logical and consistent result. It gives the power of momentum, rather than an explosive power, it gives reserve power with balance or poise and bars the superficial. I have no hesitation in saying that one who has studied to full advantage the finished products of the Augustan Era of Rome will be a man of well tempered and well balanced habits, scorning the shams and hypocrisy of society and holding for depth of character and fulness of truth.

The Latin is a permanent, unchanging force; it is the "o" point from which language levels may be taken and elevations fully outlined. In the larger number of cases where we wish to be sure of our ground or essay some new detail in our work the primitive point may easily be consulted and assurance made doubly sure. We know we must be right since the imbedded strata of the world's civilization could not be altered during the progress of a single night.

After the arrival of St. Augustine the English scholar and writer develop, but in Latin; and Bede and Alcuin and Anselm and a host of others build up civilization through the medium of the Latin; the footings and foundations of English life are of Latin origin. In fact the English and the Latin have lived so long together that their union ought to be raised to the dignity of a literary sacrament admitting of no divorce. If it should be said that Latin is rather a parent language, and to this view I have no objection, then let us not mongrelize the language of 150,000,000 of English speaking people by denying its fatherhood.

It is not good for man to be alone and neither is it good for a language to be alone. In the study of English literature one is struck with the wonderful impetus which becomes evident in the writing of Chaucer and others after their contact with foreign life. Dante's works teach Chaucer what is meant by form in poetry, there is a new and wider grasp of thought, the sweep of vision is clearer and things are seen in their true nature. He returns to England and writes not English poetry, nor classic poetry, but the poetry of humanity and of the world. For those who look at the Renaissance as the supremest effort of man in goodness and greatness it may be of interest to know that shiploads of English scholars took to the study of the classics and thereby made the movement celebrated, at least from a literary viewpoint, in their native land. The sweet Italian glow of Portia and Juliet and the dignity of the women of Julius Caesar reveal the excursions of the Shakespearean mind into the classic towns of Italy.

In the past our public school system has been valuable in the eyes of pedagogues, only in so far as it resembled the German ordinary schools. The German gymnasia and in fact the whole system of preparatory training is intended to fit the individual for living rather than for life. While the gymnasia do not look upon Latin with indifference, the other schools declare it a dead language and of no account in modern economics. The language of the Caesars and Ciceros was imperialistic but not commercial; the language of the Kaiser must be not only imperialistic but primarily commercial. In spite of this influence which is happily on the wane, some of us I hope will be

brave enough and honest enough to prefer the joy of life, to the job of life, the culture of life to the cultus of life.

I might easily refer here to the views of well known men who declare for the superiority of the classic trained mind, but I am confident most of you are familiar with these names and the list would only mean delay and loss of time under the circumstances. I do wish to quote the late Senator Hoar, however, who under the subject "Oratory," has the following to say: "The value of the practice of translations from Latin and Greek into English in getting command of good English style, in my judgment, can hardly be stated too strongly. The explanation is not hard to find-you have in these two languages and especially in the Latin the best instrument for the most precise and most perfect expression of thought. The Latin prose of Tacitus and Cicero, the verse of Virgil and Horace, are like a Greek statue or Italian cameo, you have not only exquisite beauty, but also exquisite precision."

In these days when the bowels of the earth are transferred over seas in bowels of monster ships, when the business of Hong Kong comes in close competition with the business of every little hamlet in Northern Michigan, when earthquakes and tidal waves and typhoons are registered as easily as the human fever on a clinical thermometer, I believe the scientist can keep busy in trying to contribute to our material welfare; but I still believe that the greatest achievements shall be recorded of him whose measurements of the human mind have been based upon the heroic moulds of the Augustan Era, and who tries to bring man up to his full mental stature in every one of the lapsing centuries.

THE AIMS AND DIFFICULTIES OF BEGINNING LATIN.

CECILE GAUNTLETT, JACKSON HIGH SCHOOL.

First of necessity is that much-discussed aim of laying the foundation for the further study of the language by a thorough knowledge of its forms. That this aim is of prime importance all will agree; but the manner of attaining it is one of the difficulties presented to the first year Latin teacher. The fact that a student can with no hesitancy and in parrot-fashion repeat his paradigms, or that he can name the cases and moods of words in sentences presented by his texts, is not adequate evidence that he knows Latin etymology; the test is if he can build forms from the new words he meets and can translate new sentences involving words and constructions previously studied. In this manner the attaining of one aim will assist in another second only to the first, the gaining of a knowledge of syntax. And here I wish to say that, while syntax is second in importance. to etymology during the first year, still not only an acquaintance but an intimate familiarity with the principles of syntax presented by any first-year

book is absolutely necessary to the student before starting his second year in the language. This is assuming that Caesar, which in my opinion is unexcelled for second-year work, or a text of equal difficulty, is to be the basis of that year's work.

So much for the technical aims of the subject. Next comes what I might almost call a personal aim, one which, I think, appeals to every conscientious teacher in any subject but especially to the teacher of a foreign language; I mean the formation of a habit of accuracy. I feel that I cannot enforce too strongly the necessity of this habit on my students, and believe that if cultivated in connection with Latin it will be applied elsewhere. For the beginner in Latin there is room for no such generalities as in History or English, while in mathematics the material is so exact as to require no effort in grasping it. For example, 5 is 5, or 26 is 26, but causa is not causae, amantis not amandis, nor is amaverunt amaverant. The antithesis of this virtue, the inaccuracy of so large a percentage of beginners, is responsible for a great part of the hardship encountered in first-year Latin, the incorrect spelling (especially among the boys), the disagreement of adjectives with nouns, or the repetition of a rule, carefully explained hitherto, in such a way that the point is completely lost. The first duty, and the most difficult, is to make the student realize the seriousness of his fault, that in Latin an answer is either right or wrong and that there can be no half way about it. In History, the fact that Lincoln was president is of value even though the student be ignorant of the date, but in a Latin sentence the fact that the word is dative is of no importance unless he can tell why.

During his work in the grades the student pursues the study of English in its technical aspect, that is, grammar. On entering the high school he practically ceases the study of grammar and takes up English as an art. And at the time he takes up English the student begins his study of Latin, not as a kindred subject but as one wholly beyond his previous ken. For the beginning Latin teacher this total disconnection from anything previously studied and the lamentable ignorance of that former subject by the student form one of the chief obstacles to progress. In the first place English grammar as it is at present taught does not afford the assistance it might to the student, who has not yet attained to much development of reasoning power, in that the English and Latin grammarians, with approximately the same end in view are at variance in the matter of nomenclature. What difference does it make by what name a student learns a certain grammatical form provided he knows what the form is? And would he not be saved a world of trouble if in meeting it in another language it still had the same name? To mention an example of minor importance, the names of the tenses are different in the two languages, and for what reason? An other and more perplexing difficulty encountered in Latin is the gerund. English grammars may incidentally mention the fact, in a note, that the "ing"

infinitive is the so-called gerund but no stress is laid on the matter and by the time he reaches Latin the student has forgotten that he ever heard the word.

Even a worse difficulty as mentioned before is the little real knowledge of English grammar that the high school student possesses. Without doubt he can rise to parse a sentence and glibly announce the literary subject, grammatical subject, complete predicate, incomplete predicate, et cetera, but as to the real relation of the parts and correctness of the forms his ignorance is apparent both in beginning Latin and in English.

Up to this time I have spoken of the difficulties inherent in the subject by itself and in its relation to English grammar; now I wish to mention one inherent in the student and under the present circumstances the most discouraging of all, his disinclination to spend adequate time in the preparation of lessons. It is a fault met with by every teacher of first-year high school students and is occasioned, I think, by the fact that the students have been unused to taking books home in the grades and are unwilling to do so in high school. In Latin there is just so much ground to be covered within the school year and to cover it one must give lessons requiring from an hour to an hour and a quarter by the average or poorer student; and yet every day students who claim that they find Latin difficult will come to class after a half or three-quarters of an hour's preparation. It matters not how little time a student spends provided he has his lesson but if he cannot get it in less time I require an hour and a quarter. Consideration of the matter in schools where I have been has shown that to be a good average time and bright students will not require so much.

These are the difficulties I have found most pronounced. For the two more serious there is an obvious remedy which is successful in schools abroad, and so should be here, the commencing of Latin in the grades. I should not wish to introduce Latin as early as is done in Germany and England, but rather commence the study in the eighth grade, while the student is still studying grammar. Since arriving at this conclusion myself I have found that this is in practice in many schools, notably in Massachusetts. My reason is not that English grammar should be studied solely for its use in Latin as might be charged but that Latin and English might work reciprocally on each other. Beginning in the eighth grade I would spend also the first year in high school on beginning Latin, thus getting altogether the adequate time for preparation of lessons without so great a conscious effort of the student. In this way Latin would cease to be the bug-bear it now is to first-year students of the high school, and would be more generally elected and carried throughout the course.

PROBLEMS OF THE HIGH SCHOOL LATIN COURSE.

SUPERINTENDENT ARTHUR S. HUDSON, BIG RAPIDS.

My point of view respecting the high school Latin course may be assumed as somewhat different from that taken by those who are instructors of the language. A superintendent, presumably, should speedily divorce himself from all sentiment, natural or acquired, either for or against the classics and with cold dispassionate eye regard the subject of Latin as only one of numerous subjects which today demand recognition in the high school curriculum. In spite of a conscientious endeavor on my part to assume this judicial attitude not only toward Latin, but toward all the subjects commonly included in primary and secondary school work, I find myself today regarding Latin as one of the few most essential high school studies. In my finite observation and interpretation about eight out of ten pupils who pass through the high school grades have been designed by Providence for at least two years of Latin. It is deplorable that the divine purpose is so often thwarted.

In most cases, of course, the pupils as well as their parents, do not realize what an essential part of their mental panoply is being omitted in thus slighting the Latin, and it would be unfair to blame them for this want of appreciation of a matter outside of their immediate experience. The responsibility of demonstrating the practical advantages inherent in the study of Latin rests equally upon those of us who teach the Latin and those of us who plan courses of study and advise pupils and parents in regard thereto.

In so far as the problems of Latin-teaching are concerned, that is, in so far as mistakes are being made in the methods of instruction, I can record my observation as a superintendent that Latin is being taught today as satisfactorily as any other high school subject, in fact, far more so than most subjects. The scientific and enthusiastic character of the work being done in our universities and better colleges in the preparation of teachers of Latin is in large part responsible for this fortunate condition.

All this does not mean that Latin is the easiest subject in the high school curriculum, nor that it is always made the most attractive to the pupils. It certainly does not signify that there are not problems yet to be solved.

I shall mention very briefly certain of the problems that have come under my observation.

First-A lack of definite aim on the part of high school Latin teachers. Doubtless the multitudinous lines of thought in which the Latin teacher is supposed to enlighten her charges is in large measure responsible for indefiniteness in aspiration. Formal discipline, history, mythology, Roman law, English diction, technical grammar, literary appreciation, prosody, and ability to read Latin are a few of the bewildering array of results to be