Greek in England.
In England Latin was considered necessary, but Greek was the great object of achievement. A “scholar,” in England, means especially a Greek scholar. One may be a scholar without Hebrew or Arabic, but certainly not without Greek. The ordinary level of French attainment in Hellenic studies appears contemptible to the English of the learned class.
The Principle common to both Countries.
Dignity of the Teacher.
Antiquity and Mystery.
Hieratic quality of the dead Languages.
Latin Quotations.
However, the principle was the same in both countries, and may be expressed in terms applicable to both. That principle was the choice of an ancient language that could be taught authoritatively by the learned in each country. They can never teach a modern language in that authoritative way, as in modern languages their degree of accomplishment must always be inferior to that of the educated native. When the teacher assumes great dignity it is essential to its maintenance that he should be secure from this crushing rivalry, and this security can be given by an ancient language alone. Besides this professional consideration there is the effect of antiquity, and of a certain mystery, on the popular mind. So long as the people could be made to believe that a lofty and peculiar wisdom, not communicable in translations, was enshrined in Latin and Greek words, the learned were supposed to be in possession of mysterious intellectual advantages. There was even an hieratic quality in the dead languages. Closely connected with religion, they were the especial study of priests, and communicated by them to the highest classes of the laity. They belonged to the two most powerful castes, the sacerdotal and the aristocratic. Even yet the French village priest not only says mass in Latin, but makes quotations in Latin from the Vulgate when preaching to illiterate peasants. He appeals in this way to that reverence for, and awe of, mysterious words which belongs to the uncultured man. He knows, but does not tell his humble audience, that the Vulgate is itself a translation, and that, were it not for the effect of mystery, he might equally give the passage in French.
French Contempt for Modern Literatures.
In the same way a knowledge, or even a supposed knowledge, of Latin gave laymen an ascendency over the lower classes and over women in their own rank. It was easy for a Frenchman who knew no English to declare to a French audience equally ignorant that the whole vast range of English literature was not worthy of comparison with what has come down to us from ancient Rome. He could class English authors in the two categories of barbarians who knew nothing of antiquity and imitators who feebly attempted to copy its inimitable masterpieces. The only education worthy of the name was that which he himself possessed, and those literatures that he did not know were simply not worth knowing.