Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1896-08-13
LIVE QUESTIONS,
A Series of Articles Contributed by
Advanced Thinkers.
LATIN IN INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS.

taught III industrial schools. To answer
1t i'll the affirmative will sound to many
rather odd, if not preposterous, for in
the public opinion industrial and clas-
sical education stand for the two cx-
tremes, the positive and the negative.
Not because they are thus constituted
by the nature of the thing, but because
classical education at the hands of teach
ers unable to speak Latin and Greek
has drifted away from it's aim into bar
ren and absolutely useless pathological
speculations, while industrial education,
being conducted by teachers who know
with exactness what they teach and
know 1t practically and professionally,
not only does not shift into abstraction,
but carries on investigation, fastens
down mind and body to its subject, is
in no need of artifice. nor of authority,
but convinces by demonstration, has i'm
pressed public opinion as the only use
full education. To mention Latin to the
patrons of it is exciting them to laugh
ter.
The responsibility for this extreme
abalienation of public opinion from clas-
sical culture, and Latin in particular,
rests entirely with those professors who
patroniZe present methods and who
support the principle that Latin is
mere mental gymnastic and has no other
object.
However, Latin is not such buSbear
as its professors want us to believe, but
can be learned just as easily as any Ian
guage or music, typcwriting or stenog-
raphy, and to rs great perfection. BE
it allowed to NE to set forth tho causes
why | consider Latin us one of the sub
jects which every industrial school
should have among its branches of study.
Usually these objections arc raised:
But what il the use of Latin, particu-
larly to business mon? What is the good
i'll knowing Latin? Nobody understands
it, nobody speaks it, nor is there any
need that they should.
My answers will be just as square
and direct.
To my mind it is inconceivable that
an English, French, Spanish, Italian
person should know or even understand
his or her native tongue tolerably well
without sufficient knowledge of Latin.
Fully GO per cent of the English Ian
guago is,Latin, and 80 per cent of the
other languages mentioned is also Latin.
We can scarcely utter sentence in Eng
lish without Latin words and the higher
we rise i'll speech toward science, arts,
mechanics the more we leave the Teu-
tonic (SaXon) element behind rs, so
that i'll technical discourse almost
nothing remains English excepting
land, "but,'' "that, "there,"
"get, "yct," "of," twas" " "herc,"
"the. :" All else is Latin and Greek, or
both mixed.
But the Latin and Greek elements
though not disccrnible to the unscholar-
ly person he uses them just the Same as
the Saxon element, yet they do not offer
him genuine, clear meaning-i. e., he
does not understand the words. Thus
the electrician will know what arma-
ture means, the soldier will know what
armament or arms or armory means, the
marine will know what armor means,
but does any of them know what the
word really means or which the real
word is? Do they really know what they
say? Do they know their own tongue?
nay, read even school and scientific
books, and if you know a little Latin
you will bo astounded at the ignorance
displayed by English writer's of this
very Latin element i'll their native
tongue. How many Of them know the
difference between vocation (calling)
and avocation calling away? How
many of them know what transpire
means? How many know what intoxi-
cation, expectoration. abuse and hun
dreds of other Latin words mean? Yet
it is in their native language. School
books speak of Oceanica, Christiana,
Isadore and dozens of other Latin and
Greek proper names Aluminium is
spelled properly only when accidentally
quoted from some foreign book. This
ignorance of our middle class the in
dustrial and commercial, is the source
of the most absurd abusing of words in
the grotesque nomenclatnres of "com-
mercial, CONTINENTAL, ''metropcli-
tan" and other-to them-high sound
ing terms. What do these words mean
factory, fabric, machine, industry, pol
itics, manufacture, agriculture, econo-
my, phenomenon, plus, minus, multi
plication and hundreds of that kind?
What do student, letter, school, pen,
pencil, ETC., mean? What are educate
parent, doctor, principal, pastor?
Now If person does not have clear
knowledge of the meaning Of the name
of u thing that an industrial student
ought to know above all others, he GER
tainly cannot have clear intelligence
of the thing. c., of the substance and
essence of the thing itself. He will be
an animated tool, a parrot, will be able
to perform functions, but will not be
fully conscious Of what he is doing or
what he is saying. If anybody on earth
should study Latin, it is the student
born in the English (French, Spanish,
ltalian) tongue, and among these the
industrial student before all others.
This is the use of Latin
That nobody speaks or uses it is