PRONUNCIATION OF LATIN AND QUASI-LATIN 
SCIENTIFIC TERMS. 
By Prof. Charles Chandler. 
What method of Latin pronounciation should be used by the 
teacher of that language, and what method should be used by the sci- 
entific teacher or student in pronouncing the Latin and quasi-latin 
names of genera, species, etc., are two questions which should be kept 
entirely distinct, though in fact they are frequently confused. 
The first is by no means easy to answer, and the men of most 
assurance on the subject are generally found to be the men of least 
knowledge ; — many of them have never examined more than one side 
of the question, some have never really examined any side of it, some 
are not competent to examine that or any similiar question. Too 
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many have clung to an old method from mere blind conservatism ; 
too many have hastily adopted a new from mere love of change or 
from an ambition to be considered “progressive with not a few, an 
ever ready and all-sufficient argument against the method which they 
have happened not to adopt, is a sneer or a borrowed jest. 
As a matter of fact, the teacher of Latin finds that there are very 
great practical advantages and very great practical disadvantages in 
using either the English or the Roman pronunciation. Of the latter, 
it may at least be said that it is a tolerable approximation to the way 
in which Latin was spoken at the close of the Republic, and that the 
number of sounds concerning which there is reasonable doubt, is not 
large. Even when atrociously mis-taught, as it is in most of the 
schools where it is professedly used, it does nevertheless far better ex« 
