The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-07-09

Phases of Ancient Literature.
 Apocope and elision. penults and antepenults, pentameters, hexameters and host of other grammatical mon sters terrifying to every schoolboy were approached boldly yesterday by the most learned linguists in the land, who discussed them with familiarity amaz- ing to the Iayman, pinned them down to their proper places, and in short did everything but find the lost digamma. It was all at the thirty-lfth annual convention of the American Philologi- cal association, which opened in this city yesterday.
 This convention is exceedingly well attended, over eighty prominent edu- cators from the universities of the country being. present. Among these is Professor Hardness of Brown, the venerable author of Hardness Latin Grammar, through the help of which thousands Of students have untangled the kinks of the ancient tongue, Pro- lessor March of Lafayette college, the lifelong companion and friend of the late Professor Whitney, Professors Morgan, Wright, Moore, smythe and Warren of Harvard's classical depart ment and Professors Perry and Jack son of Columbia.
 Yesterday mornings session was held in the Trowbridge library in the Divin- ity school. Professor Harry l.. Wilson of Johns Hopkins discussed in the opening paper a long passage from Juvenal which in some instances had apparently been omitted from the first version. ,s. .5
 Professor Bernadotte Perrin of Yale always strong and entertaining speaker read a paper on The Fiscal Joke of Pericles.'' Professor Perrin's subject was the one on the programme most comprehensive to the layman, and the nature of his topic, together with the speakers reputation, brought audit ors to the library not members of the association. among the mmany ladies, to hear what little frivolity the sage Pericles had been up to.
 The joke of Pericles discussed by Pro- lessor Perrin is referred to in the "Clouds" of Aristophanes, where an old father who has been learning the new wisdom from Socrates is obliged to sell his clothes to pay for his tuition. When his son asks him what has be- come of his coat and boots the father replies: Like Pericles, they have gone for sundry needs"
 This was reference to the fiscal joke of Pericles, who, having bribed a Spartan king to withdraw his army from an invasion, entered the item of the bribe, which was enormous, something like $50,000, in his budget un- der the heading, sundry Needs"
 The Athenian people did not demur to the item, but winked at it good-nat- uredly with full understanding of it's significance.
 This was for centuries the accepted meaning of Aristophanes reference to s Pericles' joke. But Busolt and Meyer, two recent Greek historians, have at tackled the theory. Professor Perrin's discussion was vindication of the old theory, and he quoted from Thucydides to show that the historians had not properly taken his authority into ac-t count It was strong, clear and en- tertaining paper.
 Professor Earles paper on an emend- .dLlUIl Ul aIlOld dCSg PIOuASC1 HIVE uls- cussion in regard to the advisability of ernending Horace into perfect form, Professosr Morgan of Harvard univer- sity emphatically declared that Horace was perfect in no way, either as 8 poet or as grammarian and it was SUI premely ridiculous to expect of him syntactical accuracy. Professor Knapp of Columbia urged that emoton and accuracy are always in inverse propor- ton and that lyric poet should not be emended with the idea of making him accurate.
 The paper of Professor Hopkins of Yale discussed a new phonetic theory which showed how a soft sonant sound can make hard a preceding soft sound The writer called attention to the extreme delicacy of modern phon- etic instruments which are able to dis sect an apparently uniform sound and show that it consists of clements of different character.
 Professor Humphreys introduced a technical Greek paper with the humor- ous remark that he always tried to tread the narrow path between right and wrong, which practice he follow ed in a score of instances presented with acumen. Dr. Scott was moved to illustrate one of these instances by
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