We will now examine that extraordinary argument by which Mr. Carey attempts to prove that too much time is consumed in the study of languages, even in those few cases in which he would tolerate them at all. Here it is. “That lads of moderate capacity, and no very extraordinary application, frequently acquire the French language in twelve or eighteen months,” &c. Again—“That the Latin language is not more difficult than the French—indeed I believe not so difficult.” From these petitiones pricipii, he draws the non sequitur conclusion, “that it's an error to consume three, four, five or six years in the attainment of the Latin.” Now every person at all acquainted with Philology, knows that foreign language to be easiest to himself which bears the greatest resemblance to his vernacular tongue in its structure, syntax, the sequence of its words in sentences, and the identity or similarity of many of its terms with corresponding ones in his own language. It will be evident to any individual, that in these particulars the French resembles our language much more than the Latin. If he will only reflect, the whole intricate machinery of declensions and conjugations, which constitutes one of the greatest difficulties of ancient languages, is almost entirely wanting in the French, and indeed in all modern languages. Here I cannot do better than to quote the words of that elegant rhetorician, Dr. Blair. “There is no doubt that in abolishing cases, we have rendered the structure of modern languages more simple. We have disembarrassed it of the intricacy which arose from the different forms of declension. We have thereby rendered modern languages more easy to be acquired, and less subject to the perplexity of rules.” Again, in a subsequent chapter, he says, “Language (modern) has undergone a change in conjugation perfectly similar to that which I showed it underwent with respect to declension; the consequence was the same as that of abolishing declensions; it rendered language (modern) more simple and easy.” But the proof of the pudding is in the eating; so the universal practice among teachers of giving much longer French than Latin lessons, to be prepared in the same given time, is conclusive of the more easy attainment of the former. Most opportunely for the tenability of our argument, while we were preparing this article, an intelligent student of the University stated to us that he found he was making very little progress in French, and could assign no reason for it, unless it was because French is so easy that it does not take hold upon and engage the mind. But Mr. Carey would not only limit the time during which the ancient languages ought to be studied; he goes a good deal farther in his hostility to them, by advising that they should be studied even during the short period of twelve or eighteen months through the medium of translations. Now simply to state that this plan would utterly destroy that strengthening of the memory, disciplining of the mind, and refining of the taste, which languages are known to afford, is to prove its absurdity. If his plan should recommend itself to public adoption, the friends of Classical literature would abandon its defence in despair. The followers in any vocation are the best authority in the world in relation to the vocation, whether they be statesmen, teachers, or shoemakers. The united voice of teachers denounces translations as ruinous to the minds and habits of their pupils; hence they are regarded as contraband commodities, and as such, lawful confiscations to the dominion of Vulcan. These labor-saving machines of the mind, like those in mechanics, engender habits of idleness, by shortening the time and toil of accomplishing a task, smoothing the way, leaving the student nothing to elaborate for himself, until his mind is reduced to a state of wretched imbecility and servile dependence. Can a mind thus educated be prepared to make nice discriminations, to trace effect to cause, to winnow away the chaff of error from the golden grains of truth and wisdom? Even the little gained in this way is evanescent—takes no root in the memory. To look for enduring and accurate knowledge from him, would be as unreasonable as to expect a correct description of a country from one who flies through it in a steam car. But we might give up all that has yet been said about translations, and still maintain our argument against them, upon the ground that they do not express the meaning of the translated authors. At least the fire, spirit, enthusiasm are squeezed out and skeletonized in dull, vapid, prosaic copies. And is not this the case with all translations? Have not the French vainly essayed to translate Milton and Shakspeare? Are not their abortive attempts miserable caricatures? What becomes of the halo of glory which the ancient artists threw around the forms of Apollo Belvidere, and the Venus de Medicis, when copied—of the coloring of Titian, the sublimity of Claude, and the grandeur of Raphael, when attempted to be transferred to the canvass of some impotent imitator? Gone! Why should we contemplate Homer and Virgil through those smoked glasses, translations, when we can do it in the bright mirror of their own languages? There remains yet another disadvantage of studying ancient authors by translations. They cannot infuse that self-sacrificing patriotism, that high moral, and almost romantic elevation of character, which even Mr. Carey admits the poets of antiquity have a tendency to create. These virtues must be contemplated, turned and returned in the mind, as they are portrayed in the originals—not conned from “Horace's three hundred and seventeen lines introduced into the Latin primer, to illustrate the rules of Grammar.”
But if Mr. Carey cannot argue down the ancient languages, he will frighten parents from putting their sons to the study of them, and the sons from studying, by asking, “how many years of life are spent in learning—how much labor, pain, and imprisonment are endured by the body—how much anxious drudgery by the master—how many habits are formed of reluctance to regular employment, and how——” and the rest of the bugbears. Oh, how will the preceding paragraph be hailed as pregnant with wisdom by all our vigorous, idle, southern youth, who long for more time out of school, to hunt, fish, and scamper over the broad, umbrageous Campus. If Mr. Carey only knew the quantity of swine and pancakes devoured by our students at a meal, and then behold them rush to their sports, and jump twelve feet in the “clear,” he would never again say that Latin kills boys. There might be some truth in the assertion contained in the quotation now before us, if predicated of German seminaries, where we are told the youth frequently study fourteen hours out of the twenty-four. But let any one carefully examine the pupils of an American academy, and he will be convinced that they enjoy more happiness, health, and leisure than any other class of the community. This fact is farther proven by the common observation of educated men, that their school-boy days were the happiest of their whole life, and that they never pass a group of students, and witness the joyous outpourings of youthful feelings, without envy. There is no royal road to learning. It is admitted that the languages are not to be acquired without labor—hard labor. Is this an evil to be deprecated? No. Whatever is acquired without it is generally worthless, not prized—because no price, no toil, no sweat has been paid for it. Constituted as society is, the original curse denounced against man, “in the sweat of thy brow thou shall eat bread,” has proven a blessing. Truly says the adage, “an idle brain is the devil's work-shop.” An industrious one is the chosen abode of the sister virtues. Why, then, should we increase the temptation to idleness, already great to the youth of the south, by the banishment of the only study, perhaps, suitable to the idlest stage of human life? We should thus leave a chasm in the plan of instruction, and that precious time unfilled up, when a regard to the formation of good habits would imperiously require that it should be filled up as far as is consistent with health. Substitute something else, you say. If what has already been said, does not prove that nothing else effectually supplies their place, perhaps the following reflection may assist to do it. The principal point in which we fall short of our northern brethren, and of most European nations, is in our want of system in our employments, and attention to the small things of business. Now the Classics demand constant attention to the most minute marks and letters, together with the exercise of judgment, patience, memory, classification—all of which are component parts of system.
No disposition is felt to controvert the position taken by Mr. Carey, that great men have been made under systems from which the learned languages were excluded—or to discourage the gifted child of poverty, who can never enjoy their advantages. Let such a one reflect that there have been orators who never tasted the honied eloquence of Cicero—bards whose lips were never touched with a “live coal” from the poetic fire of Homer and Virgil—patriots whose bosoms were never warmed, whose arms were never nerved by the story of Aristides and Brutus. There are men to keep whom down would be as impossible as to suppress the fires of Ætna. They ask—they need no aid from their predecessors or cotemporaries. They will create opportunities and modes of development and action for themselves. Very properly, therefore, the institutions of society, the systems of education, are not framed for them; but for ordinary beings—persons of mediocre intellect, of which a vast majority of mankind are composed.
In reviewing the field of our argument, we find that the Classics have been mainly defended upon the ground of the mental training and good habits which result from the study of them—dry objects of pursuit certainly to boys, but still most necessary. But we might long since have cut this question short, by holding up the argument, the truth of which is now generally admitted by competent judges, that it is impossible to understand English in all its power, beauty, copiousness, without a previous acquaintance with the Classics. But the multitude, in the true spirit of English vanity, are constantly proclaiming the entire independence of their language, and vauntingly assert that it needs no plumage borrowed from any tongue under heaven. Mark you! this was not said until the huge, misshapen skeleton of the Anglo-Saxon had received a filling up—a beauty and proportion from much abused Latin and Greek. Now, as the English language has declared her Independence, and set up for herself, it is but fair that she should surrender back to Greek and Latin the harmonious and expressive words, the poetical imagery and rich mythology which she has stolen from them, but which she has just found out she does not need. Let her do this, and what does she become?—what she was originally. Rudis indigestaque moles. We have never known the common-sense rule, viz: That to know the whole we must know all the parts, to be dispensed with except in the case of the English language, which it appears can be perfectly known without previously studying the languages of which it is made up.1 We however have no fears that our boasted vernacular will be able to sustain her declaration, since Greek and Roman ideas, illustrations, and allusions are so interwoven with it that they have become an inseparable part and parcel of it. Those who would know the nice and delicate shades of meaning belonging to English derived terms, will ever betake themselves to the fountain-head for this knowledge. What praise do we unwittingly bestow upon the two noble tongues of antiquity, when we consider that the highest compliment we can pay our illustrious characters is to compare them to some Greek or Roman worthy—to say of a Washington he is a Fabius, of a Franklin he is a Socrates, of a Henry he is a Demosthenes!
1 Since this short article was penned, the number of words of Greek and Latin derivation in it was roughly estimated to be eight hundred, though the writer made an effort to use words purely English in all cases where they would answer the purpose as well.
The department of poetry would lose the most by a neglect of the Classics. As the bards of antiquity were the first to walk forth into the garden of poetry, they did not fail to appropriate to themselves their most beautiful flowers; they, having the gathering of the harvest, have left to the moderns in many branches of the poetic art naught but the mere gleanings of the field. These ancient poems have been so translated, paraphrased, metamorphosed by modern poets, that a mere English scholar would find nearly as much difficulty in the works of the latter, as in those of the former. A glance at one more argument in favor of the learned languages, and this discussion is closed. The history of the forum and halls of legislation proves that in the actual conflict of mind against mind, the Classical orator has a decided advantage over an antagonist who has merely an English education, though in every other respect they be entirely equal. His knowledge of the variety and flexibility of his own tongue, will place at his command a greater copiousness of words, a wider range of selection, a greater fluency and facility in the utterance of them than his unfortunate antagonist can possibly pretend to.
In conclusion, we would say to the ingenuous of the Old Dominion—of the whole south, be not discouraged, be not deluded. The inceptive steps of all great undertakings are slow—sometimes unpleasant. If the beauty, perfection, and pre-eminent usefulness of the Classics are not at present obvious, you will at your docile age be willing to take something on trust, and to pursue your studies under the assurance, that by degrees the circumference of your vision will be enlarged, the point from which you take it in will be elevated, until you shall stand on the pinnacle of the temple of knowledge. Although you will not be so unreasonable as to expect to behold the interior and brighter glories of the temple, while you are merely entering the vestibule, yet along your path you will meet with many flowers to cheer you onward. You have every encouragement to proceed. Are you emulous to serve your country in the halls of legislation? You will, at the completion of your scholastic education, come forth armed with weapons from the armory of Demosthenes and Cicero. Would you create a southern literature? Your present studies are the very first step towards it. Your discouragers may be defied to point you to a single nation eminent in literature, and at the same time proscribers of the Classics. Contribute your mite to demonstrate to the world that this is not the land where “Genius sickens and Fancy dies,” and to enable your countrymen to point proudly to our sister band of states, and say of one, this is our Arcadia—of another, this is our Laconia—of a third, this is our Attica. Do not suppose that this is too much to expect. By the blessing of God, and the operation of causes now at work, to this pitch of glory we must arrive. You live in the region of great men; you daily tread upon the same lines of latitude once trodden by Homer, Demosthenes, and Plato. Macte nova virtute puer, sic itur ad astra.
Hæc exempla—
Nocturna versate manu, versate diurna.
Hæc studia adolescentiam alunt, senectutem oblectant, secundas res ornant, adversis solatium et perfugium præbent, delectant domi, non impediunt foris, pernoctant nobiscum, peregrinantur, rusticantur.
University of North Carolina, October, 1836.