Practical Essays by Alexander Bain (best electronic book reader TXT) 📕

/> On the face of the thing, it must seem an unworkable position to surrender the value of a language, as a language, and keep it up for something else. The teaching must always be guided by the original, although defunct, use; this is the natural, the easy, course to follow; for the mass of teachers at all times it is the broad way. Whatever the necessities of argument may drive a man to say, yet in his teaching he cannot help postulating to himself, as an indispensable fiction, that his pupils are some day or other to hear, to read, to speak, or to write the language.

The intense conservatism in the matter of Languages--the alacrity to prescribe languages on all sides, without inquiring whether they are likely to be turned to account--may be referred to various causes. For one thing--although the remark may seem ungracious and invidious--many minds, not always of the highest force, are absorbed and intoxicated by languages. But apart from this, languages are, by comparison, easy to teach, and easy to examine upon. Now, if there is any motive in education more powerful than another, it is ease in the work itself. We are all, as teachers, copyists of that Irish celebrity who, when he came to a good bit of road, paced it to and fro a number of times before going forward to his destination on the rougher footing.

So far I may seem to be arguing against the teaching of language at all, or, at any rate, the languages expressively called dead. I am not, however, pressing this point farther than as an illustration. I do not ask anyone to give an opinion against Classics as a subject of instruction; although, undoubtedly, if this opinion were prevalent, my principal task would be very much lightened. I have merely analysed the utilities ascribed to the ancient and the modern languages, with a view to settling their place in competitive examinations.

* * * * *


[LANGUAGES NOT PROPER FOR THE COMPETITION.]

My thesis, then, is, that languages are not a proper subject for competition with a view to professional appointments. The explanation falls under two heads.

In the first place, there are certain avocations where a foreign language must be known, because it has to be used in actual business. Such are the Indian spoken languages. Now, it is clear that in these cases the knowledge of the language, as being a _sine qua non_, must be made imperative. This, however, as I think, is not a case for competition, but for a sufficient pass. There is a certain pitch of attainment that is desirable even at first entering the service; no one should fall below this, and to rise much above it cannot matter a great deal. At all events, I think the measure should be absolute and not relative. I would not give a man merit in a competition because another man happens to be worse than himself in a matter that all must know; both the men may be absolutely bad.

It may be the case that certain languages are so admirably constructed and so full of beauties that to study them is a liberal education in itself. But this does not necessarily hold of every language that an official of the British Empire may happen to need. It does not apply to the Indian tongues, nor to Chinese, nor, I should suppose, to the Fiji dialects. The only human faculty that is tested and brought into play in these acquisitions is the commonest kind of memory exercised for a certain time. The value to the Service of the man that can excel in spoken languages does not lie in his superior administrative ability, but in his being sooner fitted for actual duty. Undoubtedly, if two men go out to Calcutta so unequal in their knowledge of native languages, or in the preparation for that knowledge, that one can begin work in six months, while the other takes nine, there is an important difference between them. But what is the obvious mode of rewarding the difference? Not, I should think, by pronouncing one a higher man in the scale of the competition, but by giving him some money prize in proportion to the redemption of his time for official work.

Now, as regards the second kind of languages--those that are supposed to carry with them all the valuable indirect consequences that we have just reviewed. There are in the Civil Service Scheme five such languages--two ancient, and three modern. They are kept there, not because they are ever to be read or spoken in the Service, but because they exercise some magical efficacy in elevating the whole tone of the human intellect.

If I were discussing the Indian Civil Service in its own specialities, I would deprecate the introduction of extraneous languages into the competition, for this reason, that the Service itself taxes the verbal powers more than any other service. I do not think that Lord Macaulay and his colleagues had this circumstance fully in view. Macaulay was himself a glutton for language; and, while in India, read a great quantity of Latin and Greek. But he was exempted from the ordinary lot of the Indian civil servant; he had no native languages to acquire and to use. If a man both speaks and writes in good English, and converses familiarly in several Oriental dialects, his language memory is sufficiently well taxed, and if he carries with him one European language besides, it is as much as belongs to the fitness of things in that department.

[SECONDARY USES OF LANGUAGE DIRECTLY TESTED.]

My proposal, then, goes the length of excluding all these five cultivated languages from the competition, notwithstanding the influence that they may be supposed to have as general culture. In supporting it, I shall assume that everything that can be said in their favour is true to the letter: that they assist us in our own language, that they cultivate logic and taste, that they exemplify universal grammar, and so on. All that my purpose requires is to affirm that the same good ends may be attained in other ways: that Latin, Greek, &c, are but one of several instruments for instructing us in English composition, reasoning, or taste. My contention, then, is that the _ends_ themselves are to be looked to, and not the means or instruments, since these are very various. English composition is, of course, a valuable end, whether got through the study of Latin, or through the study of English authors themselves, or through the inspiration of natural genius. Whatever amount of skill and attainment a candidate can show in this department should be valued _the examination for English_; and all the good that Latin has done for him would thus be entered to his credit. If, then, the study of Latin is found the best means of securing good marks in English, it will be pursued on that account; if the candidate is able to discover other less laborious ways of attaining the end, he will prefer these ways.

The same applies to all the other secondary ends of language. Let them be valued _in their own departments_. Let the improvement of the reasoning faculty be counted wherever that is shown in the examination. Good reasoning powers will evince themselves in many places, and will have their, reward.

The principle is a plain and obvious one. It is that of payment for results, without inquiring into the means. There are certain extreme cases where the means are not improperly coupled with the results in the final examination; and these are illustrations of the principle. Thus, in passing a candidate for the medical profession, the final end is his or her knowledge of diseases and their remedies. As it is admitted, however, that there are certain indispensable preparatory studies--anatomy, physiology, and materia medica--such studies are made part of the examination, because they contribute to the testing for the final end.

[HISTORY AND LITERATURE DETACHABLE FROM LANGUAGE.]

The argument is not complete until we survey another branch of the subject of examination in languages. It will be observed in the wording of the programme that each separate language is coupled with 'literature and history (or, as latterly expressed, 'literature--including books selected by the candidate')'. It is the Language, Literature, and History of Rome, Greece, &c. And the examination questions show the exact scope of these adjuncts, and also the values attached to them, as compared with the language by itself.

Let us consider this matter a little. Take History first, as being the least perplexed. Greece and Rome have both a certain lasting importance attaching to their history and institutions; and these accordingly are a useful study. Of course, the extant writings are the chief groundwork of our knowledge of these, and must be read. But, at the present day, all that can be extracted from the originals is presented to the student in English books; and to these he is exclusively referred for this part of his knowledge. In the small portion of original texts that a pupil at school or college toils through, he necessarily gets a few of the historical facts at first hand; but he could much more easily get these few where he gets the rest--in the English compilations. Admitting, then, that the history and institutions of Greece and Rome constitute a valuable education, it is in our power to secure it independently of the original tongues.

The other branch--Literature--is not so easily disposed of. In fact, the separating of the literature from the language, you will say, is a self-evident absurdity. That, however, only shows that you have not looked carefully into examination papers. I am not concerned with what the _a priori_ imagination may suppose to be Literature, but with the actual questions put by examiners under that name. I find that such questions are, generally speaking, very few, perhaps one or two in a long paper, and nearly all pertain to the outworks of literature, so to speak. Here is the Latin literature of one paper:--In what special branch of literature were the Romans independent of the Greeks? Mention the principal writers in it, with the peculiar characteristics of each. Who was the first to employ the hexameter in Latin poetry, and in what poem? To what language is Latin most nearly related; and what is the cause of their great resemblance? The Greek literature of the same examination involves these points:--The Aristophanic estimate of Euripides, with criticisms on its taste and justice (for which, however, a historical subject is given as an alternative); the Greek chorus, and choric metres. Now such an examination is, in the first place, a most meagre view of literature: it does not necessarily exercise the faculty of critical discernment. In the next place, it is chiefly a matter of compilation from English sources; the actual readings of the candidate in Greek and Latin would be of little account in the matter. Of course, the choric metres could not be described without some knowledge of Greek, but the matter is of very trifling importance in an educational point of view. Generally speaking, the questions in literature, which in number bear no proportion to historical questions, are such as might be included under history, as the department of the History of Literature.

[LANGUAGES EXAMINATION PAPERS REVIEWED.]

The distribution of the 750 marks allotted respectively to Latin and to Greek, in the scheme of 1875, is this. There are three papers: two are occupied exclusively with translation. The third is language, literature, and history: the language means purely grammatical questions; so that possibly