The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-08-13
COLLEGES ASK TOO MUCH LATIN Board of Education Takes Steps to Secure Reduction in Entrance Require
 ments. AIDS PUPILS LITTLE NOW High Schools Unable to Teach Subject so as to
 Yield Much
 Benefit.
AIDS PUPILS LITTLE NOW

Colleges demand too much in La tin. As result the high schools are unable to teach the subject in such manner as to yield the greatest benefit to students. Reduction in tn. college requirements is to be sought by the New York Board of Education City Superintendent Maxwell directed the attention of the school authorities to the exorbitant demands of the col leges with the result that the com m1ttee on high schools approved his suggestion that efforts be made to secure large reduction in the college entrance requirements in Latin. in order that Latin may be taught in the nigh schools so as to yield the bene- fits which are legitimate to produce.
 statistics from the high schools show that of the elective languages- Latin. Greek. German. French, and lar, having been elected by 17,5O4 students, Latin is second with 16,255 students. Commenting upon this fact and the need of reduction in the en- trance requirements in the subject, City Superintendent Maxwell says in recent report:
 It is, indeed, not so remarkable that
 
 ents as that Latin should be a close second, because college authorities have done everything in their power to make Latin unpopular. They re- Qu1re an amount of work, which must be covered in a four-year course, that is in excess of what is expected in a modern language, and that ismore than can be done we'll in a four-year course.
 The objects of studying the Latin language and literature I take to be the following:
 "1. To make the student acquaint- ed with Roman law and institutions because they form the basis of mod ern law and institutions, to the end that the latter may be more thorough ly understood.
 "2. To enable the student to un- derstand more clearly the vocabularly of his own language because it is de- rived in large part, either directly or indirectly, from the Latin.
 "3. To learn better how to write and speak the English language, be- cause, in translating from a highly infected language into one that is almost destitute of infection, the stu dent is obliged to search for the prop CT idiom to express the meaning that turks behind radically different sentence structure.
 "4. To appreciate the literature preserved in the Latin language. These four chief objects of learning Latin should be constantly borne in mind by the teacher and should form the motives for most of the class work Unless the teacher teach the language with these objects in view, the pupils time is largely lost. To cover the necessary preliminary work, to read four books of Caesars Com mentaries, six orations of Cicero, and and six books of Aeneid. together with appropriate composition and gram mar, and all in four years, is an inn possibility, if any serious attempt is made to attain the four prime objects of studying Latin. The result is that these objects are not to any great de- gree attained. If the amount of ground to be covered were reduced one-half-if Caesar were reduced to two books. the Aeneid to three, Cicero's orations banished to the col leges where they belong, and some interesting historical narrative sub stituted, our high school students would acquire greater power to read the Latin language and to enjoy Latin literature, they would obtain better grasp of the fundamental institutions of ancient Rome, and they would ac- uuire a great mastery over the re- sources of the English language. believe that New York City should take the lead in securing a reform in the college entrance and literature, because the college entrance require ments necessarily form the basis for the high school course in that lan- guage"