Los Angeles daily herald., 1873-11-11

command OF language, more NaflelieS
of expression, and u more pleasing
style of composition, than six years
spent in bushwhacking the old Greeks
and Romans with grammars and leXi-
cons. | doubt whether there are very
many among our best classical
scholars who can always recognize a
derivation at first sight as an old Latin
acquaintance. | imagine that many
of them are i'm the same fix as myself;
forced to seek an introduction to these
former guests through our mutual
friend Webster.
Nor is this to be wondered at. In
passing from Latin to English the
words have assumed SO many dis
guises, by reason of prefiXes and sui-
fixes, dialectic forms, and dOrthographic
chan ges that their very fathers if they
ever had any would not be able to
recognize them. The English Ian
guage is descended from the An
glo-SaXon, and not from the Latin.
With all its mixture of foreign ele-
neats it is still Teutonic language.
It's nearest blood relations are the
German and the French. Then, why
not spend portion of the six years
we throw away in cOnjuring up the
ghosts of the dead languages in culti-
waiting our living relatives-thc mod
ern tongues. 1t would be rather diff
ticult surgical operation to put soul
under the cribs of death ut is just
about as difficult linguistic feat to
put spirit into the skeleton of the
dead languages. Our grief over the
death of Adam is very much assuaged
by the lapse of time since his demise
so are the emotions called forth by the
trials of piOus Eneias, the death OF
Achilles, who seemend not to have
been "heeled when he met the TrO-
jan sports. A flow of sympathy which
is being continually checked by re-
express it i'm, will soon dry up. 1t
may be that my feelings are rather
perverse /; for | must confess that the
crooked hierOglyphics that make up
the Greek alphabet have caused me
more poignant sorrow than ever did
the tears of Niobe or the griefs of An
tigOne. All this may seem to you a
little foreign to the subject; but what
| am driving at is this: The diluted
knowledge of the classics that We get
in collegiate course is so divorced
from all feeling, by our difficulties in
rendering it into Ineligible English,
that it never has any effect i'm the for
nation of our style TO read with
profit book i'm any language we mnst
be able to give our whole attention to
the ideas which it imparts, without
being embarrassed by want of familiar
ity with the machinery through which
they are conveyed. These ideas will
certainly not be very vividly inn
pressed upon our minds vitally af-
feet our styles of expression if every
sentence brings us u new necessity to
turn over our leXicOns, or to guess at
its probable meaning by experiment.
ing upon it with the rules OF syntax.
The study of Latin and Greek be-
comes necessary from the important
part they fill in the structure of our
language. Hence we must study
these languages to understand Eng
lish. Would it not be well to study
English for the sake of understanding
English. The base upon which our
language is reared, is Anglo-SaXOn,
and so is the greater part OF the mate
rial used i'm the structure itself or
the one hundred and fourteen thou
sand words that make up our vOcabu-
larry over fifty per cent. of them are of
Saxon origin. The most profuse
among our best authors, in all their
works, never use over ten thou
sand different words. Counting the
words as they stand upon the pages OF
the writers, and not as they would DC
if arranged in a dictionary. twill be
found that the words used by all the
different authors upon all the different
subjects treated Of will range from
sixty to ninety per cent. OF Saxon
origin.
DR.. johnson was famous for using
Latinised derivatiOns in his writings,
yet even he used from sixty to seventy
per cent. of Saxon words.
For clearness of dictiOn, smOOthness
Of style, beauty of imagery, and rich
ness of expression, there are few pieces
of composition, ancient or modern, sa-
cred or prOfane, comparable to some of
the chapters of the Book of Job. Yet
as these come to us in the English ver-
sions of the Bible, they are written al
most entirely in Saxon. -F an.
If we are compelled to study the Ian
guage of the old Greeks and Romans,
because some of their gibberish is
mixed with ours, why not study the
old Saxon before it was mixed. If we
| study the Classics out of respect
| to the bards and philosophers of
Greece and Rome, why not study the
Saxon out of respect OF our ancestors
who caved in the head of some of these
| old Romans, and did fine stroke of
| business in piratical way besides.
| The verse of CadmOn, the prose of the
Saxon Chronicles, and the poetical
works of Robert of Gloucester, might
furnish interesting reading to many of
the rising generation, and probably in
crease their reverence for their ances-
tors, that is, fany of them could trace
unbrOken line Ofkinship back to these
! fine old English gentlemen. Without
a Lexicon, the old Saxon is about as
! intelligible to the student as old Greek.
He would secure the same amount of
mental gymnastics in the one as in
the other Whilst the Saxon would
be his mother, or rather his great
| grand mothers tongue, and the Greek,
tongue neither his mother nor great
grand mother ever used. To the youth
with abundance of leisure and ample
means to continue his study of the
Latin and Greek after he leaves col
lege, the traditional course would be
invaluable as beginning to the study,
but it would be only as beginning; it
would take long years of study to rem
der these languages so familiar that
he would be able to read them as
readily as he does his own. TO the
man of letters who laspires to the
higher walks of literature, II know
| ledge of the Classics is necessary. To
/ tha oraat mass Of American yOuths