in Latin in college. In the secondary schools the subject is difficult, uninteresting to pupils, and somewhat mischievous in its effects upon English prose style. Young people become habituated too easily to writing hybrid sentences containthe nominative absolute and the accusative absolute, displaying these signs of erudition in a fashion injurious to their English. The teacher of Latin should never permit these foreign idioms to be employed in translation, he should check any tendencies to non-English and force the translator to find perfect English renderings for the Latin text.

Much can be accomplished if teachers of Latin will work in sympathy with teachers of English, making students formulate correct oral translations, with special attention to synonyms and avoidance of mere transfer of roots. If pupils were required every day to prepare written translations from Latin, their knowledge of Latin would be greatly increased, their English would benefit immensely. Close study of language begets accuracy, faithfulness, a sense of the value of small but significant elements. Training in translation quickens the thinking, forces a pupil to reason from the particular word to the context, the ensemble, gives him a flexible, quick intelligence. The increasing necessity for large classes in our schools makes it impossible for every student to translate aloud every day, and the young need constant, unremitting practice in the exercise. Therefore, if daily written translations were examined, in part at least, by teachers of Latin and teachers of English, students would get excellent training, and might perhaps be released from some of the themes which darken life for the inarticulate.

More important and less practical are the questions which surround the literature and the history of Rome. Contrast is good for the young. If they see differences between ancient times and their own, they will begin to reflect upon these things. It is tremendously important for our young Americans to study Latin culture, with its manifold observances of

religious rites, its political organization, its civic order, its standards of republican virtue and its imperial rule, as suggested in the works of Caesar, Vergil, and Cicero. These matters are badly treated in some schools, where no suggestion is ever made that the authors were once living men, actively human. If, in translation, Plutarch's Caesar and his Cicero were read, a much more vivid interest in their writings would arise, and ancient Rome become nearer and clearer.

There are warnings as well as inspirations to be gained from studying the rise and fall of Catiline; there are problems in civics to discuss, questions of character to be debated, and standards of morality to be judged. Students learn how to view antiquity as present, and to understand some "world history" by practical close acquaintance with individuals. Comparisons between English and Roman history, English and Roman problems of government, will make a beginning for an understanding of civics, an understanding that will never come from mere abstract discussion, based upon theoretical text-books. The young need concrete instances for consideration. If pupils have some background of acquaintance with "civics" and "social problems" of another age and time, work will proceed more rapidly, more effectively, and make a deeper impression.

Finally, the religious and artistic culture of the Latins should be well-known to serious students of English literature. This is such a truism as to need no explanation. From the days of 55 B. C. England and Italy have had close connection and Latin has left an ineffaceable mark upon English civilization. Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, to say nothing of hosts of minor authors, owe debts to the Latin poets. Vergil, in particular, has had unending prestige in England, partly because of his artistic gifts and partly because in the older days he glorified Aeneas, Trojan ancestor of the Brutus who founded Albion. Of course Vergil is not Homer, yet Vergil's feeling for nature, for religion, for

legendary history, have won millions of admirers. Careful work with the Eneid does immense service for students of English. Not only do they learn cosmopolitan tolerance for ideas far distant from theirs in time and space and spirit; they learn also many things about the picturesque pagan ritual, the beliefs in the interpenetration of nature with the divine, the piety and reverence of the Latins,-ideas which stimulate the twentieth century pupils to meditation about these subjects. In a country where there are so many kinds of religious creeds, it is good for young people to study a race whose natural consciousness as regards religion had a more homogeneous, a more unified outlook than ours. Whether or not this communism in religion is more to be desired is a question that will bear debate, perhaps.

To judge from experience with college students, it seems true that students who have been well trained in the Eneid have an excellent foundation for work in English. Their attention has been carefully directed to such matters as structure of the epic, use of simile, allusions to nature, characterization, choice of words, order of words in typical classical poetry (a subject very perplexing to students of Renaissance and of pseudo-classical poetry). The study of versification is of great importance. Having learned to scan Vergil's hexameters a pupil knows how to mark stress and seldom has trouble in analysis of metre; as a result, he has an appreciation of the subtle beauty of harmonious verse.

If teachers of these two subjects could work in unison, education of the young in the humanities would advance by leaps. And, moreover, pupils would learn by practice and by observation the essential lesson of co-operation, one of the hardest for the individual to comprehend.

Psychology to the Aid of Exposition

DORA DAVIS FARRINGTON, DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH,
HUNTER COLLEGE, NEW YORK, N. Y.

HERE is a homely saying that, to stand up, a
stool must have three legs. Certainly there are

T three props to a well-balanced course in expo

sition. They are psychology, art, and orientation of students. Curiously enough, in the presentation of exposition all three are apt to be wobbly in comparison to their clean-cut, firm,

mortised position in narration, description and argumentation. Whether the wide variety of expository forms has led to uncertainty of treatment in teaching, or clouded the choice of phases to be included in a high school or college course, the effect has been doubly unfortunate in crowding class-time better devoted to more detailed mastery of technique, and in neglecting proper support on which to base sound training in exposition.

The purpose of this paper is to re-examine the essential nature of exposition, and to reinforce its psychological supports.

It is easy to distinguish data in the narrow fields of narration, description and argumentation. Very simple is it to note-in spite of the complex ramifications possible-that the essential nature of narration is character in action, with the senses of sight and hearing to supply material directly; that in description it is the outward appearance with the sight chiefly, and other senses auxiliary, to furnish the elements directly; in argumentation, the rightness or feasibility of some proposition, with established principles to guide in choice and handling. But exposition is so broad and goodly a realm, and its presiding genius a Protean spirit delighting in transformations! Literary criticism, abstract resumé, book review,

editorial, technical article, familiar essay, dramatic criticism, definition, open letter, character analysis, advertising,—all these and more call themselves exposition.

Yet, whatever branch of exposition be taken, an examination of its essential nature always reveals one unifying motif. In this it is allied to art. A painting has some one central object which all details enrich, and which, in turn, relates the details to each other and gives them significance; a musical composition has its key and dominant motif to color the whole; architecture has its style, which is impressed on all parts of the building; a short story has its one crisis that throws a sudden spotlight on a central character to reveal its hidden depths; a drama has a plot that unfolds to a climax and resolves to a denoument. Each artistic impulse strives to interpret some one phase of life or thought. All that does not strictly bear on that one phase is relentlessly set aside; it is "another story," to quote Kipling. The essay is no exception, whether scientific or literary in character. Its central idea is generally called a "theme"-in Greek a "setting forth"; in reality the setting forth of a proposition, a theory, an opinion, or something of that nature. Usually the theme of exposition is so involved in various aspects that its significance cannot be grasped at a glance: it must be developed, its relationships traced out, its bearings indicated-particularly since it deals not so much with the concrete things of life as with the abstract and abstruse, and springs not so much from knowledge known to all as from the writer's reaction to that knowledge. So true is this of the literary essay especially, that, in the words of Orlo Williams, "The essay may use knowledge, but what it reveals is taste, good judgment, and that most precious quality, originality." It is this originality—perhaps best defined as one's own reaction to material presented from any source-that, playing about one central theme, turns the expository composition from an "irregular, undigested piece," as Dr. Johnson dubbed the essay, into a harmonious bit of vivid reflection.