New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-03-18
THE LATIN CLASSICS
4 Well-Written Introduction to
Their Treasure House.

a HISTORY OF LATIN LITERATURE. By Mar
Gus southsel. DimSdale. limo. %. IN. Si9
ID. App.eton Co
Few branches of learning, or rerhsps
We should say of popular intellectual
culture, have been more deplorably mis-
handled than Latin literature, chiefly
because of two fundamental errors. One
of these is in regarding it as something
which must be approached solely
through the Latin language, and the
other is in regarding Latin as a dead"
language, and therefore not TO be
spoken in natural converse, but trans
lated and construed in a mechanical
and artificial fashion. To consider first
the latter Of these errors, /. may be
confidently assumed that TO the vast
majority, perhaps 80 per cent, of those
who in high school and college hsve,
with the aid Of vocabulary and gram
mar, struggled through so many books
of Sallust and Cesar and Virgil and so
many orations of Cicero and so many
odes Of Horace, and all the rest of Il.
Latin literature, as literature, has re-
NAMED almost as much a sealed book
as though they had never learned he
"hig, bag, hog of Sir Hugh Evans.
Their iaborious grinding" has never
revealed to them SO much as q hint of
the spirit, of the style. of any Latin
author; nor enabled them TO dist'n-
gush between the brilliant and bitter
apophthegms of Tacitus and the milky
richness" of Liyy's flowing periods.
Yet, on the other hand, this has been
the chief II not the exclusive method
Of approach to Latin literature, so that
10 all who have not thus wrestled with
pythons and mud demons, one Of the
most copious and opulent intellectual
treasures IN the word has remained
quite unentered and unknown. They
have heard OF Seneca and Lucan Of
Pliny and Juvenal; but they have un-
derstood that they are 10 be tudied
and known only through mastering
Latin grammar and "Liber Primus."
and so those names have remained TO
them names and nothing more. The no
ton OF becoming acquainted with Latin
literature through the medium of the
vernacular has not entered their heads;
or, II IL has, II has quickly been driven
tut by the Encouragement or the pro-
hibi.on Of some pedant.
Now these errors are the more exas-
perating because Of their quite eycep-
tlonal needlcssness. II is perfectly
possible, as more than one instructor
has demonstrated, TO teach and 10 study
Latin as a living language, and 70 enter
into the spirit of il just as sympathet-
!cally and vitally as into that of any of
the modern tongues. Also. il is par
ticularly easy to present, to those who
cannot study the Latin language, a
very satisfactory ISowledge OF Latin
literature in English. And both OF
these things are so because of the very
close relationship between Latin and
English We speak of the languages
of Southern Europe as Latin tongues
and of English as of Teutoric origin
Il may indeed be that In etymology the
former languages are the more closely
related to Latin. But in syntax, in
rhetoric, in literary style, English is
by far more directly the successor Of
the golden speech of Cicero and Virgil.
The present work is 10 be most cor
daily welcomed as most practical and
efficient attempt to acquaint English
readers, even those who have never got
TO "hic, haec, hoe" with the riches Of
Latin literature, not as mere I'M
Continued on page 9, column 2.