Part 26

Thus the language has become in a great measure stereotype; as in the case of the human frame, it has expanded to the loss of its elasticity, and can expand no more. Then the general style of educated men, formed by the accumulated improvements of centuries, is far superior perhaps in perfectness to that of any one of those national Classics, who have taught their countrymen to write more clearly, or more elegantly, or more forcibly than themselves. And literary men submit themselves to what they find so well provided for them; or, if impatient of conventionalities, and resolved to shake off a yoke which tames them down to the loss of individuality, they adopt no half measures, but indulge in novelties which offend against the genius of the language, and the true canons of taste. Political causes may co-operate in a revolt of this kind; and, as a nation declines in patriotism, so does its language in purity. It seems to me as if the sententious, epigrammatic style of writing, which set in with Seneca, and is seen at least as late as in the writings of St. Ambrose, is an attempt to escape from the simplicity of Cæsar and the majestic elocution of Cicero; while Tertullian, with more of genius than good sense, relieves himself in the harsh originality of his provincial Latin.

There is another impediment, as time goes on, to the rise of fresh classics in any nation; and that is the effect which foreigners, or foreign literature, will exert upon it. It may happen that a certain language, like Greek, is adopted and used familiarly by educated men in other countries; or again, that educated men, to whom it is native, may abandon it for some other language, as the Romans of the second and third centuries wrote in Greek instead of Latin. The consequence will be, that the language in question will tend to lose its nationality—that is, its distinctive character; it will cease to be idiomatic in the sense in which it once was so; and whatever grace or propriety it may retain, it will be comparatively tame and spiritless; or, on the other hand, it will be corrupted by the admixture of foreign elements.

4.

Such, as I consider, being the fortunes of Classical Literature, viewed generally, I should never be surprised to find that, as regards this hemisphere, for I can prophesy nothing of America, we have well nigh seen the end of English Classics. Certainly, it is in no expectation of Catholics continuing the series here that I speak of the duty and necessity of their cultivating English literature. When I speak of the formation of a Catholic school of writers, I have respect principally to the matter of what is written, and to composition only so far forth as style is necessary to convey and to recommend the matter. I mean a literature which resembles the literature of the day. This is not a day for great writers, but for good writing, and a great deal of it. There never was a time when men wrote so much and so well, and that, without being of any great account themselves. While our literature in this day, especially the periodical, is rich and various, its language is elaborated to a perfection far beyond that of our Classics, by the jealous rivalry, the incessant practice, the mutual influence, of its many writers. In point of mere style, I suppose, many an article in the _Times_ newspaper, or Edinburgh Review, is superior to a preface of Dryden’s, or a Spectator, or a pamphlet of Swift’s, or one of South’s sermons.

Our writers write so well that there is little to choose between them. What they lack is that individuality, that earnestness, most personal yet most unconscious of self, which is the greatest charm of an author. The very form of the compositions of the day suggests to us their main deficiency. They are anonymous. So was it not in the literature of those nations which we consider the special standard of classical writing; so is it not with our own Classics. The Epic was sung by the voice of the living, present poet. The drama, in its very idea, is poetry in persons. Historians begin, “Herodotus, of Halicarnassus, publishes his researches;” or, “Thucydides, the Athenian, has composed an account of the war.” Pindar is all through his odes a speaker. Plato, Xenophon, and Cicero, throw their philosophical dissertations into the form of a dialogue. Orators and preachers are by their very profession known persons, and the personal is laid down by the Philosopher of antiquity as the source of their greatest persuasiveness. Virgil and Horace are ever bringing into their poetry their own characters and tastes. Dante’s poems furnish a series of events for the chronology of his times. Milton is frequent in allusions to his own history and circumstances. Even when Addison writes anonymously, he writes under a professed character, and that in a great measure his own; he writes in the first person. The “I” of the Spectator, and the “we” of the modern Review or Newspaper, are the respective symbols of the two ages in our literature. Catholics must do as their neighbours; they must be content to serve their generation, to promote the interests of religion, to recommend truth, and to edify their brethren to-day, though their names are to have little weight, and their works are not to last much beyond themselves.

5.

And now having shown what it is that a Catholic University does not think of doing, what it need not do, and what it cannot do, I might go on to trace out in detail what it is that it really might and will encourage and create. But, as such an investigation would neither be difficult to pursue, nor easy to terminate, I prefer to leave the subject at the preliminary point to which I have brought it.

Lecture IV.

Elementary Studies.

It has often been observed that, when the eyes of the infant first open upon the world, the reflected rays of light which strike them from the myriad of surrounding objects present to him no image, but a medley of colours and shadows. They do not form into a whole; they do not rise into foregrounds and melt into distances; they do not divide into groups; they do not coalesce into unities; they do not combine into persons; but each particular hue and tint stands by itself, wedged in amid a thousand others upon the vast and flat mosaic, having no intelligence, and conveying no story, any more than the wrong side of some rich tapestry. The little babe stretches out his arms and fingers, as if to grasp or to fathom the many-coloured vision; and thus he gradually learns the connexion of part with part, separates what moves from what is stationary, watches the coming and going of figures, masters the idea of shape and of perspective, calls in the information conveyed through the other senses to assist him in his mental process, and thus gradually converts a calidoscope into a picture. The first view was the more splendid, the second the more real; the former more poetical, the latter more philosophical. Alas! what are we doing all through life, both as a necessity and as a duty, but unlearning the world’s poetry, and attaining to its prose! This is our education, as boys and as men, in the action of life, and in the closet or library; in our affections, in our aims, in our hopes, and in our memories. And in like manner it is the education of our intellect; I say, that one main portion of intellectual education, of the labours of both school and university, is to remove the original dimness of the mind’s eye; to strengthen and perfect its vision; to enable it to look out into the world right forward, steadily and truly; to give the mind clearness, accuracy, precision; to enable it to use words aright, to understand what it says, to conceive justly what it thinks about, to abstract, compare, analyze, divide, define, and reason, correctly. There is a particular science which takes these matters in hand, and it is called logic; but it is not by logic, certainly not by logic alone, that the faculty I speak of is acquired. The infant does not learn to spell and read the hues upon his retina by any scientific rule; nor does the student learn accuracy of thought by any manual or treatise. The instruction given him, of whatever kind, if it be really instruction, is mainly, or at least pre-eminently, this,—a discipline in accuracy of mind.

Boys are always more or less inaccurate, and too many, or rather the majority, remain boys all their lives. When, for instance, I hear speakers at public meetings declaiming about “large and enlightened views,” or about “freedom of conscience,” or about “the Gospel,” or any other popular subject of the day, I am far from denying that some among them know what they are talking about; but it would be satisfactory, in a particular case, to be sure of the fact; for it seems to me that those household words may stand in a man’s mind for a something or other, very glorious indeed, but very misty, pretty much like the idea of “civilization” which floats before the mental vision of a Turk,—that is, if, when he interrupts his smoking to utter the word, he condescends to reflect whether it has any meaning at all. Again, a critic in a periodical dashes off, perhaps, his praises of a new work, as “talented, original, replete with intense interest, irresistible in argument, and, in the best sense of the word, a very readable book;”—can we really believe that he cares to attach any definite sense to the words of which he is so lavish? nay, that, if he had a habit of attaching sense to them, he could ever bring himself to so prodigal and wholesale an expenditure of them?

To a short-sighted person, colours run together and intermix, outlines disappear, blues and reds and yellows become russets or browns, the lamps or candles of an illumination spread into an unmeaning glare, or dissolve into a milky way. He takes up an eye-glass, and the mist clears up; every image stands out distinct, and the rays of light fall back upon their centres. It is this haziness of intellectual vision which is the malady of all classes of men by nature, of those who read and write and compose, quite as well as of those who cannot,—of all who have not had a really good education. Those who cannot either read or write may, nevertheless, be in the number of those who have remedied and got rid of it; those who can, are too often still under its power. It is an acquisition quite separate from miscellaneous information, or knowledge of books. This is a large subject, which might be pursued at great length, and of which here I shall but attempt one or two illustrations.

§ 1.

Grammar.

1.

One of the subjects especially interesting to all persons who, from any point of view, as officials or as students, are regarding a University course, is that of the Entrance Examination. Now a principal subject introduced into this examination will be “the elements of Latin and Greek Grammar.” “Grammar” in the middle ages was often used as almost synonymous with “literature,” and a Grammarian was a “Professor literarum.” This is the sense of the word in which a youth of an inaccurate mind delights. He rejoices to profess all the classics, and to learn none of them. On the other hand, by “Grammar” is now more commonly meant, as Johnson defines it, “the art of using _words_ properly,” and it “comprises four parts—Orthography, Etymology, Syntax, and Prosody.” Grammar, in this sense, is the scientific analysis of language, and to be conversant with it, as regards a particular language, is to be able to understand the meaning and force of that language when thrown into sentences and paragraphs.

Thus the word is used when the “elements of Latin and Greek Grammar” are spoken of as subjects of our Entrance Examination; not, that is, the elements of Latin and Greek literature, as if a youth were intended to have a smattering of the classical writers in general, and were to be able to give an opinion about the eloquence of Demosthenes and Cicero, the value of Livy, or the existence of Homer; or need have read half a dozen Greek and Latin authors, and portions of a dozen others:—though of course it would be much to his credit if he had done so; only, such proficiency is not to be expected, and cannot be required, of him:—but we mean the structure and characteristics of the Latin and Greek languages, or an examination of his scholarship. That is, an examination in order to ascertain whether he knows Etymology and Syntax, the two principal departments of the science of language,—whether he understands how the separate portions of a sentence hang together, how they form a whole, how each has its own place in the government of it, what are the peculiarities of construction or the idiomatic expressions in it proper to the language in which it is written, what is the precise meaning of its terms, and what the history of their formation.

All this will be best arrived at by trying how far he can frame a possible, or analyze a given sentence. To translate an English sentence into Latin is to _frame_ a sentence, and is the best test whether or not a student knows the difference of Latin from English construction; to construe and parse is to _analyze_ a sentence, and is an evidence of the easier attainment of knowing what Latin construction is in itself. And this is the sense of the word “Grammar” which our inaccurate student detests, and this is the sense of the word which every sensible tutor will maintain. His maxim is, “a little, but well;” that is, really know what you say you know: know what you know and what you do not know; get one thing well before you go on to a second; try to ascertain what your words mean; when you read a sentence, picture it before your mind as a whole, take in the truth or information contained in it, express it in your own words, and, if it be important, commit it to the faithful memory. Again, compare one idea with another; adjust truths and facts; form them into one whole, or notice the obstacles which occur in doing so. This is the way to make progress; this is the way to arrive at results; not to swallow knowledge, but (according to the figure sometimes used) to masticate and digest it.

2.

To illustrate what I mean, I proceed to take an instance. I will draw the sketch of a candidate for entrance, deficient to a great extent. I shall put him below _par_, and not such as it is likely that a respectable school would turn out, with a view of clearly bringing before the reader, by the contrast, what a student ought _not_ to be, or what is meant by _inaccuracy_. And, in order to simplify the case to the utmost, I shall take, as he will perceive as I proceed, one _single word_ as a sort of text, and show how that one word, even by itself, affords matter for a sufficient examination of a youth in grammar, history, and geography. I set off thus:—

_Tutor._ Mr. Brown, I believe? sit down. _Candidate._ Yes.

_T._ What are the Latin and Greek books you propose to be examined in? _C._ Homer, Lucian, Demosthenes, Xenophon, Virgil, Horace, Statius, Juvenal, Cicero, Analecta, and Matthiæ.

_T._ No; I mean what are the books I am to examine you in? _C. is silent._

_T._ The two books, one Latin and one Greek: don’t flurry yourself. _C._ Oh, … Xenophon and Virgil.

_T._ Xenophon and Virgil. Very well; what part of Xenophon? _C. is silent._

_T._ What work of Xenophon? _C._ Xenophon.

_T._ Xenophon wrote many works. Do you know the names of any of them? _C._ I … Xenophon … Xenophon.

_T._ Is it the _Anabasis_ you take up? _C._ (_with surprise_) O yes; the Anabasis.

_T._ Well, Xenophon’s Anabasis; now what is the meaning of the word _anabasis_? _C. is silent._

_T._ You know very well; take your time, and don’t be alarmed. Anabasis means … _C._ An ascent.

_T._ Very right; it means an ascent. Now how comes it to mean an ascent? What is it derived from? _C._ It comes from … (_a pause_). _Anabasis_ … it _is_ the nominative.

_T._ Quite right: but what part of speech is it? _C._ A noun,—a noun substantive.

_T._ Very well; a noun substantive, now what is the verb that _anabasis_ is derived from? _C. is silent._

_T._ From the verb ἀναβαίνω, isn’t it? from ἀναβαίνω. _C._ Yes.

_T._ Just so. Now, what does ἀναβαίνω mean? _C._ To go up, to ascend.

_T._ Very well; and which part of the word means _to go_, and which part _up_? _C._ ἀνά is _up_, and βαίνω _go_.

_T._ βαίνω to go, yes; now, βάσις? What does βάσις mean? _C._ A going.

_T._ That is right; and ἀνά-βασις? _C._ A going up.

_T._ Now what is a going _down_? _C. is silent_.

_T._ What is down? … Κατά … don’t you recollect? Κατά. _C._ Κατά.

_T._ Well, then, what is a going _down_? Cat .. cat … _C._ Cat.…

_T._ Cata … _C._ Cata.…

_T._ Catabasis. _C._ Oh, of course, catabasis.

_T._ Now tell me what is the future of βαίνω? _C._ (_thinks_) βανῶ.

_T._ No, no; think again; you know better than that. _C._ (_objects_) Φαίνω, Φανῶ?

_T._ Certainly, Φανῶ is the future of Φαίνω; but βαίνω is, you know, an irregular verb. _C._ Oh, I recollect, βήσω.

_T._ Well, that is much better; but you are not quite right yet; βήσομαι. _C._ Oh, of course,.

_T._ βήσομαι. Now do you mean to say that βήσομαι _comes from_ βαίνω? _C. is silent._

_T._ For instance: τύψω comes from τύπτω by a change of letters; does βήσομαιin any similar way come from βαίνω? _C._ It is an irregular verb.

_T._ What do you mean by an irregular verb? does it form tenses anyhow and by caprice? _C._ It does not go according to the paradigm.

_T._ Yes, but how do you account for this? _C. is silent_.

_T._ Are its tenses formed from several roots? _C. is silent. T. is silent; then he changes the subject._

_T._ Well, now you say _Anabasis_ means an _ascent_. _Who_ ascended? _C._ The Greeks, Xenophon.

_T._ Very well: Xenophon and the Greeks; the Greeks ascended. To what did they ascend? _C._ Against the Persian king: they ascended to fight the Persian king.

_T._ That is right … an ascent; but I thought we called it a _de_scent when a foreign army carried war into a country? _C. is silent._

_T._ Don’t we talk of a descent of barbarians? _C._ Yes.

_T._ Why then are the Greeks said to go _up_? _C._ They went up to fight the Persian king.

_T._ Yes; but why _up_ … why not _down_? _C._ They came down afterwards, when they retreated back to Greece.

_T._ Perfectly right; they did … but could you give no reason why they are said to go _up_ to Persia, not _down_? _C._ They went _up_ to Persia.

_T._ Why do you not say they went _down? C. pauses, then_ … They went _down_ to Persia.

_T._ You have misunderstood me.

_A silence._

_T._ _Why_ do you not say _down_? _C._ I do … _down_.

_T._ You have got confused; you know very well. _C._ I understood you to ask why I did not say “they went _down_.”

_A silence on both sides._

_T._ Have you come up to Dublin or down? _C._I came up.

_T._ Why do you call it coming _up_? _C. thinks, then smiles, then_ … We _always_ call it coming up to Dublin.

_T._ Well, but you always have a _reason_ for what you do … what is your reason here? _C. is silent._

_T._ Come, come, Mr. Brown, I won’t believe you don’t know; I am sure you have a very good reason for saying you go up to Dublin, not _down_. _C. thinks, then_ … It is the capital.

_T._ Very well; now was Persia the capital? _C._ Yes.

_T._ Well … no … not exactly … explain yourself; was Persia a city? _C._ A country.

_T._ That is right; well, but did you ever hear of Susa? _Now_, why did they speak of going _up_ to Persia? _C. is silent._

_T._ Because it was the seat of government; that was one reason. Persia was the seat of government; they went up because it was the seat of government. _C._ Because it was the seat of government.

_T._ Now where did they go up from? _C._ From Greece.

_T._ But where did this army assemble? whence did it set out? _C. is silent._

_T._ It is mentioned in the first book; where did the troops _rendezvous_? _C. is silent._

_T._ Open your book; now turn to Book I., chapter ii.; now tell me. _C._ Oh, at Sardis.

_T._ Very right: at Sardis; now where was Sardis? _C._ In Asia Minor?… no … it’s an island … _a pause, then_ … Sardinia.

_T._ In Asia Minor; the army set out from Asia Minor, and went on towards Persia; and therefore it is said to go _up_—because … _C. is silent._

_T._ Because … Persia … _C._ Because Persia …

_T._ Of course; because Persia held a sovereignty over Asia Minor. _C._ Yes.

_T._ Now do you know how and when Persia came to conquer and gain possession of Asia Minor? _C. is silent._

_T._ Was Persia in possession of many countries? _C. is silent._

_T._ Was Persia at the head of an empire? _C. is silent._

_T._ Who was Xerxes? _C._ Oh, Xerxes … yes … Xerxes; he invaded Greece; he flogged the sea.

_T._ Right; he flogged the sea: what sea? _C. is silent_.

_T._ Have you read any history of Persia?… what history? _C._ Grote, and Mitford.

_T._ Well, now, Mr. Brown, you can name some other reason why the Greeks spoke of going up to Persia? Do we talk of going _up_ or _down_ from the sea-coast? _C._ Up.

_T._ That is right; well, going from Asia Minor, would you go from the sea, or towards it? _C._ From.

_T._ What countries would you pass, going from the coast of Asia Minor to Persia? … mention any of them. _C. is silent._

_T._ What do you mean by Asia _Minor_?… why called Minor?… how does it lie? _C. is silent._

Etc., etc.

3.