The Evening Star TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24 1874

Evening Star, Issue 3435, 24 February 1874, Page 2

The Evening Star TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24 1874

The study of foreign languages, either living or dead, will probably always form part of the mental training which is necessary to complete what is called a liberal education. Indeed, it would seem hardly possible for a person unacquainted with any foreign language to know the peculiarities, the strength or the weakness, the beauties or the defects of his own. It is only by comparison that we can estimate the good or the bad qualities of anything whatever. When we see a given idea expressed in one way in one language, and in a different way in another, we are* able to see which is the better of the two. The kind of practice which the act of comparison, frequently repeated, gives confers on the student the power of selecting the best and most appropriate modes of expressing his ideas even in his own language. Thus the study of language cultivates the taste in a most effectual way. Again, it is very much more difficult to write in a foreign language than in our own, and an Englishman who can write Latin or German will find it very easy to write English. It may be seldom necessary for a merchant or a minister to climb up a post, but every such person who has had the gymnastic training which would enable him to accomplish such a feat knows that that training has given him the power of doing scores of necessary things with ease and elegance, which, without such training, he would have done awkwardly and with difficulty. It is not meant that the mere learning to write a foreign language will cause a man to write his own well, though it will assist him very materially ; but that it will enable him to perform speedily, and with comfort to himself, what he would otherwise be likely to find a very irksome task. But it would .seem that the greatest benefit that is to be derived from the practice ot composing in a foreign language depends on the fact that it is impossible to make a word-for-word translation from one language into another. Before we can translate a sentence into another language, we have to determine not merely the meaning of each particular word, but the idea expressed by the whole sentence. It is impossible to overrate the importance of the habit of weighing words acquired by a person who has had considerable practice in translating. We do not hesitate to say that very many of the misunderstandings and unpleasantnesses that now take place would be prevented, if people could only acquire this invaluable habit of considering the exact meaning of the words they use. Gossip and tittle-tattle would, however, in that case be deprived of their principal charms: one could hardly get the full amount of amusement and satisfaction which his neighbors’ faults and weaknesses are calculated to afford him, if he gave himself the trouble to consider whether all he said was just exactly true. This is an outline of the principal arguments which may be adduced to show the importance of linguistic studies. But persons who use them generally deduce from them the somewhat startling conclusion that it is before all things necessary • that boys should learn Latin, and, if possible, Greek. But there is surely a fine non sequitur here. It is as if one absurdly said that because vegetables form a necessary part of boys’ food, all boys should therefore be compelled to live for the most part on parsnips and celery. We do not deny that Latin is very well fitted to be the instrument for giving the required training in a foreign language, but no valid reason has yet been advanced why it should be preferred to French, still less to German. Everyone who has made some progress in the three languages knows that it is harder to write first-class German than to write Latin; and even French, which the student thinks at first that he is going to take by storm in a few months, is soon found to be a by no means easy language. Indeed, we are almost inclined to think that a foreigner who can learn to write French really well, could attain to very great eminence as a linguist. But surely Latin must have some advantages over modern languages, one would say. It has two advantages for English students, and only two as far as we know. A large proportion of the more difficult English works are derived from the Latin, and their meaning is known, as if by intuition, by the Latin scholar. It must be remembered, however, thata mere English scholar who has thoroughly committed to memory two or three hundred Latin roots, has to some extent diminished the disadvantages under which he labors, and a French scholar is only a small way behind the Latinist in this respect. The other advantage to which we referred , is that a knowledge of Latin enables one to understand a great deal of the modern poetical and light literature which would be otherwise nearly unintelligible to him. But, at the same time, it should be remembered that even a partial knowledge of French and

German opens up to the student two out of the three (English being the other) finest literatures that the world has ever seen. It must be remembered, too, that these languages are valuable both for style and for matter, while the works of the Latin authors, though beautifully written, contain about as much of what can by any possibility be useful to this modern world of ours, as does last year’s almanac. We should be sorry to see any sudden changes : they could only do harm; but we should very much like to see a gradual change in this respect. We should like to find the time allotted to French in our schools increased little by little, and taking the place of that set apart for Latin, the latter being considered a special subject to be learnt only by those who are likely to require it. Moreover, it seems to us that the University of Otago should, as soon as possible, have on its stall a Professor of Modern Languages and Literature.