Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-10-27
CLASSICS ENRICH
MODERN TONGUES
LiVeIiest of dead" Lam
guages, Greek and Latin,
Hold Strong Today.
BY RALPH v. ID. MAGOFFIN.
Ph. D., LII. D., Professor and Head, Depart
nenf NJ Classics N Y Il

Rh d, l. L, D., Professor and Head, Depart
ment OF Classics, N. Y. U.
Lord Bacon said the last or furthest
end of knowledge was for a person to
read the classics for pastime and re-
freshment What he meant was that
the aim of culture was to find some
thing that would divert us for the time
being from our narrow path of voca-
tional livelihood, our small round OF
material immaterialities or our tread
mill of grinding specialties.
History and poetry are two time-hon-
ored diversions. No better dlverters from
routine have yet been found, There is
vast deal of good history and poetry
and there Is no better than that en-
shrined in the languages of Greece and
Rome.
Day of Dead Languages Past.
The day when the modern languages
"knocked' the ancient ones by calling
them dead is long since past. The habit
clingS in some quarters still The two
livelleSt languages inside the English,
French, Spanish and Italian are the
Latin, first, and the Greek, second.
These languages are composed almost
wholly of Latin and Greek derivatieS.
No language of which an EngliShman
lately said the following can ever die:
Can such a term be applied to that
Hellenic speech that in the Had has
rolled, like the great Father of Waters,
its course unhindered down three thou
sand years; that in Pindar still scars
heavenward, staring at the sun; that
rises and falls in Plato with the long
sequacious music of an Aeolian lutte;
that moves, stately and black stoled, in
Aeschylus; that reverberates with laugh
ter, half Olympian, in Aristophanes;
that pierceS with a trumpet sound IN
DemoSthenes: that smells of crocuses in
Theocritus: that chirrups like balm
cricket in Anacreon? If it be dead, then
what language is alive?"
Latin Lives In New Setting.
"Or, again, is that old Italian speech
dead ana gone, that murmurs in Lu-
cretius a ceaSeleSs solemn monotone OF
seaShell sound; that in Virgil flows, like
the Eridanus, calmly and majeStically,
through rich lowlands, fringed with
tall poplars and trimmed with grassy
banks; that quiverS to wild strains OF
passion in Catullus; that wimples like
@ beck in Ovid; that COOS in Tibullus
like the turtle; that sparkles in Horace
like q well cut diamond"
It Is not at all true that only cul-
tured people of leisure love the humani-
ties. 1t has been true, on the contrary,
that science and the scientists always
have gone along hand in hand with the
humanities. Aristotle was a naturalist,
but he both knew poetry and wrote
about it.
Science and Letters Go Together.
Galen and Hippocrates were famous
ancient physicians. Their writings, how
ever, were so full of classical love that
the humanists of the RinaScimento
read with avidity everything they wrote.
The famous English physician Linacre
was one Of the great Greek scholars of
his day. There has been hardly better
trained claSSicist than Sir William Osler,
the lately deceased and much beloved
Doctor" of Canada, the United States
and England.
The list of the men who have been
the annual presidents of the Classical
Association of Great Britain shows the
genial and cooperative spirit that ex-
lists over there among the scientists, the
government and the scholars. One
would expect to find, as one does, in
the list such names as those of Butcher
and Leaf, the Homer1c scholars; or
Ridgeway, the archeologist; of Gilbert
Murray and Warde Fowler, of the great
Vergilians, Mackail and Conway.
But it is enlightening to find also the
names of the Earl of Halsbury. the Lord
Chancellor; of Prime Ministers Asquith
and Stanley Baldwin, of Lord Curzon,
of Viscount Bryce, tsle historian; of Sir
Archibald Geikie, of DR.. Sir William
OSler and of Darcy Thompson, the
great zoologist, the last named of whom
gave as his address, when retiring, not
long ago from the presidency of the
Classical Association, Science and the
Classics"