So much has been written on the advantages and disadvantages of
studying these languages, and such a diversity of opinions prevails on
the mode of teaching them, among those who are in favor of the study,
that little of novelty can be adduced on this mooted subject; and a
writer can scarcely expect to find readers at all disposed to favor
his lucubrations with a perusal, or, if they condescend to peruse,
they will rarely come to the task with unprejudiced minds. This is
very discouraging, and might well forbid any but a bold writer from
entering the arena. The importance of the subject induces me, however,
to venture. If I fail of producing conviction, I shall only share the
same fate as numbers who have preceded me.
One among the discouragements to the discussion, is the unfair means
employed by the friends of the prevailing system, to decry their
antagonists—whom they represent as ignoramuses, incapable of
appreciating the value of the classics, and therefore, like the fox in
the fable, depreciating what they have not attained, and cannot
attain. It requires some courage to incur the risque, indeed the
certainty, of being classed in the category of idiots or fools.
{558} To enable us to judge correctly of any system, it is necessary
to be able to form a correct idea of its objects, and the means
adopted to attain them. These two points I shall touch as briefly as
possible.
The objects of the system of education, pursued in our academies,
colleges, and universities, so far as classical learning is concerned,
are, 1. To acquire a knowledge of the Latin and Greek languages so as
to be able not only to read and understand them correctly, but to
write and speak them. 2. To relish their beauties. 3. To be incited by
emulation to imitate the noble examples scattered through the
histories of Greece and Rome; and, 4. To instil into the minds of
youth the sublime principles of morality to be found in their poets.
Having these objects clearly presented to the mind's eye, it remains
to investigate the means employed to attain them, and to ascertain
whether there is a due proportion between the means and the end, and
whether the end, in all its amplifications, is worthy of the means
employed for its attainment. To simplify the subject, I shall, for the
present, confine myself to the Latin language. The reasoning will
apply, with at least equal force, to the Greek. Let it be observed
that I chiefly refer to the cases of young men intended for active
business, to which they are generally devoted, from the age of fifteen
or sixteen. The reasoning is, in a great degree, inapplicable to those
destined for the learned professions.
Lads usually commence learning the Latin at seven, eight, or nine
years of age. But to afford the friends of the system the fairest
chance in the argument, I will date from nine—and suppose them to
enter college at fourteen. The chief portion of the valuable period
between those ages, is spent in the dry, irksome, and revolting task
of learning the grammar; and if translations of the authors studied,
be excluded, as is the case in many schools, they are engaged for
tedious hours in hunting in dictionaries for the meaning of the words
in the books they are studying, and, when they find, as they
frequently do, ten or a dozen meanings to one word, in deciding on the
most appropriate one for their purpose. It is difficult to conceive of
a more irksome or vexatious employment, especially for the lively,
jocund, and merry-hearted lads on whom this penance is imposed.
When the term of probation at school is completed, the lads are
transferred to a larger scene of action—a college—where they are
destined to remain four or five years more, of which term probably a
third part is consumed in the study of the two languages in question;
thus making on a fair computation, four or five years employed in
learning languages of which little use is made in after life.
To facilitate the judgment on this system, I will venture to assume as
postulates,
1. That the advantages of the acquirement of a foreign language may be
considered under three points of view—the capacity of correctly
reading—of writing—or of speaking it.
2. That not one, in one thousand of our citizens, ever has occasion to
write or speak Latin.
3. That not above one in a hundred of those who learn Latin in this
country, is capable, were it necessary, of correctly writing or
conversing in that language.
4. That lads of moderate capacity and no very extraordinary
application, frequently acquire the French language in twelve or
eighteen months, so as to be able not merely to read it
understandingly, but to comprehend it when spoken, and to make
themselves tolerably well understood in conversation.
5. That sometimes in addition they acquire the Spanish within that
period.
6. That the Latin language is not more difficult than the
French—indeed I believe not so difficult. On this point I shall rely
on the opinion given, and the fact stated, by Locke, to be offered in
the sequel.
7. That the French being attainable in twelve or eighteen months, and
the Latin not being more difficult, it follows that it is an error to
consume three, four, five, or six years in the attainment of the
latter.
8. That in the common intercourse of life, which “comes home to the
business and bosoms of men,” the French is more useful than the Latin,
Greek, Hebrew, and Arabic.
9. That except to the members of the learned professions, and men of
leisure and curiosity, the learned languages, to the mass of mankind,
are of no use whatever beyond the ability to understand authors, and
quotations from them, in those languages.
10. That, therefore, for lads intended for trades or business, all the
time bestowed on learning Latin, beyond the capacity to read and
understand it, is literally thrown away.
Some of these assumptions may be questioned, and, perhaps, are
questionable, without materially affecting the proposed plan. Be this,
however, as it may, I shall fortify myself with such an array of
authorities, as, if it do not convince the reader of the soundness of
the doctrines here advocated, will shield me from the charge of
empiricism for advancing them.
“_How many years of life are spent in learning Latin? How much labor,
pain and imprisonment, are endured by the boy? How much anxious
drudgery by the master? How much disgust of literature is engendered?_
How many habits are formed of reluctance to regular employment? In
short, how much misery has been produced, is being produced, and will
continue to be produced, in teaching the Latin language? This appears
to us to be a very important question, and will, we think, appear so
to our readers, after a little consideration.
“We sometimes figure to ourselves an inhabitant of another world
coming among us, and examining with an unprejudiced eye the _value_ of
our pursuits. If this idle speculation could be realized, who, we
should be glad to know, would be Quixotic enough to undertake a
defence of the usual course of instruction in Latin? Nobody,
certainly. For, in the first place, not two boys out of three who
follow it, ever become able _to read even the easier classic authors
with fluency_. Of these, perhaps one half, from the painful
associations which they have attached to Latin books, never open one
after they leave school. If we add to the account, as Rousseau would,
the numbers who die during the schoolboy age, we shall find the list
of those who use the knowledge, gained with so much pain to master and
scholar, dwindle into a very small one.”—_Essay on Public Education,
p. 12. London, 1822._
“I object to the practice of sending, almost indiscriminately, every
male child, whose parents are above the laboring class of the people,
to undergo the painful {559} drudgery of committing to memory the
rules of a Latin Grammar, and _to sacrifice four of the years of his
existence to a pursuit which is ultimately to be of no service to
him_.”—_Russel's View of the Scotch System of Education, p. 85._
“Does it savor of our characteristic sagacity to send almost every boy
of a certain age, to a grammar school, to learn the elements of Latin,
and afterwards to enter him to business, with no other qualifications
for it than those which he may have derived from a partial and
ill-directed attention to writing and accounts?”—_Idem, p. 79._
“Many children are whipped into Latin, and made to spend many of their
precious hours uneasily on it, who, after they are once gone from
school, are never to have more to do with it as long as they live. Can
there be any thing more ridiculous, than that a father should waste
his own money, and his son's time, in setting him to learn the Roman
language, when at the same time he designs him for a trade, wherein
he, having no use of Latin, fails not to forget that little which he
brought from school, and which it is ten to one he abhors, from the
ill usage it procured him? Could it be believed, unless we had every
where amongst us examples of it, that a child should be forced to
learn the rudiments of a language, which he is never to use in the
course of life that he is designed for, and neglect all the while,”
&c.—_Locke on Education, p. 289._
“The themes are written in Latin, a language foreign to their country,
and long since dead every where—a language which your son, 'tis a
thousand to one, shall never have occasion to make a speech in, as
long as he lives, after he comes to be a man—a language, wherein the
manner of expressing one's self is so far different from ours, that to
be perfect in that would very little improve the purity and facility
of his English style.”—_Idem, p. 308._
“A young Englishman goes to school at six or seven years old; and
remains in a course of education till twenty-three or twenty-four
years of age. _In all this time his sole and exclusive occupation is
learning Latin and Greek;_ he has scarcely a notion that there is any
other kind of excellence, unless he goes to the University of
Cambridge, and then _classical studies occupy him about ten years_,
and divide him with mathematics for four or five more.”—_Edinburgh
Review, Vol. XV. p. 45._
In a letter prefixed to the Port Royal Latin Grammar, is the following
complaint. “The grammar which is in use in all our schools, has been,
it is true, compiled by a learned man—but is so prolix, that _boys can
scarcely learn it in four years_.”
The friends of classical learning in Great Britain assume, that the
illustrious men whose education has been completed at either of the
universities, and who reflect honor on the nation, have owed their
celebrity and the development of their talents to those great
establishments. The Edinburgh Review repudiates this idea as destitute
of truth.
“It is in vain to say we have produced great men _under this system_.
We have produced great men under all systems. _Every Englishman must
pass half his life in learning Latin and Greek—and classical learning
is supposed to have produced the talents_, WHICH IT HAS NOT BEEN ABLE
TO EXTINGUISH.”—_Edinburgh Review, No. XXIX, p. 50._
Having offered some of the arguments against the prevailing system of
classical education, it is but fair to exhibit some of those of its
advocates.
“I believe I may say, though not without danger of offending the
conductors of English academies, that _no man who does not understand
Latin, can understand English!_”—_Knox on Education, p. 82._
“Latin themes, Latin declamations and Latin lectures are constantly
required of academical students.”—_Idem, p. 78._
“Another argument in favor of the Latin exercises in our seminaries,
is, that _it has a natural tendency to improve the student in English
composition_.”—_Idem, p. 79._
“To write Latin in youth is an excellent preparation for that
vernacular composition which some of the professions require.”—_Idem,
p. 79._
“As soon as the grammar is perfectly learned by heart, [_perfectly
learned by heart!!_] I advise that the practice of our ancient schools
should be universally adopted—and that passages of the best classics,
construed as a lesson in the day, should be given as a task to be
learned memoriter at night.”—_Idem, p. 101._
“I recommend that the scholar's week shall be thus employed: Monday
evening, in Latin themes; Tuesday evening, in Latin verse; Wednesday
evening, in English or Latin letters; Thursday evening, in English
verse; Friday evening, in Latin verse, or in translating English into
Latin; and the interval, from Saturday to Monday, in a Latin or an
English theme.”—_Idem, p. 59._
This is the “_toujours perdrix, toujours perdrix_” of the king of
France.
“The exercise of mind, and the strength of mind acquired in
consequence of that exercise, are some of the most valuable effects of
a strict, a long, and a laborious study of the grammar, at the puerile
age.”—_Idem, p. 46._
“Exercises in Latin verse, and in Latin prose, are usual in our best
schools, and at the university. They are attended with very desirable
effects, and pave the way for improvement in every kind of vernacular
composition.”—_Idem, p. 99._
“A boy will be able to _repeat his Latin grammar over_ two or three
years before his understanding is open enough to let him into the
reason of the rules; and when this is done, sooner or later it ceases
to be jargon, so that all this clamor is wrong-founded—and therefore I
am for the old way in schools, since children _will be supplied with a
stock of words, at least, when they come to know how to use
them_.”—_Felton._
Muretus, a name of considerable celebrity in his day, goes far beyond
all the other advocates of classical education. He appears to believe
that every thing good or great, in art or science, depends on a
thorough knowledge of the Greek. It is observable that Vicesimus Knox
quotes him as one of his authorities.
“In the first place I would inform the gentlemen who have conceived a
dislike to Greek, that all elegant learning, all knowledge worthy the
pursuit of a liberal man, in a word, _whatever there is of the politer
parts of literature is contained in no other books than those of the
Greeks!!!_”—Muretus, quoted by Knox, p. 109.
“I may venture to predict, that if our countrymen should go on a
little longer in the neglect of the Greek, _inevitable destruction
awaits all valuable arts!_”—_Idem, p. 140._
{560} The system of classical education at present in use, has by no
means improved with the general improvement of society. Classical
studies occupy nearly as much of the invaluable time of a student, as
they did two hundred years ago, when the Latin language was, if not
the sole, at least the chief medium of communication between the
literati throughout Christendom. At that period, it was nearly as
necessary to study that language as it is now to study the vernacular
tongue.
Again. Within that period, knowledge, of various kinds, has greatly
expanded. Branches are now cultivated extensively that were only
superficially attended to at that period. Political economy and
politics are among these, as are chemistry, botany, and mineralogy.
Geology may be almost said to be a new science altogether, as all that
was then known of it, compared with its present state, is only as the
Hill of Howth to Mount Caucasus. While such an extension of human
knowledge has taken place, requiring long periods of devotion to new
studies, ought not such portions of the old system as require, and
will admit of, pruning, to experience a salutary curtailment?
I proceed to show how two of the great advantages of a classical
education, stated in the fifth paragraph of this essay, (No. 3. and
4.) may be secured by this system to at least as great an extent as by
the prevailing one; that is, No. 3, the familiarity with the
illustrious examples of patriotism, public spirit, magnanimity,
bravery, generosity, and other virtues, to be found scattered through
the Grecian and Roman histories—the effect of which, on the youthful
mind, has always proved eminently beneficial, and led to some of the
most noble efforts of the elite of mankind; and No. 4, the impressing
on the minds of the students the sublime moral lessons to be found in
their poets.
If the question at issue were, whether we were to give up those
advantages, of to give up the present system of classical education,
the decision might be attended with some difficulty. But, fortunately,
that is not the alternative. The system need not be absolutely
abandoned in order to remove the solid objections to it, and to secure
all its advantages. It only requires to be modified and rendered more
conformable with the present state of society, the extension of human
knowledge, and the wants of the students. It is merely proposed to
circumscribe that study to the all-important capacity to read those
languages with facility and correctness—in a word, to prune off, as
worthless for the present purposes of society, those portions of the
study which appear to demand a capacity to speak and write them—a
capacity which is never required, and never employed, by above one man
in five thousand of the inhabitants of the British dominions and of
this country. The case is different with some of the inhabitants of
the Continent of Europe. “But that is none of our concern.”
The major part, perhaps I might say nearly the whole, of the heroic
deeds, which shed such a glorious lustre on the Grecian and Roman
histories, are most judiciously collected in the “_Selectæ e
profanis_,” one of the best books ever produced by human industry,
compiled with nice tact and discrimination. They are accompanied by
applications and moral reflections calculated to make a deep and
lasting impression on the minds of the young. I think I risque but
little in stating an opinion, that thus concentrated and enforced,
they are likely to produce more powerful and lasting effects than when
scattered through the original histories, where a large portion of
them never meets the eye of a student.
It is greatly to be regretted that this admirable book, calculated as
it is to produce the most salutary consequences on society, has
through the prurient desire of novelty, been injudiciously excluded
from many schools, and has given way to substitutes incomparably
inferior.
The fourth advantage is impressing on the minds of youth the splendid
moral maxims to be found in the Latin poets. No man can have a higher
opinion of the excellence of those effusions than I have. But though I
believe their intrinsic value cannot easily be overrated, yet, I am
persuaded, their amount is. Horace has more of those than any other
Latin author—yet in a judicious selection of the ethics of this poet
and others, it appears that he has only three hundred and seventeen
lines of that character, a great part of which, and of those of other
Latin poets, are introduced into the Latin primer to illustrate the
rules of the grammar.
One of the advantages of the proposed system, and by no means an
inconsiderable one, assuming that to read the Latin language may be
acquired in twelve or eighteen months, would be, that the door of that
language might be advantageously opened to nearly all the lads in our
public schools, possessed of talent and application, and without
interfering with their other studies. Thus, instead of circumscribing
the acquisition of that language, it would be immensely extended—and
being learned when the memory was strong, would greatly facilitate at
a future day the acquisition of the French, Spanish, and Italian,
which have borrowed so largely from the Latin.
Young men intended for the learned professions, after acquiring the
Latin on this plan, would find the study of the grammar incomparably
easier than on the existing system, and probably make more progress in
it, in one year, when its extreme irksomeness would be done away, than
on the present system in two or three.
It now remains to state what substitute is proposed for, or rather
what modification of, the system at present universally prevalent.
Of the grammar, to which so much time and mental labor are now
devoted, nearly all that is necessary to be studied on the proposed
plan, is the declensions of nouns and conjugations of verbs, which can
be committed to memory in a week or two. And the study of Clarke's
Cordery, Æsop's Fables, and Erasmus, with literal translations, and
afterwards Clarke's Justin and Mair's Cæsar should proceed regularly.
When these works, or such parts of each as may be judged necessary,
are carefully studied, the student will have acquired a sufficient
supply of words to enable him, with slight occasional aid from a
dictionary, to read understandingly the higher authors. The very day
on which a lad commences with the declensions and conjugations,
Cordery may be put into his hands, which will be a relief from the
task of committing them to memory.
There is an objection zealously enforced by men of great weight,
against the use of translations, that they encourage idleness and
indolence in the student, by the facility they afford, of attaining
his task; whereas they say that explanations sought in a Dictionary,
make an indelible impression on the mind.
This objection was fully obviated a century since, by {561} John
Clarke, who translated a number of the lower Latin school books. He
advises, when a translation is allowed, to double the number of lines
that is regarded as a task without a translation. His reasoning on the
subject is irrefutable—and further, that the student be obliged, not
merely to translate the Latin into English, but the latter into the
former, and, if necessary, twice over. This will as effectually fix
the meaning in his mind as if he had spent his precious time in poring
over a Dictionary.
On the subject of the extreme facility of learning Latin, the
testimony of Locke is conclusive.
“Whatever stir there is made about Latin, as the great and difficult
business, his mother may teach it him herself, if she will but spend
two or three hours in a day with him, and make him read the
Evangelists in Latin to her: for she need but buy a Latin Testament,
and having got somebody to mark the last syllable but one, where it is
long, in words above two syllables (which is enough to regulate her
pronunciation and accenting the words) read daily in the Gospels, and
then let her avoid understanding them in Latin if she can. And when
she understands the Evangelists in Latin, let her, in the same manner,
read Æsop's Fables, and so proceed on to Eutropius, Justin, and other
such books. _I do not mention this, as an imagination of what I fancy
may do, but as of a thing I have known done, and the Latin tongue with
ease got in this way._”—_Locke, p. 319._
Philadelphia, August, 1836.
P. S. May I not assume that the knowledge of Greek and Latin, acquired
by lads in Grammar schools, before they go to college, is superficial
and of little use in after life? If this be granted, as I presume it
will, it follows as the whole number of students in all the colleges
in the United States is only about five thousand;[1] that the time
devoted to those languages, by all the other scholars, who never enter
a college, might be much better employed.
[Footnote 1: See American Almanack for 1836, p. 11.]