultivated, and critical audience, they both
demanded and admitted of special elaboration of the style. As coming from
a person of his high reputation for Latinity, they were displays of art;
and, as addressed to persons who had to follow _ex tempore_ the course of
a discussion delivered in a foreign tongue, they needed a style as neat,
pointed, lucid, and perspicuous as it was ornamental. Moreover, as
expressing modern ideas in an ancient language, they involved a new
development and application of its powers. The result of these united
conditions was a style less simple, less natural and fresh, than Cicero’s;
more studied, more ambitious, more sparkling; heaping together in a page
the flowers which Cicero scatters over a treatise; but still on that very
account more fitted for the purpose of inflicting upon the inquiring
student what Latinity was. Any how, such was its effect upon me; it was
like the ‘Open Sesame’ of the tale; and I quickly found that I had a new
sense, as regards composition, that I understood beyond mistake what a
Latin sentence should be, and saw how an English sentence must be fused
and remoulded in order to make it Latin. Henceforth Cicero, as an artist,
had a meaning, when I read him, which he never had had to me before; the
bad dream of seeking and never finding was over; and, whether I ever wrote
Latin or not, at least I knew what good Latin was.
“I had now learned that good Latinity lies in structure; that every word
of a sentence may be Latin, yet the whole sentence remain English; and
that dictionaries do not teach composition. Exulting in my discovery, I
next proceeded to analyze and to throw into the shape of science that idea
of Latinity to which I had attained. Rules and remarks, such as are
contained in works on composition, had not led me to master the idea; and
now that I really had gained it, it led me to form from it rules and
remarks for myself. I could now turn Cicero to account, and I proceeded to
make his writings the materials of an induction, from which I drew out and
threw into form what I have called a science of Latinity,—with its
principles and peculiarities, their connection and their consequences,—or
at least considerable specimens of such a science, the like of which I
have not happened to see in print. Considering, however, how much has been
done for scholarship since the time I speak of, and especially how many
German books have been translated, I doubt not I should now find my own
poor investigations and discoveries anticipated and superseded by works
which are in the hands of every school-boy. At the same time, I am quite
sure that I gained a very great deal in the way of precision of thought,
delicacy of judgment, and refinement of taste, by the processes of
induction to which I am referring. I kept blank books, in which every
peculiarity in every sentence of Cicero was minutely noted down, as I went
on reading. The force of words, their combination into phrases, their
collocation—the carrying on of one subject or nominative through a
sentence, the breaking up of a sentence into clauses, the evasion of its
categorical form, the resolution of abstract nouns into verbs and
participles;—what is possible in Latin composition and what is not, how to
compensate for want of brevity by elegance, and to secure perspicuity by
the use of figures, these, and a hundred similar points of art, I
illustrated with a diligence which even bordered on subtlety. Cicero
became a mere magazine of instances, and the main use of the river was to
feed the canal. I am unable to say whether these elaborate inductions
would profit any one else, but I have a vivid recollection of the great
utility they were at that time to my own mind.
“The general subject of Latin composition, my dear son, has ever
interested me much, and you see only one point in it has made me speak for
a quarter of an hour; but now that I have had my say about it, what is its
upshot? The great moral I would impress upon you is this, that in learning
to write Latin, as in all learning, you must not trust to books, but only
make use of them; not hang like a dead weight upon your teacher, but catch
some of his life; handle what is given you, not as a formula, but as a
pattern to copy and as a capital to improve; throw your heart and mind
into what you are about, and thus unite the separate advantages of being
tutored and of being self-taught,—self-taught, yet without oddities, and
tutorized, yet without conventionalities.”
“Why, my dear father,” says young Mr. Black, “you speak like a book. You
must let me ask you to write down for me what you have been giving out in
conversation.”
_I_ have had the advantage of the written copy.
§ 4.
General Religious Knowledge.
1.
It has been the custom in the English Universities to introduce religious
instruction into the School of Arts; and a very right custom it is, which
every University may well imitate. I have certainly felt it ought to have
a place in that School; yet the subject is not without its difficulty, and
I intend to say a few words upon it here. That place, if it has one,
should of course be determined on some intelligible principle, which,
while it justifies the introduction of Religion into a secular Faculty,
will preserve it from becoming an intrusion, by fixing the conditions
under which it is to be admitted. There are many who would make over the
subject of Religion to the theologian exclusively; there are others who
allow it almost unlimited extension in the province of Letters. The latter
of these two classes, if not large, at least is serious and earnest; it
seems to consider that the Classics should be superseded by the Scriptures
and the Fathers, and that Theology proper should be taught to the youthful
aspirant for University honours. I am not here concerned with opinions of
this character, which I respect, but cannot follow. Nor am I concerned
with that large class, on the other hand, who, in their exclusion of
Religion from the lecture-rooms of Philosophy and Letters (or of Arts, as
it used to be called), are actuated by scepticism or indifference; but
there are other persons, much to be consulted, who arrive at the same
practical conclusion as the sceptic and unbeliever, from real reverence
and pure zeal for the interests of Theology, which they consider sure to
suffer from the superficial treatment of lay-professors, and the
superficial reception of young minds, as soon as, and in whatever degree,
it is associated with classical, philosophical, and historical
studies;—and as very many persons of great consideration seem to be of
this opinion, I will set down the reasons why I follow the English
tradition instead, and in what sense I follow it.
I might appeal, I conceive, to authority in my favour, but I pass it over,
because mere authority, however sufficient for my own guidance, is not
sufficient for the definite direction of those who have to carry out the
matter of it in practice.
2.
In the first place, then, it is congruous certainly that youths who are
prepared in a Catholic University for the general duties of a secular
life, or for the secular professions, should not leave it without some
knowledge of their religion; and, on the other hand, it does, in matter of
fact, act to the disadvantage of a Christian place of education, in the
world and in the judgment of men of the world, and is a reproach to its
conductors, and even a scandal, if it sends out its pupils accomplished in
all knowledge except Christian knowledge; and hence, even though it were
impossible to rest the introduction of religious teaching into the secular
lecture-room upon any logical principle, the imperative necessity of its
introduction would remain, and the only question would be, what matter was
to be introduced, and how much.
And next, considering that, as the mind is enlarged and cultivated
generally, it is capable, or rather is desirous and has need, of fuller
religious information, it is difficult to maintain that that knowledge of
Christianity which is sufficient for entrance at the University is all
that is incumbent on students who have been submitted to the academical
course. So that we are unavoidably led on to the further question, viz.,
shall we sharpen and refine the youthful intellect, and then leave it to
exercise its new powers upon the most sacred of subjects, as it will, and
with the chance of its exercising them wrongly; or shall we proceed to
feed it with divine truth, as it gains an appetite for knowledge?
Religious teaching, then, is urged upon us in the case of University
students, first, by its evident propriety; secondly, by the force of
public opinion; thirdly, from the great inconveniences of neglecting it.
And, if the subject of Religion is to have a real place in their course of
study, it must enter into the examinations in which that course results;
for nothing will be found to impress and occupy their minds but such
matters as they have to present to their Examiners.
Such, then, are the considerations which actually oblige us to introduce
the subject of Religion into our secular schools, whether it be logical or
not to do so; but next, I think that we can do so without any sacrifice of
principle or of consistency; and this, I trust, will appear, if I proceed
to explain the mode which I should propose to adopt for the purpose:—
I would treat the subject of Religion in the School of Philosophy and
Letters simply as a branch of knowledge. If the University student is
bound to have a knowledge of History generally, he is bound to have
inclusively a knowledge of sacred history as well as profane; if he ought
to be well instructed in Ancient Literature, Biblical Literature comes
under that general description as well as Classical; if he knows the
Philosophy of men, he will not be extravagating from his general subject,
if he cultivate also that Philosophy which is divine. And as a student is
not necessarily superficial, though he has not studied all the classical
poets, or all Aristotle’s philosophy, so he need not be dangerously
superficial, if he has but a parallel knowledge of Religion.
3.
However, it may be said that the risk of theological error is so serious,
and the effects of theological conceit are so mischievous, that it is
better for a youth to know nothing of the sacred subject, than to have a
slender knowledge which he can use freely and recklessly, for the very
reason that it is slender. And here we have the maxim in corroboration: “A
little learning is a dangerous thing.”
This objection is of too anxious a character to be disregarded. I should
answer it thus:—In the first place it is obvious to remark, that one great
portion of the knowledge here advocated is, as I have just said,
historical knowledge, which has little or nothing to do with doctrine. If
a Catholic youth mixes with educated Protestants of his own age, he will
find them conversant with the outlines and the characteristics of sacred
and ecclesiastical history as well as profane: it is desirable that he
should be on a par with them, and able to keep up a conversation with
them. It is desirable, if he has left our University with honours or
prizes, that he should know as well as they about the great primitive
divisions of Christianity, its polity, its luminaries, its acts, and its
fortunes; its great eras, and its course down to this day. He should have
some idea of its propagation, and of the order in which the nations, which
have submitted to it, entered its pale; and of the list of its Fathers,
and of its writers generally, and of the subjects of their works. He
should know who St. Justin Martyr was, and when he lived; what language
St. Ephraim wrote in; on what St. Chrysostom’s literary fame is founded;
who was Celsus, or Ammonius, or Porphyry, or Ulphilas, or Symmachus, or
Theodoric. Who were the Nestorians; what was the religion of the barbarian
nations who took possession of the Roman Empire: who was Eutyches, or
Berengarius, who the Albigenses. He should know something about the
Benedictines, Dominicans, or Franciscans, about the Crusades, and the
chief movers in them. He should be able to say what the Holy See has done
for learning and science; the place which these islands hold in the
literary history of the dark age; what part the Church had, and how her
highest interests fared, in the revival of letters; who Bessarion was, or
Ximenes, or William of Wykeham, or Cardinal Allen. I do not say that we
can insure all this knowledge in every accomplished student who goes from
us, but at least we can admit such knowledge, we can encourage it, in our
lecture-rooms and examination-halls.