Passing now, to a review of the arguments which the advocates of
instruction in the classics advance, and of what the adherents of
instruction in the physical sciences in their turn adduce, we find
ourselves in rather a perplexing position with respect to the arguments
of the first named. For these have been different at different times,
and they are even now of a very multifarious character, as must be where
men advance, in favor of an institution that exists and which they are
determined to retain at any cost, everything they can possibly think of.
We shall find here much that has evidently been brought forward only to
impress the minds of the ignorant; much, too, that was advanced in good
faith and which is not wholly without foundation. We shall get a fair
idea of the reasoning employed by considering, first, the arguments that
have grown out of the historical circumstances connected with the
original introduction of the classics, and, lastly, those which were
subsequently adduced as accidental afterthoughts.
* * * * *
Instruction in Latin, as Paulsen[115] has minutely shown, was introduced
by the Roman Church along with Christianity. With the Latin language
were also transmitted the scant and meagre remnants of ancient science.
Whoever wished to acquire this ancient education, then the only one
worthy of the name, for him the Latin language was the only and
indispensable means; such a person had to learn Latin to rank among
educated people.
The wide-spread influence of the Roman Church wrought many and various
results. Among those for which all are glad, we may safely count the
establishment of a sort of _uniformity_ among the nations and of a
regular international intercourse by means of the Latin language, which
did much to unite the nations in the common work of civilisation,
carried on from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century. The Latin
language was thus long the language of scholars, and instruction in
Latin the road to a liberal education--a shibboleth still employed,
though long inappropriate.
For scholars as a class, it is to be regretted, perhaps, that Latin has
ceased to be the medium of international communication. But the
attributing of the loss of this function by the Latin language to its
incapacity to accommodate itself to the numerous new ideas and
conceptions which have arisen in the course of the development of
science is, in my opinion, wholly erroneous. It would be difficult to
find a modern scientist who had enriched science with as many new ideas
as Newton has, yet Newton knew how to express those ideas very correctly
and precisely in the Latin language. If this view were correct, it would
also hold true of every living language. Originally every language has
to adapt itself to new ideas.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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