Volume 1

Universities and their sons : history, influence and characteristics of American universities, with biographical sketches and portraits of alumni and recipients of honorary degrees / editor-in-chief, General Joshua L. Chamberlain ; introduction by W.T. Harris.

Date:
1898-1900
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Universities and their sons : history, influence and characteristics of American universities, with biographical sketches and portraits of alumni and recipients of honorary degrees / editor-in-chief, General Joshua L. Chamberlain ; introduction by W.T. Harris. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    32/774 (page 12)
    WHY LATIN AND GREEK ARE STUDIED But what is noteworthy in regard to the course of study for the higher education is the place occupied by the classic languages, Latin and Greek. Inasmuch as these are dead languages and not useful for oral communication in any part of the world, it would naturally be thought that a knowledge of them would have little practical value. Further, when we learn that the great works in these languages are all accessible in the various modern tongues of Europe, there would seem to be no excuse for retaining them in the course of study for higher education. One would adopt the word of Mr. Adams and call them “ college fetiches.” In the Middle Ages, it is true, the Latin was the language of learning and was the only language used at an institution of higher education. Moreover all learned people wrote their books in Latin. It was a matter of necessity that a student in higher education should begin his course of study by learning to read, speak and write the Latin ; but this condition exists no longer, very few books are now written in Latin and few colleges or universities conduct their class exercises in Latin. Notwithstanding all this it remains a fact that the higher education of all modern civilized nations has devoted the lion’s share in the course of stud}' to the mastery of the Latin and Greek languages. The few persons who attain national and international reputation for directive power in various departments come from the small quota of society that studies these dead languages. Out of a million of persons who have come from our colleges and universities more than two hundred times as many persons attain distinction as from a million of people who have not entered them. The presumption therefore must be in favor of the study of these classic languages. It is therefore probable that they contain some educative element not to be found in other languages, ancient or modern, — it is likely in fact that the study of these languages gives to the student some peculiar insight into himself or his civilization. Looking at it from this point of view we discover the cause of the potency of these languages in higher education. For it occurs at once to any one acquainted with the history of the world that Rome and Greece hold an altogether unique relation to the civilization of Europe. The dead languages Latin and Greek are the tongues once spoken by the two peoples who originated the two threads united in our modern civilization. The study of Greek puts one into the atmosphere of art, literature and science in which the people of Athens lived. It is not merely the effect of Greek literature; it is also the effect of the language itself, in its idioms and grammatical structure, for these are adapted to express the literary and artistic point of view of the mind. The Greek mind looks upon nature and seizes its spiritual meaning; it expresses this in the art forms of sculpture, architecture and poetry.