COLL. OM. AN. APUD OXON.
OLIM SOCIUS.
OXFORD AND LONDON:
JOHN HENRY AND JAMES PARKER:
CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON, BELL, & Co.;
ETON: E. P. WILLIAMS.
MDCCCLVI.
The translator has been induced by the following considerations to publish what was begun as matter of amusement, and private occupation.
The employment of translation, oral and written, as the best and readiest mode of acquiring a dead language, and of imbuing the mind with its idiom and spirit, does not appear to be sufficiently recognised in the practice of the schools of this country.
The translator has long been persuaded that the very remarkable disproportion between the time and labour bestowed upon the teaching of the Greek and Latin languages, and the knowledge of either acquired by the average of English youth, is mainly owing to the neglect of translation, and to the preference shewn for what is styled, by courtesy, "original composition."
Under this system, instead of acquiring new ideas, the young student learns to write without them; instead of enriching his language, he does everything to impoverish it; instead of learning nice grammatical distinctions, and attaining to choice expression and lucid arrangement, he runs off into vague generalities of phraseology, which evade all the difficulties of composition, and overcome none.
The inadequate results thus commonly obtained, and the natural disappointments thence continually ensuing, have given rise to a feeling of doubt, which appears to be gathering strength, touching the expediency of retaining the teaching of the Greek and Latin languages as the basis of instruction in our schools. People see little practical advantage resulting therefrom; and they say that the time and energies so fruitlessly bestowed might be better employed in the acquisition of knowledge of various kinds more immediately applicable to the wants and purposes of life.
The translator cannot help feeling that, as matters stand at present, there is considerable force in the objection thus stated: and that, if it can be alleged with truth that, in spite of all the time and labour given, the knowledge acquired is, in the great majority of instances, so poor and meagre, so shallow and uncertain, as to be looked upon by its possessor as matter rather of painful memory than of either interest or profit, the advocates of the old system of classical education have certainly no easy task to maintain their position.
Without, however, entering upon the whole question of the necessity or the value of what is called a classical education, for which this is obviously not the place, the translator believes that the objection as above stated would gradually be deprived of much of its force and truth by substituting in the place of the greater part of the original composition, now so universally required, a large and careful employment of translation, oral and written, in the routine of our schools.
With the hope of calling attention to this subject, and not as proposing a model for imitation, he has ventured to submit to public criticism the present somewhat novel production. He trusts that, however inadequate the translation may be to express the force and grandeur of the original, it may, thanks to a revision by more than one eminent scholar, be found substantially correct.