Chapter XVI: The Method of Teaching in Practice (3)

[849] In a recent article in the _Fortnightly Review_, November 1902 (“Are the Classics to Go?”), Professor Postgate, a distinguished English scholar, writes: “If the ‘dead’ languages and literatures are not to retire into the background, they must be taught as if they were alive” (p. 878).--“Translations from English into Latin or Greek is a most valuable training and necessary part of classical training; but it ought not to have superseded original composition.... From the first, speaking and writing Latin should go hand in hand with reading” (pp. 879-880). Professor Postgate calls these “improved methods”; improved, surely, if he speaks of nearly all systems in vogue during the last century, not however in regard to the system of the Society of Jesus, which always practised this system, as will appear from the next pages.

[850] _Woodstock Letters_, 1894, p. 329.

[851] _Lehrpläne und Lehraufgaben_, 1901, pp. 23, 25, 29, etc.

[852] _Education in the United States_, (1900), vol. I, p. 185.

[853] _Reg. Prof. Rhet._ 1.--_Reg. Prof. Hum._ 6.

[854] _Reg. Prof. Rhet._ 9.--_Prof. Hum._ 6.--_Prof. Supr. Gram._ 6.

[855] From _The Forum_, Sept. 1901; “_The Ideal School_.”

[856] _Reg. com._ 30.

[857] How this can be done may be seen from a little book recently published by a Jesuit: _Imitation and Analysis; English Exercises based on Irving’s Sketch Book_, by F. Donnelly, S. J. (Boston, 1902, Allyn and Bacon.)

[858] _Ratio Discendi_, ch. 1, art. 2, 4.--Cf. Quintilian, _Inst. Or._ X, 2.

[859] See Zielinski, _Cicero im Wandel der Jahrhunderte_.

[860] Compare the excellent observations on the value of the “Reproduction of the Thought of Others,” in Genung’s _Practical Rhetoric_, pp. 301-325.

[861] Bristol, _The Teaching of Greek_, p. 301. See on pp. 298-307 some excellent remarks on Greek compositions.

[862] Bennett, _The Teaching of Latin_, p. 172.

[863] _Reden und Vorträge_, Berlin, 1901.

[864] _Neue Jahrbücher_, 1901, vol. VII, p. 71.

[865] _Thomas and Matthew Arnold_, p. 39.

[866] _Didaktik des Lat. Unt._, page 110.--See also Rollin, _Traité des études_, livre II, ch. III, art. 3.

[867] _Reg. mag. schol. inf._ 18.--See _Woodstock Letters_, 1894, p. 322 foll.

[868] _Jesuiten-Gymnasien in Oesterreich._

[869] See _Verhandlungen_, 1901, pp. 282 foll.

[870] _Ibid._, p. 286: “Vielfache Uebungen hin und her, die ein stetes Umdenken der Vorlagen erfordern, sollen sein (the pupil’s) Wissen geläufig, sein Können gewandt machen und ihn allmählich zu einem sicheren Sprachgefühl verhelfen.”

[871] _Verhandlungen_, 1901, p. 288.

[872] _Verhandlungen_, pp. 21, 129, 139.

[873] By Director Kübler and Prof. Harnack, _ibid._, pp. 140 and 294. The latter declares Latin compositions to be absolutely necessary for a satisfactory instruction in this language.

[874] _Ib._, p. 139.

[875] _Ib._, p. 129.

[876] Hughes, _Loyola_, p. 90.

[877] See v. g. Compayré, p. 146.--Seeley, p. 186.--Painter, p. 171-172, where the Jesuit system is stigmatized as “stimulating baser feelings,” “appealing to low motives,” etc.--In France the Jesuits were attacked on this point also by M. Michel Bréal, in his _Quelques mots sur l’instruction publique_.

[878] _Geschichte des gelehrten Unterrichts_, p. 286. (First edition; the passage has been somewhat changed in the second edition, I, p. 430.)

[879] Hughes, _Loyola_, p. 90.

[880] See Rickaby, S. J., _Moral Philosophy_, pp. 115-118.

[881] _History of Education_, p. 191.

[882] 1 _Cor._ 3, 1-2.

[883] See Thomas Aquinas, _Summa Theologiae_, 2, 2, _qu._ 131 and 132: “On Ambition and Vain Glory.”

[884] The rewarding of prizes is ably vindicated by Father R. de Scoraille, S. J., in the _Études religieuses_, Paris, August and September 1879. “Les distributions de prix dans les collèges.”

[885] Hughes, p. 89.--Duhr, p. 61.

[886] _Studienordnung_, p. 125.

[887] _Educational Reformers_ (London edition of 1868), p. 297.

[888] On pp. 529-532. There he also states that the New England _Journal of Education_ gives an account of some interclass matches at Milwaukee, and the New York _School Journal_ of contests in the McDonough School No. 12, New Orleans.

[889] _Neue Jahrbücher_, 1901, vol. VIII, p. 98.

[890] _Verhandlungen_, p. 135.

[891] See especially Father Kropf, _Ratio et Via_, chapter V, art. II. (German edition p. 426 f.).

[892] _Reg. com._ 32.

[893] See above pp. 422-425.

[894] Quick, _Educ. Ref._, p. 42.

[895] _Reg. Acad. Theolog. et Philos._, 3.

[896] _Aliquid de praeceptis magis reconditis rhetoricae vel poesis_; as the 2d rule has it.

[897] _Reg. Acad. Rhet. et Hum._ 2.