Colgate University - Salmagundi Yearbook (Hamilton, NY)

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COLGATE Uuivnnsirv 9 gazing upon the landscape : moreover, his ears are so clogged with dustfthat he is deaf to the music of nature. Analogous to this, is the fate of a student of Greek, all of whose time is consumed on grammatical minutiae. He carries off bushels of dried up roots and rootlets, but becomes purblind to all esthetic and philosophical values. If he becomes a masterful philologist -and not one in a hundred becomes that-the esthetic faculties are shrivelled up. In his later life, Darwin lamented having so completely surrendered himself to mere scientific details,--that the zest with which, in earlier manhood, he read the great poets and masterpieces of literature had departed. His esthetic sensibility had been atrophied. Were he to live his life over he would give an hour or two a day to literature. Had he done that, he would have been equally great as a scientist and broader minded. How much less power would Darwin have shown without that training in Greek and other literature which he received in the Universities of Edinburgh and Cambridge. Under a teacher like Dr. Andrews, recognizing philological values, and yet possessing an enthusiastic appreciation of its litera- ture, Greek, if a desert at all, is a desert crowded with oases, wherein a youthful imagination and esthetic sensibility find a joyous development. But esthetic sensibility by itself is of no more value than fruit blossoms severed from the trees 5 it must be wedded to thought. It is a mistake to con- centrate all one's 'powers on polishing prose or perfecting the tinkle of verse 'i without gathering from the classics the pregnant expressions of human wisdom and pictures of human life and of the history of nations. If a teacher is a whole man, says Dr. Andrews in his address before the Alumni, he is sure, no matter what his department, to make himself felt in many ways that affect the students thought, color his sentiments and determine his ideals. The in- structor's views of life and conceptions of manhood are sure to be discerned and in some departments hardly could a day pass without bringing to an alert teacher many fruitful suggestions. What graduate of Colgate, even if he did not master all the linguistic niceties, does not rejoice in having received a multitude of seed thoughts, ethical, philosophical, political-which have since borne fruit. But not only are esthetic sensibility and power of 'thought to be developed. One must be able to give them expression. Our collegians are expected on going out into the world to use their mother tongue and to make some connec- tion between the brain and the tongue. Hen1'y'Ward Beecher, when chided for temporarily neglecting his Greek, replied, I am preparing to preach the gospel and I expect to preach it in English. Had he been under Dr. Andrews' instruc- tion, he would have soon discovered that the drill in the translation of the Greek masterpieces compelled him to discover and trace the mental processes of great writers, to think their thoughts after them, to consider the logical connection of the thought and all that relates to the general conception and scope of an author-in one word, every recitation would be an exercise in English Composition.

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8 THE SALMAGUNDI chapters in Greek g the hardest is as familiar to him as our A B C. But this very familiarity sometimes handicaps a teacher. The proverb, Familiarity breeds contempt, can be applied in another sense than that originally intended. How often does our familiaritywith a subject unfit us to appreciate the difficul- ties of a stumbling, half blind but earnest seeker after knowledge. Not only that-there may be a sneering curl of the lip g some biting sarcasm is spoken which blights ambition and hope g or, if we do not go as far as that, we write him down as a dunce and freeze the unfolding blossom by a chilly indifference. More than one man has been ruined by this attitude on the part of a teacher. Hence, it may sometimes happen, the less learned man is the better teacher. If our memory serves us, when J owett was offered the chair of Greek in Oxford, he hesitated to accept on the ground of insufficient preparation g but on further reflection, concluded that his very disability might be transformed into ability, inasmuch as having to work out the problems, he would have asympathetic acquaintance with the difficulties of his students. He was right. His very limitations made him a better teacher. But he is a better teacher who having passed the period when he wrestles with perplexities remembers them and from his perfect knowledge helps us with patient, lucid explanations. J owett did not always remember. Once a student of moderate ability but, very industrious, becoming entangled in rendering a difficult passage, Jowett's brow clouded and he hurled a thunderbolt, whereupon the student replied, I am doing the best I can, sir? J owett's face crimsoned with shame and a tender apology was made. Dr. Andrews always rememberseand no industrious student leaves his classroom without recognition of that considerateness with which out of his abundant learning he sheds light upon his perplexities. But what is the ideal which Dr. Andrews sets before himself as a teacher of Greek 'Z It is not his aim to turn out philologists. That is the work of the university specialist-not of the college professor. Grammatical accuracy is emphasized g not as an enemy but a help to his ultimate ends. Some, not all of these ends, are the development of the esthetic sense, of power of thought and effective expression. n The esthetic faculties must be cultivated. Some professors sacrifice the esthetic upon the altar of philological science. But was the genitive made for man or the man for the genitive 'll' Perhaps the oft repeated story about the German professor is apocryphal, but it illustrates the tendency of some teachers. He lectures daily for two semesters upon the genitive case, and then puts on sackcloth and ashes because no more time could be granted. Set a boy to digging up the roots of a tree in dry soil, allow him to do little else, the air he breathes is saturated with dust and he misses the tonic influence of a clear atmosphere g keep him bending down to spy out all roots and diminutive rootlets, he misses the inspiration which comes from looking up into the heavens and

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10 THE SALMAGUND1 But our Greek classroom does not only develop our esthetic taste, our power of thought and eXpressioneAit becomes a handmaid of Christianity. On Dr. Dodge's monument is this inscription, The soul is the enigma, God is the solution. Plato, greatest of uninspired thinkers, discoursing on the destiny of the soul, would have his disciples H take the best and most irrefragable of human notions and use it as a raft on which to sail through life, not Without some risk as he admits, if he cannot find some Word of God, which will more surely and safely carry him. He who reads Plato with Dr. Andrews, is impressed with the fact that we have a sure word of God and that all the problems concerning the good, the true, the beautiful, and the destiny of the soul, find their solution in the incarnate Logos. V