LATIN AS A LIVING LANGUAGE

Evening Star, Issue 18806, 3 December 1924, Page 5

LATIN AS A LIVING LANGUAGE

WHERE IT IS USED IN LONDON. In his address to Convocation a few weeks ago the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University (Mr Joseph Wells, Warden of Wadha-m) reverted to the custom of speaking in Latin, which had been disused for seven years. The last Vice-Chancellor to address Convocation in Latin was Dr Blakiston. president of Trinity. Latin is not, quite so dead a. language in this country as it. might be supposed to be. Isays the London ‘Observer’), Hundreds of thousands of Unman Catholics, of course, hear it daily nr weekly in their churches and educational institutions. By the Act of Uniformity of 1662, Eton, Winchester, and Westminster were allowed to use it in their public services, and to (his day Westminster has Latin prayers every day at the end of school, and every third year it has an evening sendee wholly in Latin in the Abbey—the next will be on November 17, 1925—in honor of its benefactors. At this sendee not only are the prayers, the Psalms, and the hymns in Latin, but. the head master rends nut in the ancient language the long list of benefactors.

At Oxford all university business is, as a rule, transacted in Latin, to the astonishment of many visitors, particularly from America. Dr Faniell, Mr Wells’s predecessor, favored English for his Convocation address, as did Dr Strong, the present Bishop of Ripnn and Vice-Chancellor, when Dean of Christ Church.

At Cambridge, Inn, Latin is recognised ns (he official university language; and when another seat of learning celebrates a centenary, or the scientific men of Paris do homage to Pasteur, nr the Rockefeller Institute confers some new benefaction upon mankind, the address of the University of Cambridge is always in Latin, written hy the Public. Orator. On the other hand, when the university addresses the Royal Family of Britain, the tradition is (hat it shall be in English.