We Philologists Part 4

On the other hand, if we reproach our professors with their lack of will, they would be quite right in attributing educational significance and power to antiquity; but they themselves could not be said to be the proper instruments by means of which antiquity could exhibit such power.

In other words, the professors would not be real teachers and would be living under false colours, but how, then, could they have reached such an irregular position? Through a misunderstanding of themselves and their qualifications. In order, then, that we may ascribe to philologists their share in this bad educational system of the present time, we may sum up the different factors of their innocence and guilt in the following sentence: the philologist, if he wishes for a verdict of acquittal, must understand three things antiquity, the present time, and himself his fault lies in the fact that he either does not understand antiquity, or the present time, or himself.

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It is not true to say that we can attain culture through antiquity alone. We may learn something from it, certainly; but not culture as the word is now understood. Our present culture is based on an emasculated and mendacious study of antiquity. In order to understand how ineffectual this study is, just look at our philologists they, trained upon antiquity, should be the most cultured men. Are they?

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Origin of the philologist. When a great work of art is exhibited there is always some one who not only feels its influence but wishes to perpetuate it. The same remark applies to a great state--to everything, in short, that man produces. Philologists wish to perpetuate the influence of antiquity and they can set about it only as imitative artists. Why not as men who form their lives after antiquity?

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The decline of the poet-scholars is due in great part to their own corruption: their type is continually arising again; Goethe and Leopardi, for example, belong to it. Behind them plod the philologist-savants. This type has its origin in the sophisticism of the second century.

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Ah, it is a sad story, the story of philology! The disgusting erudition, the lazy, inactive pa.s.sivity, the timid submission.--Who was ever free?

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When we examine the history of philology it is borne in upon us how few really talented men have taken part in it. Among the most celebrated philologists are a few who ruined their intellect by acquiring a smattering of many subjects, and among the most enlightened of them were several who could use their intellect only for childish tasks. It is a sad story no science, I think, has ever been so poor in talented followers. Those whom we might call the intellectually crippled found a suitable hobby in all this hair-splitting.

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The teacher of reading and writing, and the reviser, were the first types of the philologist.

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Friedrich August Wolf reminds us how apprehensive and feeble were the first steps taken by our ancestors in moulding scholars.h.i.+p--how even the Latin cla.s.sics, for example, had to be smuggled into the university market under all sorts of pretexts, as if they had been contraband goods. In the "Gottingen Lexicon" of 1737, J. M. Gesner tells us of the Odes of Horace: "ut imprimis, quid prodesse _in severioribus studiis_ possint, ostendat."

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I was pleased to read of Bentley "non tam grande pretium emendatiunculis meis statuere soleo, ut singularem aliquam gratiam inde sperem aut exigam."

Newton was surprised that men like Bentley and Hare should quarrel about a book of ancient comedies, since they were both theological dignitaries.

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Horace was summoned by Bentley as before a judgment seat, the authority of which he would have been the first to repudiate. The admiration which a discriminating man acquires as a philologist is in proportion to the rarity of the discrimination to be found in philologists. Bentley's treatment of Horace has something of the schoolmaster about it It would appear at first sight as if Horace himself were not the object of discussion, but rather the various scribes and commentators who have handed down the text: in reality, however, it is actually Horace who is being dealt with. It is my firm conviction that to have written a single line which is deemed worthy of being commented upon by scholars of a later time, far outweighs the merits of the greatest critic. There is a profound modesty about philologists. The improving of texts is an entertaining piece of work for scholars, it is a kind of riddle-solving; but it should not be looked upon as a very important task. It would be an argument against antiquity if it should speak less clearly to us because a million words stood in the way!

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A school-teacher said to Bentley, "Sir, I will make your grandchild as great a scholar as you are yourself." "How can you do that," replied Bentley, "when I have forgotten more than you ever knew?"

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Bentley's clever daughter Joanna once lamented to her father that he had devoted his time and talents to the criticism of the works of others instead of writing something original. Bentley remained silent for some time as if he were turning the matter over in his mind. At last he said that her remark was quite right; he himself felt that he might have directed his gifts in some other channel. Earlier in life, nevertheless, he had done something for the glory of G.o.d and the improvement of his fellow-men (referring to his "Confutation of Atheism"), but afterwards the genius of the pagans had attracted him, and, _despairing of attaining their level in any other way_, he had mounted upon their shoulders so that he might thus be able to look over their heads.

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Bentley, says Wolf, both as man of letters and individual, was misunderstood and persecuted during the greater part of his life, or else praised maliciously.

Markland, towards the end of his life--as was the case with so many others like him--became imbued with a repugnance for all scholarly reputation, to such an extent, indeed, that he partly tore up and partly burnt several works which he had long had in hand.

Wolf says: "The amount of intellectual food that can be got from well-digested scholars.h.i.+p is a very insignificant item."

In Winckelmann's youth there were no philological studies apart from the ordinary bread-winning branches of the science--people read and explained the ancients in order to prepare themselves for the better interpretation of the Bible and the Corpus Juris.

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In Wolf's estimation, a man has reached the highest point of historical research when he is able to take a wide and general view of the whole and of the profoundly conceived distinctions in the developments in art and the different styles of art. Wolf acknowledges, however, that Winckelmann was lacking in the more common talent of philological criticism, or else he could not use it properly: "A rare mixture of a cool head and a minute and restless solicitude for hundreds of things which, insignificant in themselves, were combined in his case with a fire that swallowed up those little things, and with a gift of divination which is a vexation and an annoyance to the uninitiated."

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Wolf draws our attention to the fact that antiquity was acquainted only with theories of oratory and poetry which facilitated production, [Greek: technai] and _artes_ that formed real orators and poets, "while at the present day we shall soon have theories upon which it would be as impossible to build up a speech or a poem as it would be to form a thunderstorm upon a brontological treatise."

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Wolf's judgment on the amateurs of philological knowledge is noteworthy: "If they found themselves provided by nature with a mind corresponding to that of the ancients, or if they were capable of adapting themselves to other points of view and other circ.u.mstances of life, then, with even a nodding acquaintance with the best writers, they certainly acquired more from those vigorous natures, those splendid examples of thinking and acting, than most of those did who during their whole life merely offered themselves to them as interpreters."

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Says Wolf again "In the end, only those few ought to attain really complete knowledge who are born with artistic talent and furnished with scholars.h.i.+p, and who make use of the best opportunities of securing, both theoretically and practically, the necessary technical knowledge"

True!

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Instead of forming our students on the Latin models I recommend the Greek, especially Demosthenes simplicity! This may be seen by a reference to Leopardi, who is perhaps the greatest stylist of the century.

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