ESSAYS 



LATIN, GREEK, AND ENGLISH (Charles Mercier, M.D., F.R.C.P.). 



It is an accepted truism that a knowledge of Latin and Greek confers a mastery 

 over the English tongue. It is known that only by acquiring a thorough know- 

 ledge of Latin and Greek does it become possible to speak and write English 

 correctly and forcibly. We know that this is so, because it is well drummed into 

 our heads at school, and because it is the chief reason, or one of the chief reasons, 

 that is always alleged in support of the otherwise unaccountable practice of 

 making a knowledge of Latin and Greek the chief objects of education, and 

 practically the sole objects of education, on the classical side of our public schools. 

 It is true that in practice we do not find that classical scholars exhibit any eminent 

 mastery of the English tongue. It is true that the English of a classical scholar 

 may usually be recognised by its nebulosity, by its Latin idioms, by its misplaced 

 relatives, and by its general inferiority to the English of those who have not had 

 the enormous advantage of a classical education. It is true that the English of 

 the public school and classical University man is usually as vile as his handwriting 

 is illegible and unformed ; but classical education is an affair, not of facts, but of 

 words. The public school and University man is not expected to know the 

 difference between a fact and an assertion, and he does not know it. Consequently 

 the facts that a classically educated man rarely writes good English, and, other 

 things equal, usually writes worse English than the man who has not had a 

 classical education, go for nothing at all. The assertion that a classical education 

 confers ability to speak and write good English is made by every schoolmaster, 

 is repeated by every one who has had the misfortune to undergo a classical 

 education, and as the assertion is made, it is taken for a fact, and no doubt these 

 classically educated gentlemen will be astounded to hear that there is a difference 

 between an assertion and a fact. 



A very fine specimen of the English of the classical scholar has recently come 

 into my hands, and I feel that it is worthy of wider publication than its author 

 modestly gave to it. It illustrates so well the vast superiority in the mastery of 

 the English tongue that is conferred by a classical education that it would be a 

 shame to conceal it and prevent it from attaining the admiration that is its due. 

 It is the more important since it is the utterance of one of those fine flowers of 

 classical scholarship, the headmaster of a great public school. If these things 

 are done in the green tree, what will be done in the dry ? If this is the English 

 of the headmaster, what is the English of the assistant masters likely to be ? and 

 above all, what will be the English of the scholars ? The hero of this exploit is 

 M.A. of Oxford, and Scholar of a celebrated Oxford College, at which Latin and 

 Greek are cuitivated " intensively," to use the latest slang, and this is a specimen 

 of the mastery of English that this intensive study of Latin and Greek has 

 conferred upon him : 



X College. 



Easter, 191 7. 



"The holidays end on Wednesday, May 2nd, 1917. 



" Boarders must report themselves to their House Masters as soon as they 

 arrive in X ; [How the Boarders are to know when their House Masters arrive 



319 



