October, 2001

Latin Derivative
of the Month

Let us first be clear about the meaning of the liberal arts and liberal education. The liberal arts are traditionally intended to develop the faculties of the human mind, those powers of intelligence and imagination without which no intellectual work can be accomplished.  Liberal education is not tied to certain academic subjects, such as philosophy, history, literature, music, art, and other so-called "humanities."  In the liberal arts tradition, scientific disciplines, such as mathematics and physics, are considered equally liberal, that is, equally able to develop the powers of the mind.

The liberal arts tradition goes back to the medieval curriculum.  It consisted of two parts.  The first part, the trivium, comprised grammar, rhetoric, and logic.  It taught the arts of reading and writing, of listening and speaking, and of sound thinking.  The other part, the quadrivium, consisted of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music (not audible music, but music conceived as a mathematical science). It taught the arts of observation, calculation, and measurement, how to apprehend the quantitative aspect of things.  Nowadays, of course, we would add many more sciences, natural and social.  This is just what has been done in the various modern attempts to renew liberal education.

Liberal education, including all the traditional arts as well as the newer sciences, is essential for the development of top-flight scientists.  Without it, we can train only technicians, who cannot understand the basic principles behind the motions they perform.  We can hardly expect such skilled automatons to make new discovers of any importance.  A crash program of merely technical training would probably end in a crash-up for basic science.

The connection of liberal education with scientific creativity is not mere speculation.  It is a matter of historical fact that the great German scientists of the nineteenth century had a solid background in the liberal arts.  They all went thorough a liberal education which embraced Greek, Latin, logic, philosophy and history, in addition to mathematics, physics and other sciences. Actually, this has been the educational preparation of European scientists down to the present time.  Einstein, Bohr, Fermi, and other great modern scientists were developed not by technical schooling, but by liberal education.

... The aim of liberal education, however, is not to produce scientists. It seeks to develop free human beings who know how to use their minds and are able to think for themselves.  Its primary aim is not the development of professional competence, although a liberal education is indispensable for any intellectual profession. It produces citizens who can exercise their political liberty responsibly.  It develops cultivated persons who can use their leisure fruitfully.  It is an education for all free men, whether they intend to be scientists or not.

Our educational problem is how to produce free men, not hordes of uncultivated, trained technicians.  Only the best liberal schooling can accomplish this.  It must include all the humanities as well as mathematics and the sciences.  It must exclude all merely vocational and technical training.

Figures of Speech
From Memoria Press's
soon to be released  Classical Rhetoric program

We can certainly understand that. 

One feature of the new program they are particularly fond of is the weekly lesson on the figures of speech.  Ancient practitioners of rhetoric classified and labeled the various rhetorical figures or figures of speech.  The rhetorical figures were stylistic devices in speech that allowed a speaker or writer to express a thought in a particular way by virtue of how a word, a sentence or group of sentences was structured.  One class of figures is called asyndeton.  It involves the omission of conjunctions where we might expect them to be.  Here is an example of an asyndeton:

Veni, vidi, vici

These were Julius Caesar's words, of course, when he defeated Pharnaces, the barbarian king of the Bosphorus, at the Battle of Zela in 47 B.C.  Translated into English, it means "I came, I saw, I conquered."   Normally, of course, you would include the word and before the last word in such a series, but Caesar left it out—possibly because he was really too busy cleaning up the battlefield to talk to reporters, but more likely because he was trying to emphasize the swiftness with which he had dispatched the enemy.

The asyndeton can be contrasted with the polysyndeton, which is the profuse use of the conjunction in a series.  For example:

While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.

In this passage, from Gen. 8:22, there seem to be too many ands.  But in reality, they serve a purpose: to give the statement a sort of dignified rhythm.  It is interesting to note that Shakespeare favors the asyndeton, while the Bible definitely favors the polysyndeton.  

The asyndeton and polysyndeton are featured in the first chapter of Memoria Press's new Classical Rhetoric. The monks assure us that this new course is "second to nun," which is their way of not only having a little fun (this is about as funny as humor gets in the monastery), but of illustrating their renewed appreciation of rhetoric by using another figure of speech: the malapropism. A malapropism is the placement of a perfectly good word in a positively inappropriate place.  They were unable to fit this one in the book, so they thought they would try it out on us.  

The brothers have promised to send a messenger boy down the long trail from the monastery with an announcement as soon as copies are available. 

Sursum Corda

Memoria Press's new Lingua Angelica program makes Latin music come alive! 

Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto; sicut erat in principio, et nunc et semper, et in saecula saeculorum. Amen

Translated, it comes out as follows:

Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit; just as it was in the beginning, and now and always, and forever.  Amen.

In this short passage the Latin student is given a memorable example of the use of the dative case ("Patri," "Filio" and "Spiritui Sancto"), as well as the two cases, accusative and ablative, that can be used with in ("in principio": the ablative, and "in saecula saeculorum": the accusative).  It is one thing to know these grammar concepts in the abstract, but to see and hear them in action in the great songs and prayers of the Church will not only make your child's Latin education easier, but more enjoyable.