THE RELATION OF LATIN TO THE STUDY OF ENGLISH. F. A. HAUSLEIN, STATE NORMAL SCHOOL, DENTON, TEXAS. That the study of Latin and English are mutually helpful is quite generally believed, but just how helpful the study of Latin is to the study of English is still an open question. Some teachers even go so far as to assert that the time spent on the study of Latin is wasted. Latin is taught in this country on the theory that the pupil should have a fair knowledge of the correct forms of expression in English before he begins the study of Latin. He must know the general relations of the words in an English sentence, have a clear notion of subject and predicate and the modifiers of each, and be able to tell with reasonable facility the part of speech of any word in the ordinary sentence. If he attempts the study of Latin at fourteen or older without at least so much preparation in the study of technical English grammar, his task is difficult. No doubt most complaint about the difficulty of Latin has its origin in the fact of insufficient preparation in English grammar when the study of Latin is begun. It is the purpose of this paper to show that the study of Latin bears an important relation to the study of EnglishEnglish in the broad sense, grammar composition and literature. Nearly 30 per cent of English words are of Latin origin. These generally retain the meanings of the Latin words from which they are derived. A knowledge of Latin words with their Latin meanings give a clearer and more definite knowledge of the English derivative and often helps to spell the English word. For example: intercede, from inter, between, and cedere, to pass, and supersede, from super, above, and sedere, to sit. Many English words still retain their Latin forms in both singular and plural. For example: radius radii, focus foci, nebula nebulæ, fungus fungi, vertex vertices, genus genera. Will not the student have a more definite knowledge of such words when he has studied them in the original Latin? A survival of inflection in English is best exemplified in the pronouns. We have, he his him, she her's her, we our us, they their them, who whose whom, both in errogative and relative. The difficulties with the pronouns disappear to the student of Latin because he has learned them in the Iatin, which is a highly inflected language. The English verb is usually the most difficult problem in English grammar. It seems also to be the most neglected. In my experience with large classes in summer normal review courses in English President J E. Harrison, grammar, I have never found a student, who had not studied I atin, who could, with facility, give the synopsis of a single irregular verb in either voice through all the modes and tenses. The student of Latin, on the other hand, has no difficulty with the English verb. His training on the Latin verb and its equivalent in Enghish gives him clear conceptions of voice, mode, and tense, and the infinitive and participle never confuse him. In Latin the distinction between adverb, preposition and conjunction is always clear, and the knowledge of the meaning and uses of these parts of speech in Latin gives the student of English grammar a mastery over them which he can gain in no other way. As drill in English composition, no exercise can compare with translation of Latin into English. When required to put the subject matter of the Latin into the English idiom the student gains power to express himself clearly, and learns by a natural method to use the right words to express the thought. The wide-awake teacher of Latin, realizing the importance Superintendent J. S. Abbott. of translation to the use of good English, will never allow his students to use socalled "translation English." For example, he will not allow "this one" and 'that one," for hic and ille; he will not allow "who, when he," but will demand "when he" for qui cum; he will not allow puer dicit se epistulam scripsisse to be translated "the boy says himself to have written a letter," but will always demand the English idiom "the boy says he has written a letter;" he will not allow such combinations as "he to him for therefore," but, regardless of the Latin construction, will demand the English equivalent in English idiom for the Latin thought. In any kind of study, drill is an excellent thing: Latin is acquired largely by drill in forms and construction and by constant repetitions. Besides the mastery of forms and constructions resulting from drill in Latin, the student also receives incidental drill in rhetoric while reading the Latin text. He learns the kinds of sentences as periodic, loose, and balanced. He learns the force of unity, coherence, and emphasis as applied to the sentence, paragraph, and theme; he learns. when to use shall and will, and should and would, and, in his search for the right word, precision becomes his specialty. The figures of speech in English are usually learned, a few examples analyzed, and then the students pass on to something else; but on every page of Latin these same figures abound, demanding the attention of the student. The teacher of Latin is not performing his whole duty if, in the critical study of the text, he does. not direct his students to a mastery of the most common figures of speech, such as antithesis, simile, and metaphor; apostrophe, personification, vision, and allusion; irony and sarcasm; synecdoche, metonymy, litotes, and euphemism; climax and hyperbole; ellipsis and pleonasm; hysteron-proteron, hendiadys, zengma and asyndeton; natural order and inverted order; common form, progressive form, and emphatic form. In his study of the Latin the student learns better than from the text-book on rhetoric the meaning of description, narration and exposition in prose, and lyric, epic, and dramatic in poetry, and from his daily practice in reading Latin poetry he learns versification and meter. In the sutdy of literature a knowledge I will be Paris, and for love of thee, In Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice": In Milton's "Paradise Lost": Another part # * bend Four ways their flying march along the banks Her watery labyrinth, whereof who drinks, Superintendent S. H. Hunter, How many who have not studied Greek or Latin can appreciate all that is contained in the references to "Immortal Souls," Apollo, Cynthia, Helen, Paris, Troy, Menelaus, Achilles, "flaming Jupiter" and "hapless Semele," monarch of the sky," "Arathusas azured auns," Troilus and Cressida, "Grecian tents," Thisbe, Dido and Carthage, son, Hebe, the rivers of Hades? These are only examples taken at random, and any number of others would merely show how very abundant are classical references in English literature. |