202 LATIN LANGUAGE 



ceptions, which may or may not have a basis in reality, or which are 

 obviously not conceivable as facts." 



In Macmillan's French Course, Third Year, by G. Eugene Fasnacht, 

 we read on p. 62 the statement, "The Subjunctive Mood (is used) 

 if the Principal Sentence implies that the action expressed in the 

 dependent clause is merely conceived in the mind of the speaker." 

 And in a single sentence of three lines, referred to earlier in this 

 address, we have a mixture of four systems. It reads as follows: 

 "In the sentence 'son pere veut qu'il vienne,' 'his father wishes that 

 he should come/ the contingency (eventual fact) of his coming is in 

 the speaker's mind, subjoined to the will of another (his father)." 

 The word " contingency " belongs to the Wolffian school, the phrase 

 "in the speaker's mind" to the Hermannian-Kantian school, the 

 phrase " subjoined to " to the old Greek error about the Subjunctive, 

 and the word "Will" to true psychological syntax, in its simplest 

 form. 



But, it may be said, "the English Subjunctive and the German 

 Subjunctive, at any rate, do express ideas, and not facts. Why not 

 so explain them, then, in class-room work ? " The most conclusive 

 single answer is as follows: "If you do this for the English Sub- 

 junctive, e. g., you should also explain in the same way the more 

 common equivalents, namely, the forms with the modal auxiliaries 

 will (1st person), shall, should, may, might, can, could, would." When 

 you ask, "Why does the writer here say shall, why does he here 

 say can, why does he here say would?" the student should be 

 taught to answer, in every case, "Mood of idea." But there could 

 not be a class so blind that some one in it would not ask the ques- 

 tion, " Do all these words express the same idea, and may any one 

 of them be substituted in any sentence for any other ? " 



The truth is, that our first task to-day is to get rid of all this 

 metaphysical inheritance, which belongs to an unscientific age, and 

 to study language directly by and for itself. 



SHORT PAPERS 



PROFESSOR H. C. ELMER, of Cornell University, presented a paper to this 

 Section on " Some Questionable Tendencies of Modern Textual Criticism." 



PROFESSOR SIDNEY G. ASHMORE, of Union College, presented a short paper on 

 the subject of " The Classics in Our Schools." 



