Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1890-02-19
MODERN LANGUAGES.
They Are Now Taught Sc'entifIcaI-
Iy as Parts of Scholarship.

The real change that has come about
in the point of view from which the
place of the modern languages in edu-
cation is regarded was well stated by
Mr. Lowell, when he said that the mod
ern languages used to be thought ''un-
worthy to be taught at all except as a
social accomplishment or as CONNER
cial subsidy" whereas they are now
taught thoroughly and scientifically as
parts of scholarship, and the existence
of the Modern Language Association,
composed of teachers of them, helps to
show the new basis upon which the
teaching of them has been put. We
are all pretty well agreed that our re-
spected grand athers, if they were col
lege bred, attached too much import
aHce to the traditional "humanities"
and too little to any thing outside of
them. The restriction was even more
marked in this country than in any
other, because ''the education of gen
tleman" was less regarded, nobody IN
this country, at least In the Northern
States, being educated with an exclu-
sive view to follow that pursuit, though
the education of gentleman in Eng
land for nearly two centuries meant
mainly the ability to read Latin. In
New England a college education that
a
this involved the power of reading tine
Scriptures in the original tongues n d
the standard commentaries upon them,
which were for the most part in Latin.
At present u knowledge of German
would seem to be important for a min
lister, unless he be content to take his
Biblical criticism at second hand from
Robertson Smith, but its Importance
has scarcely been recognized by the
theological seminaries, and even less by
the colleges. The English university
training has been said, by a man who
has undergone it, to fit the receiver of
IT very well for the trade of gentleman,
and for 10 other. If the sneer means
merely that liberal education is not in
dustr.a', there is not much point in 1t.
A man who has been educated to ap-
preciate 1.-the best that has been thought
in the world is much more worthy d
capable human being on that account
whether the appreciation IS directly
helpful to HIM or not in the work of
getting his living. Perhaps Matthew
Arnold's phrase which we have Just
quoted is as good a summary definition
OF culture as could be made. A cen
tury ago it would have been taken to
mean that a man mu know Greek and
meant this much more than it means
this now. Lord Bacon's saying of his
own essays that "the Latin volume of
them (being in the universal language)
may last as long as books last, shows "a
view of literature that lasted almost to
our own time, ludicrous as 1t is when
applied to work that now, nea ly
three centuries later, is known TO Ill
scholars as one of the monuments of
English prose, while the version of 1t
in ''the universal language" is known
only to a few antiQuaries. This view Is
now pretty thoroughly exploded. Lord
Macaulay's saying that English liter
ature was of far more value in every
way than all the literature of antiquity
may be an exaggeration, while Lord
Sherbrooke's insIstance upon the al
vantage of being able TO read a French
writer IN his own language was greater
than IL at of being able to read the Iii Il
and the Eneid in the original is OBJ
viously perverse. Nevertheless, he
tween two men, one of whom was fa-
miliar with the literature of France and
Germany and the other of Greece and
Rome, IN addition to that Of his own
language, there would not now bs
much question that the former was the
better educated man, nor can there he
any real doubt that the literature of
Europe since the revival of learning is
of more educational value than all tn It
WAS extant at that epoch. The teacher
of modern languages is now able to RS
sert himself as a scholar, and not as
something like dancing master, en-
gagged in intoxicating a social accom-
plishment," or Commercial subsidi-
ary." 1t is recognized that his en-
plOyment has to do with scholarship,
and that he is as respectable figure III
the world of letters as If he professed
Greek--N y. Times.