Los Angeles daily herald., 1873-11-09
l. Published every morning except Monday,
hV
THE HERALD PRINTING COMPANY,
OFFICF-XIerald Steam Book Rna job
Printing House. Spring street, opposite the
Court House.
MENTAL DjETETiCS.
A Lecture Delivered Thursday Evening, No.
vember 6, 1873, before the Teachers As.
sociation, by ]. N. Quinn.
[Continued.l |

grown the fOibles of their. youth, ever
write the abbreviation for Master of
Arts after their name without being
struck with sense of its utter inap-
propriateness to them. That few
badly preserved Greek myths or Latin
quotations should make any man mas
ter of any art is simply ridiculous
and, indeed, this is about all that is
left of our classical learning after
few years of knocking about by this
very practical world. know that |
would gladly exchange my classical
lore, garnered through years of weary
ing study, for a very limited amount
of accurate knowledge of chemistry,
geology and mineralOgy and the in
dividual who would make the trade
wouldn't get much of bargain. For,
confess it / must, that now, ten years
are gone since last closed my leXicOns
and grammars, am unable TO read
page in any one of the authors that
| once translated with so much ease.
Yet in my classical studies while in
college l stood among the best in a
class of sixty, who were certainly
equal in scholarship to the average OF
college students in any institution.
OF the 40 rules, remarks and notes of
syntaX that we committed to memory
from the Latin grammar, of all the
valuable information that we gathered
about the dialectic, emphatic, euphO-
mic and anomalous changes, or about
eolic, attic, beattic, daric, eptic, he'll
lemstic, iterative and alexandrine
forms of Greek words /; of all the laws
of quantity, versification and accent
that we committed from both gram
mars, l doubt whether the fragments
that each one of us has preserved in
memory to-day would piece out one
whole rule. Nor is it our fault that
we have forgotten this information
acquired by the hardest of study, but
rather the fault of the utterly imprac-
teal and worthless knowledge that we
spent our time over. Indeed, the very
best thing that we could do with it at
ter we had acquired it was to forget it.
Yet, to-day, with all the sad expe-
rience of those who have gone before
them to warn them, in the four hund-
red colleges of our land at least 10000
of our brightest youths are burthening
their minds with this dead weight,
and are wearily staggering under their
loads over the IriUuim and Latdricuina,
over the three roads that lead (prOba-
bly, to elOquence, and the four roads
that lead nowhere,
Is this the culture demanded by the
eXisencies and emergencies of modern
life ? Is this the curriculum of study,
conceived i'm superstition, born OF ig-
n0rance, nursed by bigOtry, and kept
alive by caste, the one perfect method
of bringing the human mind to its
highest mental condition? Are these
fragments of dead languages, rescued
from the charnel house of antiquity,
the richest and rarest gems in the
treasure vaults of knowledge? ? Had
the human mind in the davs of Greece
and Rome reached the ultimathute OF
the mental world Had these ancient
authors scaled the EXTREMIST nights,
or sounded the deepest depths of hu-
man passion? Did they penetrate to
the secrets of nature, and unVeil the
mysteries of the universe? No; the
most enthusiastic lover of classic lore
would not claim these for his favor
ties. The culture that the study of
the extinct languages gives is disqual-
flying as preparation for the activi-
ties of life. The knowledge they i'm
part is simpracticable and Oflittle value,
except as an avenue to ancient modes
OF thought.
In scientific knowledge, the wisest
of the ancient philosophers was the
merest tyro when compared with the
learned men of our day. AS delinea-
tors of human passion, their poets
and dramatists were superficial and
material. Then why spend five-sev-
enths of the time allotted to schO-
lastic education, in acquiring knowl-
edge of no practical utility? for
mental discipline. 1t is not for the
use that can be made of them in prac-
tical life that the ancient classics still
continue to fill so dominant space in
the curriculum of our colleges and
universities, but for their excellence
as means of mental discipline. To
discipline the faculties of the mind
there is no other study comparable to
q thorough drill in the ancient classics.
Well let as see. The youth who
would spend five years of his life in
learning to play the ten command
ments, upon a violin, would no doubt
acquire considerable. discipline in the
art of music, but question whether
his musical acquisitions, would secure
him the position of second .fddte In
the orchestra of an itinerant organ
grinder.
SO the youth who spends five years
in fiddling changes OH Greek verbs or
Latin subjunctives, may receive con-
siderable discipline in that species OF
dynamics, but l have serious doubts
whether it aids him much in perform
ing in the grand opera of life.
But seriously is it not little
strange that the semi-barbarism of the
dark ages, a period when gloom, deep
as cimmerian night hung over the in
tellectual faculties of man-should
have furnished us our one perfected
system of mental discipline? and is IL
not strange too that a theory which
violates the law of mental economy
actually provides for a aUdste Of power
should be regarded as the one per-
fected Wdy of gaining power. The
dominant idea in this theory of men.
tai discipline seems to be that the
mind must be trained by a sort OF i'll
tellectual gymnastics to perform Ger.
tain acrObatic feats-such as lifting
dead weights of abstract mathemat.
ical problems, turning pathological
hand springs, and balancing itsel
upon the slack rope of lingual rela'
%snno nanf thOt thnra 10 OnU nfilitX