A LATIN EXERCISE.
IT was five minutes of nine when Allen Barclay, accompanied by Walter,
approached the schoolhouse. It was a plain wooden building of two
stories, painted white. Beside it was a good-sized playground, on which
from a dozen to twenty boys were engaged in a game of ball. As Walter
saw the ball flying across the field, impelled by a hard knock from the
bat, he felt a strong impulse to join in the game. When a student at the
Essex Institute he had played ball a good deal, and was considered quite
a superior player. But since his departure he had not joined in a game.
Now as he witnessed the game of the Portville boys, he wished himself
again a scholar, and a sharer in their fun.
“Do you ever play ball, Mr. Barclay?” he asked.
“No; the physician has forbidden all violent exercise as likely
injurious to my health. It increases my cough. For that matter, however,
I don’t think I should play if I were able. I tried it sometimes as a
boy, but I never succeeded very well. Do you play?”
“I used to play considerably, but for several months I have not touched
a bat.”
“There’s the master,” called out one of the players.
“Give me another ball,” said the boy at the bat. “The bell won’t ring
just yet.”
So the game continued.
Among those who were watching the game, Walter noticed John Wall. John
was more carefully dressed than any of the other boys, many of whom had
taken off their coats, and were playing in their shirt sleeves.
“That is John Wall, isn’t it?” asked Walter. “Does he play ball?”
“Not often. He isn’t much of a player. Besides, he doesn’t like to run
the risk of soiling his clothes. He is something of a dandy.”
“So I should think. He wore kid gloves the other day in the rain.”
“He is partial to kid gloves. He thinks they distinguish him as the son
of a gentleman from his more plebeian companions. But come in, Mr.
Howard.”
Walter followed the teacher into the schoolroom. It was about forty feet
by fifty in size, and well supplied with desks. The girls sat upon one
side, the boys on the other. Some were already in their seats, while
others were grouped near the teacher’s desk. They separated on the
entrance of Allen Barclay, and repaired to their seats, not without
curious glances at Walter.
There was a larger desk for the teacher, with a chair drawn up behind
it. There was another chair in the room, which the teacher drew up near
his own.
“That is the company chair, Mr. Howard,” said he, smiling. “Will you
occupy it?”
“Thank you,” said Walter.
All his associations with schools were in the character of a scholar,
and he felt a little out of place. It seemed to him that he ought to be
seated at one of the desks.
“Julius, will you ring the bell?” said Mr. Barclay.
A boy of twelve advanced to the teacher’s desk, and took from his hand a
large bell, with which he went out into the entry and rang with
emphasis, as if he enjoyed it. Soon, in answer to the sonorous summons,
came trooping in the boys from the playground, flushed with exercise,
some of them drawing on their coats as they walked to their desks. John
Wall alone looked as if he were fresh from a bandbox, his hair plastered
down with pomatum, and his clothes innocent of dust or wrinkle.
“If he cared less for his appearance he would have a good deal more
fun,” thought Walter, judging from a boy’s standpoint.
At last all were in their seats. After the preliminary exercises, the
recitations commenced. The first were in arithmetic. Walter listened
attentively to the recitations of the different classes, and concluded
that he would have no difficulty in instructing any of them. The
mathematical teacher at the Essex Institute was well fitted for his
duties, and had a remarkably clear and simple way of explaining the
leading principles of arithmetic. Allen Barclay, as Walter quickly
perceived, was deficient in the art of teaching. He did not know how to
explain difficulties in a plain, simple way. Walter felt desirous more
than once of coming to his assistance, but of course could not do so.
“I believe I should like to teach,” he thought to himself. “It must be
interesting.”
At last the classes in arithmetic finished their recitations.
“You will now have a chance to hear John Wall recite,” said the teacher,
in a low voice. Walter’s interest was at once enlisted, partly because
he was fond of Latin, and partly because he knew something already of
John, and wished to see how he would acquit himself.
“The class in Cæsar,” said the teacher.
John rose slowly from his seat, and, book in hand, advanced pompously to
the bench occupied by classes reciting. There was no other scholar so
far advanced in Latin, and he looked down from his superior place of
knowledge with calm contempt upon his fellow-pupils. His manner, as he
advanced to recite, seemed to say, “Look at me! I am going to recite in
Cæsar! I am a long way ahead of everybody else in school. They can’t any
of them hold a candle to me.”
“Where does your lesson commence, Mr. Wall?” asked the teacher.
“At the beginning of the second book.”
“Very well. You may read and translate.”
John read the first line as follows, pronouncing according to a method
of his own, _Cum esset Cæsar in citeriore Gallia in hibernis_, and
furnished the following translation:
“He might be with Cæsar in hither Gaul in the winter.”
“I don’t think that is quite correct, Mr. Wall,” said the teacher.
“It makes good sense,” said John, pertly.
“It doesn’t make the right sense. _Cum_ is not a preposition, and if it
were it could not govern _Cæsar_ in the nominative case.”
“I don’t see what else you can make of it.”
“It is a conjunction, and means ‘when,’ ‘Cæsar’ being the subject of the
sentence. Then there is another mistake. _Hibernis_ means
winter-quarters, not winter. The clause is to be translated, ‘When Cæsar
was in winter-quarters in hither Gaul.’ Proceed.”
“_Ita uti supra demonstravimus_,” continued John; “so have we shown to
be used above.”
“Do you think that makes good sense, Mr. Wall?”
“I didn’t quite understand it,” John condescended to acknowledge.
“_Uti_,” explained the teacher, “is not from the verb _utor_, as you
appear to have taken it, and, if it were, could not be translated
passively. It means ‘as’ here. Translate, ‘just as we have shown
above.’”
John continued: “_Crebri ad eum rumores afferebantur_--frequent persons
brought rumors to him.”
“I am afraid, Mr. Wall, I must correct you again,” said the teacher.
“_Crebri_ agrees with _rumores_, and the verb is passive. How, then,
will you translate the clause?”
“Frequent rumors were brought to him,” answered John, correctly, for a
wonder.
“_Literisque item Labieni certior fiebat_--and letters made the same
Labienus more sure.”
“No less than four mistakes, Mr. Wall. I hardly know where to begin to
correct you. What part of speech is _item_?”
“A pronoun.”
“What does it mean?”
“The same.”
“Will you decline it?”
“_Item--eatum--item._”
“You need not go on. You have mistaken the word for _idem_. It means
‘likewise.’ Is _literis_ nominative?”
“No, sir; it is dative.”
“It is ablative, and _fiebat_ cannot be rendered actively. Without
specifying all the mistakes, I will translate for you, ‘and likewise was
informed by the letters of Labienus,’ _Certior fiebat_ means, literally,
‘was made more certain;’ but we cannot always translate literally.”
It would be tedious to follow John through his blundering recitation. He
made fewer mistakes in the passages that succeeded, but it was easy to
see that he knew very little Latin. His lesson comprised the whole of
the first section, and was on the whole the worst recitation to which
Walter had ever listened. He could not help thinking that Mr. Barclay
made a mistake in merely correcting the errors, without adding
directions by which a repetition of them might be avoided; and he
resolved, if John should become his pupil, to drill him thoroughly in
the elementary principles of the language.
“What do you think of that recitation?” asked the teacher, in a low
voice, as John took his seat.
“Very poor,” answered Walter.
“I am afraid he will never make a Latin scholar. I will now call up the
other class in Latin.”
This was a class of beginners, and acquitted itself much more creditably
than the student in Cæsar. It might be supposed that John would have
been mortified by his mistakes; but it was enough for him that he could
report himself as studying Cæsar, and he appeared to think it of no
importance how he got along.
Other classes succeeded, and the session at length ended.
“Well, Mr. Howard,” said Mr. Barclay, as they were returning homeward,
“do you think you would like to take the school?”
“I will take it if the trustees will accept me,” said Walter, promptly.
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