1820, which describe the course of a Doktorpromotion at that period. A printed dissertation was not then a requirement. In addition to the formal examination, conducted in Latin, the candidate was bound to print and to defend in public certain theses. Bancroft himself in one of the letters above mentioned refers to two theses as having been actually discussed at the public disputation. The biographer quotes the seventh thesis, in a form, however, which calls for the emendator's art, for the great Bentley appears under the disguise of "Bentheius". Since the full text of the theses is not easily accessible, it may be welcomed by the readers of THE CLASSICAL WEEKLY, just at this time when Bancroft's name and career have been brought afresh to the attention of the general public.

Theses quas loco horaque solita publice defendet Georgius Bancroft, Massachusetensi-Vigoniensis. I Mythi Graeci non ex Orientalium Gentium fabulis sed ex Graecorum ipsorum historia praecipue interpretandi sunt. II Eadem fuit lingua Pelasgorum et Hellenum. III Philosophia et bonae artes apud Graecos ortae sunt, non in Graeciam migraverunt. IV Vera Socratis philosophia moralis non in Xenophontis de eo Commentariis continetur. V Romulus est fabulosus. VI Epistolae Horatii forma non re differunt ab ejus Satyris. VII Bentleii conjectura nummum pro nomen in Horatii Epist. ad Pis. vs. 59 rejicienda, altera tamen procudere pro producere adoptanda. VIII Decrementa artium Constantini tempore non tanti sunt momenti, ut exinde periodus possit constitui. IX Cantus lusciniae a poetis et antiquis et recentioribus hilaris magis quam tristis describitur. EDWARD FITCH

HAMILTON COLLEGE

MORSIUNCULAE

In the Transactions of the American Philological Association for 1907 there appears an interesting article by Dr. Arthur Stanley Pease on Stoning among the Greeks and Romans. Dr. Pease thinks that stoning was a distinctive form of punishment and the purpose of his paper is to determine (1) against what sort of offenses it was employed, and (2) what was its legality or illegality, and how it was regarded by the people.

The crimes which stoning was employed to punish he divides into three classes: (1) offenses affecting the existence or external welfare of the state; (2) crimes against the rights of citizens, or against the worship or laws of the state; (3) cases arising from personal or political antagonism. As the underlying principle in stoning seems to have been that all present might unite in the punishment which thus expressed more vividly the general feeling and likewise lessened the responsibility of the individual, it was naturally a common form of punishment in the army. Dr. Pease gives examples of stoning for treason either by deliberate treachery, or, in the case

of a general, by failure to follow up an advantage gained in battle. Cowardice on the part of a general or leader, and conspiracy against a state or commander, since they affected the general safety, were similarly punished. Mutinous soldiers, also, were quick to use this method of expressing their disapproval, for even though speaking many languages they all understood βάλλε. Prisoners of war were sometimes stoned, perhaps as being dangerous to the

state.

Under the second class of crimes are grouped murder, blasphemy, mismanagement of the grain supply, tyranny, making or supporting unpopular laws, even bringing bad news.

In these two groups the punishment was for crimes affecting the people as a whole but it was natural that those with private ends to attain should soon avail themselves of it. In both Greece and Rome political parties got rid of inconvenient rivals in this fashion, but grievances of any kind might be thus satisfied as in the case of an actor or poet of whom the populace disapproved. It was also extended to the families of the guilty or unpopular and even to inanimate things.

Finally there are cases of religious or ceremonial stone-throwing. Instances are given of victims being stoned in times of drought or pestilence. At Eleusis a festival called the βαλλητύς was celebrated in honor of Demophon; at Troezen the Λιθοβολία was said to be in memory of two Cretan maidens who were stoned to death in a sedition; the latter was perhaps a rite of purification.

Dr. Pease concludes from the instances that he has collected that stoning was not among either Greeks or Romans a legal punishment but that on several occasions it was publicly justified by prominent Greeks, perhaps counting upon popular approval. Among the Romans, however, it appears to have been regarded as a distinct breach of law and order. In general it may be said that, in the beginning, this form of punishment, though crude and irregular, was usually prompted by real patriotism or just indignation against injustice, but finally, on many occasions in Greece and practically throughout Italy, it degenerated into the weapon of the mob used to satisfy partisan or private ends. T. E. W.

WOMEN'S TIRE

(in 1608 and in 1908)

Hoc magis est instar tecti quam tegminis: hoc non ornare est, hoc est aedificare caput.

John Owen: Epigrammatum Liber Unus, 119. More like a roof this hat than a covering: not an adornment,

No, nor a headdress at all, rather an edifice this. HERBERT H. YEAMES

HOBART COLLEGE, Geneva, New York

The CLASSICAL WEEKLY

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VOL II

I have been asked more than once to suggest some book or books in which examples of the teaching of Latin by the direct method could be found. Elsewhere in this issue appear extracts from an article by Dr. Rouse in the Rivista di Scienza in which specimens of this kind of teaching occur.

The whole article is interesting and well worth reading as a complete expression of the ideals of some of the most active of English schoolmen of the present day, and it is also valuable as giving points of contrast and similarity with the method in vogue in the German Reform-Gymnasien to which I referred in a former issue. Dr. Rouse maintains that to give effect to any teaching a new language should not be begun until the one previously studied has been pursued long enough to cease to be strange. He thinks that a new language should be taken up only after an interval of at least two, and, in the earlier periods, three years. If we begin the first foreign language at the age of nine, the second should be begun at twelve, the third at fourteen, the fourth may be taken at sixteen or seventeen. All of us remember examples on examination papers of a word from one language being substituted for the right word of another by pupils who are pursuing the two at the same time and I have vivid recollections of my High School days when I took up the first year Latin, the second year German, and the third year French and Greek with a resulting confusion that ought to have been avoided1.

The next question that arises is in what order the languages should be taken. Dr. Rouse thinks that it is only reasonable to begin with the easiest. He approves the common practice in England of beginning with French, though he believes that the best introduction to Latin would be Italian. The second would be Latin, the third Greek. The plan is an attractive one and if properly administered should be quite successful, but the difficulty lies in the administration. One of the chief reasons for studying Latin is the opportunity afforded for the study of general linguistics, and the language is of such a nature that such study is inevitable if a pupil is to master its literature at all. This general study of

No 5

linguistics is not easy, but could be made very much more easy if proper work were done in the mother tongue-as I have elsewhere indicated. Latin syntax would be much more easy if French were studied in such a way that pupils were properly grounded in such linguistic principles as were observed in French.

But the very fact that French is so often taught by the purely direct method makes it almost valueless for the work I have in mind. Cases have come under my observation where students began French in the kindergarten and carried it on for some time before they began Latin, but were not assisted at all in their Latin by their knowledge of French. If Latin is the first foreign language studied, while the progress will be slow, yet, as I have said, the pupil is learning at the same time the laws of linguistic expression and the subsequent study of French entails very slight labor. The point then is whether beginning with a modern language like French does not really have a bad effect rather than a good one on the subsequent study of Latin; it certainly does involve such a risk.

Dr. Rouse is very much in favor of the direct method in teaching. In this he is not so revolutionary as he seems to be because in a large number of beginners' books in use in this country more or less systematic attempts have been made to provide the teacher with material for question and answer on the daily lessons; and enthusiastic, if sometimes inadequately prepared, teachers from remote districts have felt a call to vitalize Latin by teaching it much like a modern language. Such translations as mica, mica, parva stella and rupes saeculorum in te have figured more than once as stimulants to the jaded child. The fundamental difficulty with all such devices lies in the fact that they are merely devices. For teaching Latin by the direct method one power and one power alone is necessary and that is the power of the teacher to handle the language orally himself. The colloquia in the beginners' books are as artificial for the teacher as they are for the pupil. I may add that our universities show a surprising unanimity in refusing to students the chance to acquire such an ability. But of this I shall speak at a subsequent time. G. L.

THE WHAT AND THE HOW OF CLASSICAL INSTRUCTION1

Blätter of the Cumaean Sibyl, so that we may say with Vergil inconsulti abeunt, "it wasn't worth the carfare", sedemque odere Sibyllae, "and we found it rather a bore". And no wonder. The masters of our craft have gained breadth of view; they can see

To dispel anxiety, let me say at once that I have no thought of expounding to this learned gathering my classroom methods, my pet devices, or "my policies". Non ea vis animo. I simply wish to register and reiterate my belief that in classical instruction there is a good deal of barking up the wrong tree, some baying at the moon, and much mere idle questing through the forest in the vague hope that somewhere and somehow the doves may appear and light upon the golden bough; if, indeed, there be a golden bough, and the object of our sylvan ramble be not just perambulation.

As an antidote to such wandering dreams, let us at once propose to ourselves that we are bent somewhither. The bow drawn at a venture may sometimes bring down the quarry; but such hunting does not have to be controlled by game laws. Accordingly, that I may at least arouse opposition, let me assert that in seven-tenths of the classical instruction given in our schools there is little conscious or intelligent aim, that such direction as it does have comes from an impulse antique and obsolete, and that the greatest enemies of classical learning are the classically learned. I use this term in a broad

I do not confine the compliment to those gentlemen whose friendship I unaffectedly prize, whose attainments are my admiration, and whose impenetrability is my despair, the committees on admission to college-not against the embattled chauvinism of these would I now inveigh; but against men of like passions and limitations with myself, against us, who have every reason to know better because we are close to the conditions-in both senses of that word: we, we the pedagogues are to blame. We are to blame because we have not really considered our own problems; or, if we have considered them, because we have not applied our collective wisdom to their solution. There is no pedagogic of Latin teaching in America. A course here and there in a college here and there; a book now and then, but rather then than now; many sporadic and unrelated prophesyings, like the present paper; and with it all the absence of a general conviction as to what must and can be done that seems to be the status of the scientific practice of classical teaching just now. There is no lack of interest of a certain sort. Attend any convention of classical teachers, and hear us proclaim with fervor that the hidden quantities are tough meat for children of tender years, that forms should be thoroughly learned, that composition is the mother of syntax, and other doctrines equally precious and equally trite. I do not mean to disparage such utterances; these things ought to be said; but they are like the fliegende

the end from the beginning-albeit even they do not all see the same end; but the rank and file, the youngster to whom the Latin of his diploma is still a dark and awful mystery, the teacher of mathematics who helps out the Greek department-what do they know, what can they know of those larger aims and greater possibilities that belong to the study of Greek and Latin, making them, even in this gainsaying and perverse age, the most powerful instruments of education which we can command? And what will be the fate of a teacher thus blindly launching forth upon so perilous a sea? It will be dreary enough and commonplace enough. He will complete a beginners' book; and presently wake to the fact that his pupils lack elementary knowledge. He will go on assigning lessons in Caesar, Cicero, and Vergil; but if the students learn to read it will be no thanks to him. He will dabble fitfully in the grammar, shirk the composition, and hope violently that his pupils may enter college. He will not be contented; but his dissatisfaction will have no power to raise him. He will not necessarily be incurable; but only by good luck will he know where to find a physician.

Τι

Out of this happy-go-lucky state of things there should be a way. To give dignity to our quest, let us hear Aristotle's dictum: "Every art and every science, and likewise every act we do and every choice we make aims at some good ἀγαθοῦ TIVOS ἐφίεσθαι δοκεῖ. What is the ἀγαθόν for the secondary schoolmaster-the final cause which must determine the path of achievement? That there are many causes which contribute to achievement, which render it easier and surer, no one will deny. Broad scholarship, the gift of teaching, personality-these are a trinity of excellences which need no advertisement. But I am thinking just now of the roadbed more than of the rolling-stock; and I venture to assert that the path of success must lead to the mastery of language as distinguished from the reading of prescribed texts. I am not crying down the importance of a study of the literature, or denying that the great contribution which Greece and Rome have made to the modern world is only received when we have entered into the spirit of their deeds and words; I am only insisting that we shall regard education as a process, and that we cannot make very much use of the top rounds of the ladder until we have passed those lower down. Even if self-examination leaves us personally and pleasantly serene, are we not at least ready to admit that our friends are all too prone to regard the Latin course as a progression from author to author, with garnishings of grammar and composition, instead of an orderly development, passing from stage to stage of linguistic knowledge? In the first year, it is true, we proceed rationally enough. Beginners' books are essentially unfoldings of principles; the teacher, if he is worth his salt-I did not say his salary, for it would be a poor teacher indeed who was not worth that-but the teacher who has any conception of his duty puts forth his utmost skill to acquaint his class with the initial peculiarities of the language and to lead them to think by Attic or Roman laws. The raw facts of Latin, paradigms and rules, are rubbed in or driven home, according to temperament; a compact body of truth is put before the child, something almost as concrete as his breakfast, if superficially less attractive. Then comes the great gulf fixed between the island of the beginners' book and the continents of Latin literature. Caesar is, perhaps, the nearest headland; and the child must reach this point on a raft built of the little knowledge he has acquired, while tumultuous waves of syntax threaten to engulf him. Avoiding as by a miracle reference to rari nantes, let us hasten to observe that there is small wonder if the young sailor hails as angelic the friendly helper that would translate him to the other side; or, recoiling in terror from the dangerous voyage, abandons the attempt.

any

Leaving the figure (for I am an indifferent sailor), let us see what is to be done. I shall not presume to approve or condemn existing devices, but posit at once the statement that there is salvation in continuity of method. Gradual, regular, and rational additions to the body of facts already learned must accompany every step of the progress into the unexplored country. The beginners' book ought not to be an island, but the point of a peninsula. There will be different ways of effecting this geographical change of building the mole that shall bring safety to the inland voyage. Personally, I think that we ought to make a division of labor. There are certain things which a pupil can reasonably be expected to learn by himself with a fair prospect of success. There are others which are more scientifically done in the classroom. Speaking broadly, I should say that it is the teacher's especial province to teach the art of reading, and that almost everything else is proper material for assigned work. Theoretically, composition ought also to be done under skilled supervision, but as a matter of fact, the sentences in most elementary composition books are so carefully adapted to the pupil's ability that he can be expected to do something with them; while living Latin or Greek are idiomatic, and therefore labyrinthine. Whether this statement is accepted or not, we should probably agree that, other things being equal, the pupil had best do by himself those things which he can do well, and with a prospect of the interest that comes with success. The good work recently done

by Messrs. Browne and Lodge in preparing vocabularies of high school Latin adds an important item to the list of things suitable for outside preparation; and I find that pupils take kindly to such work because they can see its bearing on their progress. The memorizing of grammatical facts is work of the same class, and likewise the review and final preparation of reading matter already worked over by the instructor. I hope I shall be pardoned for saying these very obvious things: they seem to be necessary to a complete statement.

A recitation falls naturally into three parts: drill, quiz, and teaching. The quiz or test is a necessary spur and a means of diagnosis; drill needs no apology; but the supreme task and pleasure is the actual development of a new subject, the reading of new text, the free question and answer into which no thought of marks intrudes. It is probably superfluous to say that in reading the next day's advance part will be translated by the class at sight, part, too hard for such treatment, thoroughly explained by the teacher, and common expressions passed over without translation so as to emphasize the fact that these are phrases "every child should know". A new word-list is a fruitful topic, every device of association with Latin, English, and French being employed to fix the vocabulary in the mind.

To revert to the subject of composition, its place is fixed by the idea of language-study now under consideration. Composition is not a by-product of reading; it is not an end in itself; it is not merely a drastic remedy for syntactical prostration; it is part of the process begun in the first year and kept up till the necessary facts are learned; and it should therefore continue and expand the method of the beginners' book. It will at first be intensely formal; it may gradually lose its cut-and-dried air as facility is gained; I cannot see that it is ever safe to discontinue it with average high-school classes. As regards method,

"There are nine-and-sixty ways of construct-
ing tribal lays,

And every single one of them is right"..

Some are more right than others, but I forbear. Enough to say that composition is a plant with three roots, whereof one is grammar, and another vocabulary, and the third idiom, while the blossom (considerably rarer than the bloom of the century plant) is style.

As the student advances, the ratio of work done under the teacher's guidance to that performed alone will steadily decrease. Armed with a definite vocabulary, with definite knowledge of syntax, and with definite accomplishments in the arts of reading and translating, he will lean less and less upon the teacher, and find a growing enjoyment in doing things for himself. He has not been babied, but he has been properly equipped and trained. The