The Catholic World.
Vol. NO. 27, June 1867
Translated from Le Correspondant
Lectures and Public Conferences Among the Ancients.
I.
Nil sub sole novum; there is nothing absolutely new under the sun. Apart from the sciences and their application, our age differs less than we suppose from the ages that preceded it. Fancying ourselves pure Frenchmen of the nineteenth century, we discern upon a nearer view numerous traits of resemblance to the contemporaries of Pliny and Plutarch.
"Who will deliver us from Greek and Roman shackles?" cried the author of Gastronomie, in a fit of witty ill-humor. It is to be feared that for many a long year we are condemned to imitate the Latins and Athenians whom we love to slander even while copying them. What matter how unconsciously we borrow from them? Many things besides the game that made the amusement of our infancy may be considered renovations of Greek originals. Fashions, customs, pleasures even, are ours, not by right of invention, but of inheritance; and what we take for new is sometimes merely the old refurbished.
If there be a novelty, for the mass of the people who do not pride themselves on erudition, it is to be found in the lectures or conferences, to which the public is bidden every winter. Tested first successfully in Paris, through the enterprise of a few private individuals, they afterward, favored by the influence of higher powers, reached the provinces—invaded them, I should have said, if the word had not an offensive signification, far from my thoughts. It is surprising to watch the rapid development of this custom, exhibited as it is in the fact that since the second year a thousand chaires have sprung up in various parts of France. Modest townships, no less than great cities, have their course of lectures, and one peruses with interest the list of lecturers, [Footnote 55] some of whom are accustomed by profession to communicating their ideas to an audience, while others essay for the first time the public expression of their opinions.
[Footnote 55: The chaires have been lately interdicted to Prince Albert de Brogile and to MM. Saint Marc Girardin, Cochin, Laboulaye, and Jules Simon. We cannot help, while recording this ostracism, deploring its effect upon French literature.—Note of French Editor.]
In the ranks of volunteer instructors (without mentioning professors, who are naturally called to assume such a position) lawyers elbow physicians, the Catholic priest finds himself next to the Protestant minister, and officers march abreast with men of letters. Nay more: women too are seen taking part in these manly exercises, anxious to prove good the equality of their sex with ours.
'Tis undeniably an odd spectacle to unaccustomed eyes, and there is no lack of discussion and outcry upon the matter. But one need only read a few pages from the pen of ancient authors to discover that what startles us to-day as a thing without precedent, had passed into a well-known custom in the earliest ages of Christianity. It is into the subject of lectures and conferences among the ancients that I propose to inquire, as a topic offering interest if not profit to those who like to compare antiquity with our own times.