The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1912-07-03
BY ESTHER GRIFFIN WHITE.

A recent magazine article argues for
the classical education and argues
well.
No one is ever spoiled by an educa-
ton.
An education harms Lo one.
He'd been better without it," you
hear it said now and then of some man
who has failed.
But he would have failed the same
without it as with it. With it he had
many enjoyable moments which would
have been denied him otherwise.
1t is not the fault of the education.
But of the man.
Education is a developer, enlighten-
er and discipline.
Many man is handicapped serious
ly by it's lack.
gree.
That is, of the ordinary run. And
the great mass is made up of the ordi-
nary run. There are the detached in
stances, of course-the self-educated,
the genius, the natural student who
either acquire through absorption or
follow the rules without knowing
them"
But these are the exceptions.
The average person needs an educa-
ton and is worse without it.
And today educational systems are
running too much toward the elimina-
ton of the classics-to the neglect of
the study of the great literatures
through their languages and of the lat
ter's technique.
In English as we'll as what are
termed the dead" and the romance
languages.
You only have to talk to the average
high school pupil to find out his lamen-
table lack of knowledge of either his
language or it's literature.
To say nothing of those great world
classics with which every one should
be more or less familiar.
There is no mental discipline great
er than that of the study of Latin and
nothing that is more useful to you la
ter on since our language has for many
of its bases the Latin root. 1t will serve
you far better than you may think
In the writing of advertisements as
we'll as in the editing of magazine.
In selling commodities over the
or teachers chair.
On the farm as we'll as in the bank
Nor do you get in translation what
you get in the original.
There is a certain fine flower, the
essence and the bloom lost in the
transfer from one language to another.
You can best tell this, if you are sui
ficiently trained, by reading a transla-
ton from the English into the German
language.
If the translator is erudite and fell
citous the substance is never lost-but
oftener than not on account of the
very structure of the language, it is
impossible to transmit
Therefore if you have that taste and
inclination which longs to extract the
very heart of literary product, the
knowledge of the languages gives you
an exquisite pleasure as we'll as an in.
sight not only into the greatest but all
the literature of race-that you can
| never receive through a translation.
The writer knows an elderly man in
this city who spends long evenings
reading the Creek masterpieces of lit.
erature In the original. A man who
has spent his life porting over ledgers
and counting up cash. And yet whose
study of Greek in college enabled him
to share a pleasure with the greatest
of any time.
An education gives you the entree
always into the best society. And by
best" is not necessarily meant the
smart set" which, ten to one, may be
the worst so far as culture is concern
ed
But no matter what your merits you
will, on the other hand, be politely
damned through some linguistic lapse
Your introductions may be of the