The Newberry herald and news. (Newberry, S.C.) 1884-1903, 1889-11-21
BILL ARP AMONG THE CLASSICS.
He Don't Believe Much In Dead Lam
Euages.
From the Sunny SOUTH

am getting reconciled to the public
schools. 1t is powerful strain on ME
to keep up with this progressive age
and its new tangled methods, but I
reckon it is all right. The children say
it is and they are proud Of the school
and ambitious to keep in the front
rank, and talk hopefully about their
marks. "rm going for hundred in
Latin" says one. "And am going for
a hundred in arithmetic" says an
other Last year I could help them
along at night, but they have got
ahead OF me now in some things.
used to getabout 95in old-fashioned
Latin and Greek, away back in the re-
mote ages, when Prof. Waddell heard
me recite, and we got along pretty we'll
when we had translation to help US.
I believe in a translation; every pupil
ought to have one. The Latin ought
to be on one page and the English
right opposite. Talk about training
the mind, train it for what? The dead
languages are fit for nothing in the
world but to learn the origin Of En-
glish words, that's all. Nobody is
going to read it or speak it or parse it
after they come from school or college.
BUTT is comfort to know the origin
Of our language; nothing buta comfort,
that's all. I am proud to know that
Equestrian comes from Eques, a horse
and paternal comes from pater, a father.
When one of the children asks me
what caligraph means, I am proud to
tell them that it comes from kalor,
beautiful and graphic to write. But I
don't care cent about the rules and
remarks and the Paradigens and Lyn-
copaticus and Synesis and Enclictics
and Heteroclites.
| The average boy and girl don't need
any Latin book, but speller and de-
finer with the English derivatives from
the Latin words. The modern Latin
grammar is the most outrageous and
nonsensical book that was ever put in
a school house. Instead of training the
mindit is shamming the mind for no
useful purpose. If my son ever expected
| to so to Herculaneum orPompeii and
digin the ruins and find inscriptions on
the stone or the pottery, I would want
him to study BiDgham's Latin Gram
mar and master it, but he is not going.
Jessie asked me to hear her lessons last
night, and it made me so sorry for the
poor child that I felt like throwing the
| book into the fire, fer she had been for
an hour straining her mind and her
memory over the stuff and had COM
mitted it every word so as to please her
teacher and get good mark. Here is
a few specimensof the answers to the
questions in the grammar:
A cognate equivalent or eliptical &C
cusative may be used with passive
verb.
The cognate or equivalent noun is
often omitted and 8 neuter adjective
used limiting the cognate notion un-
derstood.
An adjective limiting compliment
tary infnitive is an accusation ofdirect
object or Limitation. The complement
of IA concessive sentence is an adversa-
tive proposition.
The abverbial is often used for the
| adjective relative.
Dependent causal propositions are
introduced by the causal conjunctions.
Principal propositions in the CRATIC
recta become infnitive propositions in
the Oratio-obliqua.
Well, maybe they do, and maybe
they don't. T don't know and I don't
care. There wasent any Of that fool
stuff in my grammar. Prof. Waddell
dident know anything about it. 1t
may have.been discovered in the ruins
of Pompeii since he died or it may have
come up spontaneous since the war like
the Japan clover came. I don't care
whereit came from, it is fraud on
the youthful mind.
"The complement Of a concessive
sentence is an adversative proposition"
"What does that mean, Jessie" said
I.
II don't know, sir" said she.
Of course she don't and she never
will-might as we'll have asked her
what is the euphonic auxiliary Of the
suggestive hiascutus ?"
"Does the professor know what it
means ?" said I.
Eyes, sir, think be does, but he
doesent like the grammar for schools
like ours"
Ofcourse he don't. How could he.
Next I had to hear Carl in his Greek
grammar, and that is nearly as bad.
Carl don't commit to memory like
Jessie and makes some awful blunders
over the jaw-brakers. The answer to
one questionin his grammar was: "The
protests is often omitted, leaving the
aptative with 'au' alone as an apodo-
sis,n and he had it: '"The pertalis is
something left open and alone with the
proboscis." The next answer was "a
periphrastic third person of the plaper-
feet indicative middle formed by the
participle is necessary when the stem
ends in consonant," and he had it:
"a peregrastic person in the middle Of
the participle is necessary to STEM
winder."
Hurrah for Carl ! He is all right,
for one answer is as intelligible as the
other. When 1 got him on the accents