ON FORMAL TRAINING. 307 



and it is waste of time to argue as if there were. Wtiile everybody needs 

 a certain humanistic basis, many cannot travel far on this line, but 

 require scientific or technical subjects. The actual subjects are com- 

 paratively unimportant ; any subject well taught will provide some 

 beneficial ' transfer,' any subject badly taught will do harm. 



The Disciplinary Value of Latin. 



By Prof. R. L. Archer, M.A. 



The traditional claim of Latin to a large place in the curriculum for its 

 disciplinary value has often suffered from three defects : — ■ 



(i) The range of the effect has not been defined. It has been alleged 

 that it produces all-round ' accuracy,' whereas, if ' common usable 

 elements consist in a partial identity of material,' the improvement must 

 be largely confined to the use of language. 



(ii) The stage which must be reached before the effect is produced has 

 not been sufficiently defined. 



(iii) The importance of the pupil's emotional attitude has been ignored. 



If these points be taken into account, we believe that a limited but 

 important claim for Latin can still be substantiated. 



(i) Thomas Arnold, unlike many of his contemporaries, limited the 

 effect to the use of language and particularly of the pupil's own language ; 

 and he attributed it largely to translation from the vernacular into Latin. 

 Owing to the superior exactitude of Latin, it is claimed, a pupil who is 

 intent on so translating a passage into Latin as to bring out its exact 

 force has a stronger motive for analysing its precise meaning than can 

 be secured by any other device. Such analysis becomes an unconscious 

 habit, and, however dissimilar may be other situations which require an 

 analysis of an English passage, the material (the English language) is 

 the same. Latin prose thus isolates an element which appears in many 

 situations and secures a definite objective in teaching, and it is this which 

 is meant by formal training. 



The history of modern languages further suggests that familiarity 

 with Latin literature has affected their style. Sometimes this effect has 

 been bad, e.g. when it produced excessive imitation of Cicero ; but on 

 the whole it has made for desirable elements in ' form,' such as the 

 absence of exaggeration and emotionalism. 



More doubtful is the claim put forward for Latin at its early stages 

 that, as in deciding the form of a Latin verb you have to consider its 

 conjugation, voice, mood, tense and person, and a mistake in any of them 

 vitiates the result, a habit is set up of considering all relevant factors, 

 in deciding any issue. One could not affirm that this result never occurs, 

 but, as there is no identity (or even similarity) between the situation in 

 which the habit is acquired and that in which it is hoped that it wiU 

 operate, it is possible only if such care becomes a conscious ideal with 

 considerable emotional strength. 



(ii) Of the three possible effects which have been considered in the 

 last section, only the unsubstantiated third could affect the early stages. 

 The first appears valid, but the benefit begins only about the matriculation 

 stage and applies to the abler pupils ; that of the second begins even later. 



x2 



