CLASSICS OR SCIENCE?

Sun (Christchurch), Volume V, Issue 1339, 29 May 1918, Page 4 (Supplement)

CLASSICS OR SCIENCE?

REPLY TO THE CRITICS. ABE GREEK AND LATIN REALLY DEAD? To the Editor of THE SUN. Sir, —It seems to be the fashion nowadays where two or three are gathered together in the name of Education to pronounce (on the so-railed "dead languages") funeral orations embellished with touching references to departed glories. The requiem of Latin has just been *esung at the Teachers' Conference. In judicial realm, I believe, it is etiquette to hold the inquest and arrange for the obsequies only when satisfactory evidence is forthcoming that the spirit has really tied. Apart from the fact that in other countries (Germany included.) the evidence is in the opposite direction, nnd an increased interest in the Classics is being shown, there are still a fc«c oldfashioned people in New Zealand, who have not yet been convinced of the deadness "of Greek or Latin. The writer is one of these back numbers. Now, we have all heard about flogging dead horses, but you don't find people backing dead horses, even if they do not always pick winners, and backers are usually sure there is some life in the animal before they put the money on. The case in favour of the vitality of the Greek horse, which was buried in effigy at any rate, a few years ago in New Zealand, is a very simple one. The Greek of Homer, and of the great classical age is nearer to modern Greek by far than Chaucer is to our own in point of intelligibility. Result—the Greek fishmonger of' to-day with a primary school education reads in the original the amazing literary heritage of his country with greater case than most University men read-Chaucer, and the Greek classics are two thousand years further away. I have not studied modern Greek myself, but the small knowledge I have of the ancient tongue enabled me to translate a few months ago a modern Greek marine certificate with very little trouble. It is hardly .necessary to point out that as the realms of science and philosophy go on expanding, they constantly draw on Greek for their new terms. These, of course, are mere sepulchral echoes of that speech admittedly the unrivalled instrument for the expression of philosophic thought. On the deadness of Greek let me quote a few words from Professor Burnet's "Higher Education and the War'*—"lt is a strange thing that the only languages which are still living after all these eenturies should be called the ' dead Languages'. . . . Latin and Greek alone and abov* all Greek, seem to be ageless and deathless. It is only because those who use the term have an uncomfortable feeling that they ought to be dead, and are not that they trouble to call them dead. Greek at any rate was never more alive than it is to-day." Professor Bnrnet knows other things than Greek and Latin, amongst them philosophy and German education,; and those who imagine German higher education is saturated with science had better read his book, and they will get the shock of their lives. I come now to the Latin horse to t»t if there is any chance of collecting money on him. I remember a friend of mine now a "wicked"' science professor in Australia telling me that once when he was at the beginning of a cycle tour in Italy, he came to a point where the read forked and uncertain which arm to take he asked an ItaliA road-mender his direction by means of signs, and hy naniiug his destination. *He receive! the instruction, "Sempre continuare, signor,'' which the veriest tyro in Latin would recognise for ?*Keep straight on, sir." To the amazement of his »uide h>- burst oflft laughing, for not lacking a sense of humour he realised that the "dead" language that had been pumred into him at school had come to life again most unexpectedly and in a very practical shape. Expressing his thanks, he rode on, saying to himself, "I shall* get on finely if thev s]»eak Latin like that."

Thanks to the same dead language an«l Dent's "Temple Classics" edition of "Dante," ami with some help from Dr Carlyle's version on the right-Jiand paj,e, I have been able to appreciate much of this sublime poet in the original, and also to make some progress with modern Italian without having recourse to systematic grammatical stud} - or other aid than the dictionary. I sometimes amuse myself by trying to make out by the aid of Latin the advertisements on Colgate's shaving soap and certain patent medicines printed in Spanish and Portuguese, - and I have come to the conclusion that I should not have much trouble in learning either of those tongues, while I am quite sure that the ease with which I learned French was due to my knowledge of Latin. However, so far from being influenced by the rising popularity of French. I shout 1 advocate a boy's beginning with Latin and then passing on to Italian for his modern language, and if he wanted another, he would find French, after Latin and Italian had supplied his vocabulary, a mere bagetelle. The sto<-k arguments on the value of Latin as forming with Greek the foundation of Western culture, as being a powerful aid to the study of the mother tongue (which is simply undeniable) and as a means of mental discipline, I mention only to pass bv. In referenda to the last point. I might add for the benefit of those who imagine that the doctrine of formal training is fighting a losing battle in the last ditch, as I have seen it expressed, that a perusal of the chapter on "Humanism" in Burnet's hook might cause them to modify that view consMerably. Professor Baur, a Vienna scientist, is quoted as saying: "Give me a boy who knows his Latin grammar and I will answer for his chemistry." bet the scientific bigot? lirood over that. One of our greatest "nglish scientists has aNo confessed that la- owed a great deal to the systematic fashion in whjph he was taken through Jelf's "Creek Grammar" at college. Now, I do .not hold that either classics or science has the secret of the elixir of life, but I cannot for the life of tne see that a strong enough case has been made out for scratching thp Greek and Latin horses and advancing thn science horse halfway up the straight fur ;, great concourse to collect a lean dividend at the finish. Abandoning my frivolous metaphor. 1 say with Mr Be van Brown that we cannot afford to go on incontinently jettisoning things of spiritual import so that we may th>.' better lav up the treasures that moth ami dust do corrupt and where thieves break through and steal.—l am. etc.. S. R. DICKIXSOX. St. Andrew's College. May 27.