UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXII, Issue 7414, 3 December 1884, Page 5

UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONS.

TO THE EDITOR. j Sib,—lam sorry that my strictures cu ° X’s ” letter should hare been an occasion for reiterating his remark, “ truth is so true.” 1 suppose that in hia ease, also, it loses nothing by repetition—a maxim of very benignant operation. “ X ” is ovi- i dently an enthusiast for the conservation 1 of truth, especially if it bo in connection with i University examinations in French, and 1 newspaper letters of ancient date are i fondly cherished and used by him, though ] without the ordinary acknowledgment of i quotation marks. He has no care, however, i for the truth of an age gone by j the thir- 1 leenth century to him is dead, having no i nteseat, either from a literary or philo- » lophioal point of view. Ho is content to * |udge of it from the pages of Dmogeokaud « gan lauu j just as a beginner in science i trill take his notion of a zoophyte 1 rom descriptions in a text book. Were 1 u> to pursue hia argument to a logical con- s dusion, his next letter might be for the w iholition of the classics. Grote for Greece, I md Niebuhr and Mommsen for Rome, t mve given all that is needful to know, t IVhy waste time on the early Greek epic c mU or the first play-writers of the 1 [tomans ? Is the inherent truth in them j «urth the effort of mastering the obscuri- a mu of their language ? Surely not on e 4 X’s ” principles. Euough for him if some I [Wmogeot analyse them, or, rather, dub o hem •‘monotonoua'* or •• diffuse. ’ b He will not see that the only plea for the c -xiatence of Universities is the encourage- h neutof original research in literature, as v n science and philosophy. To the busy v nan of the world, who Ims to do more with r tidgers and the ’Change than with books, c :ho reading of manutUs and second-hand h mthoritico is of great value, indeed, all t hat is iKMsible j hut to the student it u h mly » uuans to an end. What boots it to t mow discussions on the genuineness of f vorka usually ascribed to Chaucer, if we ii mver read the " Canterbury Tales?” a Phis tendency. Sir, to shirk all that is not v my, or all that does not come up to our e iwn wsthetio standards, would make the s ,03t for us a veritable age of darkness. o But I deny that there is no intrinsic t

■ .1 interest ia the chansons and stories of vl venture which form the bulk of French literature in the 13th century. The Roman ' »’• la Itewe, or the Roman du Renart, may »eem extremely tedious and inartistic to the uiereeaaiy reader ; no are judicial and political records, and statistics of trade, hut ho would he bold indeed who should deny that these have a great and permanent value. Twenty-two thousand lines of amatory and satirical poetry may not have the fascination of a modem novel; hut they furnish to the scientific historian and student of literature » complete and trustworthy picture of medieval life and thought in If ranee. They do for France, in fact, what I .an gland <md Chaucer did for England in the fourteenth century ; they have photographed, better than any other work of the tune, the religious, scientific and social features of the day. 1 here U another side to the argument, however. If wc would know anything of tne Ueveloprn.nl of o„ r o* n, or of French, literature, then this Roman de la Roue bereS*-’* !,il j»'<rtance. With Dante, l emreb and IV«t«do, Gnillaome de Lorrw and T-an de Meung stand at the very source of modem poetry. The French chaiuonnicrs and epic writers furnished to the quickened spirit* of the Renaissance much material for unagination and a groundwork for art. Our own Chancer or someone who wrote like him, began'by translating the greater part of t h„ Homan de la Bose; and the story, with its allegorical machinery, has interwoven itaelf inextricably into modern literature, and imagination is not wonting, nor the love of beauty, nor a wide and varied human interest; in support of which w« may quote the words of Taine in hi* Uittvim 4« in HlUralure Anglaiu: "Chancer tmdait d’abord le grand magnate de galanterie, le Raman <U la Rom. Nul passe-temp* plus joli ; ii s'agit d'une rose quo i’amant vent cuciilir, on devine biea laqnello; lev peintures du moia de mai, dee bosquets, de ia terra pareo. des Laies rcverelies, foraonnent et fleuronneat. Put* vieaueat lea fntralte de» domes riantes, Kichesae, ranchise, Gaietc, &c.; par coniraste, cenx dcs personnagea tristea. Danger, Travail, tons abondanta, mlnutieux, avec le detail dcs traits, des vrtemente, das gestea j on a'y promine comma le long d'une tapire serie, parmi dea pay sages, des danse*. des chateaux, entre des groupes d’ailegories, toutea en vivos coulenr chatoyantea, toutes claimed, opposces, tecesaamment renooveleea et varices pour le plaisir dea yenx.” It would be very easy by quotations from French critiques to show the great importance of a period of literature of which the Roman de la Hast! ia the type and monument; nor has the excellent criticism of Van Laun anything to the contrary. At the risk of appearing tedious, I mast protest once more against the too common criticism that would confine the reading of University students to what are usually called the classical authors. The popular cry is read what is good and beautiful; but the cry, though plausible enough at first sight, is absurd in the extreme, when applied to the study of literature. One object of literature is to educate taste, that is, to give the power of appreciating beauty. Bat this can come only by patient study of the growth of art, and art criticism. All ages have bad their standard of taste, and from these we have evolved our own conception of the beautiful; but to define it intelligently, each most know in some measure what his ancestors have thought and written on the subject, what things they regarded as beautiful. ‘Thus, whatever can throw light on the past, is of interest to the truthful student of literature. It would be more than useless to try to prove to “ X ” that “ niceties of language," which are the same as “ idioms,” have their explanation by philology, and only by philology. A boy can remember "idioms" as a parrot can, and can repeat them parrot-wise, without asking the why or wherefore; but a man remembers, because his mind baa found an intelligent explanation. Philology is not merely the derivation of words, as your correspondent somewhat crudely puts it; for, “in philology/’ as one has well said, “ we seek principles to explain the habits of speech.” Thus, if the acquisition of languages is to be an intellectual training, philology must play a very prominent part; and, I think. Sir, that I am justified in saying that the study of languages in Universities should go a stage farther than the tricks of rote and memory, and should require all the intelligence of the student. I must apologise for the length of this letter. It will be my last contribution to a subject which is interesting, apart from the present controversy.—l am, &c., A GRADUATE OP N.Z. UNIVERSITY.