The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1873-02-13
Importance of Latin and Greek.


AS great mental discipliners, and as lying at
the foundation of thorough scholarship, the
Latin and Greek languages are of first impor-
tanee, and even indispensable. Immediately
after the late war, the limited resources of our
people led many to seek for their children what
is called practical education, i.e, such as with
their limited means would enable them to cope
with the difficulties of the times. The military
schools of the country had to some extent be-
fore the war inaugurated the idea of an accom-
olshed education without the aid of Greek and
Latin. The practical sciences, English litera-
cure, with the living languages, French, Ger
man, &C., were considered curriculum abun-
dainty qualifying young man for the business
and intercourse of life. Since the war this
idea has become more popular still. This and
the late rapid development of the practical
sciences, inventions and discoveries has greatly
fostered the idea of completed education
without the ancient languages. But just
moments thought on the subject will show
that this is not only ar impossibility, but must
greatly deteriorate the standard of literature in
cur country and greatly cripple the true pro-
gress of the sciences themselves. 1t is singu-
lar fact that all the modern sciences have in
vested themselves in nomenclature drawn
almost exclusively from Greek and Latin. Nor
is this mere scafolding, to be taken down
hereafter. It is terminalogy permanently
and irrevocably. incorporated into the very
structure of modern learning. Just so far as
any of the technicalities of science are trrly
expressive of its ideas, they become the most
enduring of human monuments. To have any
intelligent idea of these technicalities, and of
course to catch the precise conception they are
intended to convey, the learner or scientific
scholar must know the elements of their COM
position in other words, he must know some
thing of the Greek and Latin from which they
are taken. 1t is, indeed, very true that use
and application very soon explain the signi6-
cation of newly coined terms, and they imme-
d:ately become current and popular. But it is
clear that if our knowledge of the meaning
o: terms should depend upon their popular use,
we should not only be liable to be continually
misead as to what they really meant, but the
terms themselves might be perfectly arbitrary.
The servants about great boarding school
know about as well as the teachers and scholars
themselves what "calisthenics" means in its use
and practice; but for that sort of knowledge of
it, it might as we'll be spelled backwards, scin-
ethsilac
This apglicising process is going on now
more rapidly than in former years, so that it is
becoming more and more out of reach to be
perfect scholar without knowledge of those
languages which the taste and discrimination
OF scientists are constantly incorporating into
our English tongue. 1t is very remarkable
how much the educated mind is inclined to
honor those great languages which first nursed
literature and now adorn and enrich it. The
idea of young lady having good knowledge
of Botany, Zoology, Physiology, Chemistry or
Astronomy, without some knowledge of the
languages which give them their very names,
ard out of which their whole technology is
taken, is absurd. Botany might as we'll be
called Astronomy, so far as the name, the We
hicle of the idea, is concerned.
But besides this incorporation of the ancient
languages into the sciences, they are still more
deeply imbedded in all our English literature
our own mother tongue is wrapped up in them.
Archdeacon Trench shows that out of 100
words in ordinary English composition, 80 are
Of Latin origin, much smaller proportion of
creek. He compares the English language to
human body, of which the Anglo-Saxon are
the bone and sinew, the Latin the muscle or
flesh that gives symmetry and beauty, the
Greek other finishing parts of the contour. The
powerful words of our language, those which
are associated with our childhood, our homes
and our affections, are Anglo-Saxon, as father,
mother husband, wife, brother, sister, house,
cat dog, horse, cow, meat, drink, air, water,
sky, tree, heat, cold, &c. The ornamental part
of our language is chiefly Latin. 1t is impos-
s:ble, therefore, to comprehend the English
tongue without knowledge of the ancient
languages. 1t is greatly to be desired that pa
rents and teachers should not deny to the fe-
male portion of our population these great
elements of all learning and accomplishments.
1t is impossible to secure intellectual accom-
plishment without them. But as discipliners,
thoy are perhaps still more desirable. =
TREATMENT OF MENINGITIS following
card, addressed "to the medical profession" is
nrh,;sbed in the Atlanta papers by DR.. J. j.