i 62 
BULLETIN OF DENISON UNIVERSITY. 
hibit the vigor and sonorousness of the noble speech of the world- 
conquerors than does the weak-vowelled and close-mouthed English 
method. 
As for the so-called Continental (i. e. German) way of pronounc- 
ing Latin, which about 1860-75 was epidemic in many parts of this 
country, especially in the West, I judge that there is not one word 
which may be justly said in favor of its use by an English-speaking 
student. Like the English method, it is not and does not pretend to 
be the ancient way ; it is to the German exactly what the English 
method is to the English-speaker, a conventional manner of pronounc- 
ing Latin words, so nearly as may be, according to the analogies of his 
own tongue. It is used, I believe, in all German schools. To the 
German it has very much to commend it, — to the American or En- 
glishman, nothing whatever. That so many American colleges -and 
schools should hastily abandon a method of pronouncing Latin which 
was indeed not the ancient way, but was at least natural to the learner 
and helped him to understand and to pronounce correctly thousands 
of English words, and that they should adopt in its place a method 
which also made no pretence of being the ancient way, and which 
had the very great disadvantage of being utterly unnatural to the stu- 
dent and of tempting him to mispronounce thousands of English 
words, — that this should be done, the true ancient pronunciation being 
all the while approximately known, seems to me to have been one of 
the strangest of all the vagaries of American pedagogy. It was per- 
haps the most curious phase of that undiscriminating Germanomania 
which has so often snatched at the form while entirely missing the 
spirit of German scholarship. The American student was naively 
supposed to be taking a long step toward German patience and thor- 
oughness, when he learned to mispronounce Latin according to the 
German method. 
As between the English and the reformed (or Roman) pronuncia- 
tion of Latin, there is fair ground for discussion. We surrender 
much when we take either. Without a knowledge of the way in which 
