STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF CLASSICAL TEACHING.* "Boons have their
destinies," says an old proverb ; but, what- ever their fortune for a time, the common end of most of them can only be oblivion. They have their day, and then, like their mortal authors, "they are as though they had never been." How many of us, for instance, to-day know even the name of the .Tanua Literarum? Yet during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries it was one of the best known books in Europe. Schoolboys thumbed it; scholars edited and expanded it ; while its use was not disdained even by statesmen. For in those days to be ignorant of languages was to be cut off from the community of learning, and " the gate of letters " was in fact almost the only gate of knowledge. Latin, above all, the commune vinculum doctrinae, was, as the writings of Milton or even the grammars in use forty years ago sufficiently prove, the universal language of all serious students, so that to read, write, and speak it with at least some ease was the most necessary of accomplishments, and the question for all teachers was how this skill could best be attained. There was, on the one hand, the oral method, which gave facility but was apt to produce slovenliness ; and, on the other, there was the method of working by systematic rules of grammar, which, as thousands of schoolboys know, may be sure, but is often so slow that the student never arrives anywhere. But it occurred to William Bathe, of Drum- condra, " a gentleman of the Pale," who, having entered the Society of Jesus, bad been appointed on the staff of the Real Colegio de Nobles Irlandeses iu Salamanca—an insti- tution designed for sending missionaries to Ireland—that between what he calls "the rule-way" and "the rule-less way" there might "by the divine help" be found a via media which should be superior to either. He accordingly brought together a collection of some 5,300 "fundamental" Latin words, which he then proceeded to arrange in twelve "cen- turies" of sentences, each " century " being designed to deal with some particular department of morals, much as in modern guide-books similar sentences are grouped together, for meaner ends, in order that the traveller may be enabled to express his desire for food, lodging, or a railway ticket. The sentences are often well-known aphorisms, such as Margaritas ante porcos non projicies; but as the author's rule is never to use the same word twice, they necessarily assume at times a peculiar shape, so that under the heading of " Prudence " we find such utterances as Os heri impin.guat equum, or Desinet oggannire conjux, si nihil respondeas, and under that of " Temperance " such a quaint warning against indulgence as Pontum o paradise protoplastum expulit. The book, indeed, seems at first sight specially designed to manufacture prigs by means'of platitudes, so that its success surprises, for, being originally drawn up in Latin and Spanish, it quickly appeared. in England as "A Maisterpiece of Curious Sohollorship," or "a Meese of Tongues, Latin, English, French, and Spanish, neatly served up together, for a wholesome repast, to the worthy ouriositie of the studious," and nine editions were published within thirty years, while in various shapes and sizes, containing two, four, six, or even eight languageli, it had a large circulation in Germany, Italy, and Portugal.
* Studies in the History of Classical Trite/lilt/ Irish and Continental (A.% WO- 1700). By the Rev. T. Corcoran, 8.3., Professor of Education in National University of Ireland, London Longman', pad Co, [7s. 6d. not.]
ant in fact it just hit the taste of the age, which, as the Adages of Erasmus and Bacon's Essays may show, bad a great relish for "wise saws," particularly in Latin, so that a discourse was considered to lack weight which did not contain at least one quotation from the Vulgate text of the Son of Sirach. Nor can it ba doubted, having regard to the popularity of the work, that, whatever its effect on morals, it did practically prove a useful instrument in the teaching of language, and therefore deserves study, not merely as a literary curiosity, but as an important document in the history of education. We have not space here to discuss the able and important chapters in which Professor Corcoran examines the bearing of the work on the methods of classical teaching; but if the study of Greek, and even of Latin, is to bold its own in our schools, and not be crowded out by the pressure of subjects considered to be more practical or more " paying," then it is certain that our methods of teaching the classics must be 'largely revised. CoMmentators, gram- marians, historians, archteologists, textual critics, and a host of others have to-day almost blocked up " the gate of letters " with a ponderous accumulation of erudition. Few boys ever really struggle through it at all. Not one in ten ever learns to regard Latin as a means for the expression of thought ; not one in a hundred ever dreams of expressing his thoughts in it, as Montaigne was taught to do by his father, and the Princess Mary by Queen Katharine ; while there are few indeed who, like Lady Jane Grey, would take the Phaedo of Plato with them as the most pleasurable companion of their solitude. And, somehow, classical teachers have got to alter this. They have got to make the " dead" languages live, or there will be an end of them ; and it is just because school- masters did this three hundred years ago, while to-day we fail in doing it, that, in spite of its oddities, a book like the Jautta Literarum has a claim to he rescued from forgetfulness, so that we may learn to understand the merits which recom- mended it to our forefathers. Its Latinity is not always of the best, but the language is alive. Hypocrita germanus erocodili, for instance, might not please Cicero, but it is good enough ; and the lad who got hold of the phrase, or of such a precept as Mane e cubili ceu dams exilias would have got hold of some- thing which might not help him to win a scholarship, but which he could really get a grip of and make his own. The language would come into relation with his own life, experi- ence, and thought. And that is something far more real and vital than to know all the rules for qui taking the sub- junctive or all the intolerable eccentricities of oratio oblique,'
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