CAROLUS LINN&US 13 



of it. They are to speak it as well as read 

 and write it. Therefore it becomes at once, 

 in so far as possible, the medium of spoken 

 intercourse between tutor and pupils; the 

 father of the family himself incidentally aiding 

 the tutor, by addressing the youngsters at 

 meal time or recreation in Latin, and requir- 

 ing them to answer in that, and not in the 

 mother tongue. It was a serious business; 

 the entrance to college, the matriculation at 

 any university, the rising to any learned pro- 

 fession even, are dependent upon the boys 

 having made good progress in the acquisition 

 of this, at that time the universal language of 

 the educated. The Swede or Finlander even, 

 if a college man, might visit every country 

 of Europe, and converse with the men of the 

 colleges arid universities everywhere, without 

 learning one of the modern languages. Lin- 

 naeus even, two generations this side of the 

 epoch of his greatuncles, the Tilianders, did 

 this. Now among this aristocratic caste of the 

 learned, in medieval times and later, it was 

 almost the universal custom with men of lowly 

 origin to drop the ancestral family name and 

 assume a Latin one. It was the fashion of 

 the time; and, as I have said, the time lasted 

 through many centuries. When Latin was 



