The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 42
Report on Ancient and Modern Languages
Report on Ancient and Modern Languages.
The results of the Yearly Examination of the pupils of the College in the Latin, Greek, French, and German languages, have been satisfactory.
In each department I have observed a manifest and pleasing progress. In Latin, the knowledge and merits of the higher classes were tested, partly by papers set by myself, and partly by papers forwarded for the Cambridge Examinations. The subjects embraced in these papers are translations from Latin into English, English into Latin, and questions on the structure of the language, and on the history and antiquities of the country.
The authors selected were Terence, Cicero, Ovid, and Cæsar. The translations from the Latin were close to the original, and expressed in excellent English. In the translation from English, as well as in the answers to the questions on construction, I traced a marked improvement.
The answers to the questions on the Roman History and Antiquities were, in general, correctly given.
In the lower classes I found that careful attention had been given to grounding the pupils in the accidence of the language.
It was with regret I heard that so small a number of boys had this year taken up the Greek language. Those, however, who did present themselves for examination in that language, gave replies which afforded satisfactory proof of their progress.
page 21The papers on which they were examined were framed on the same principle as that on which the examinations in Latin were prepared, and translations from Euripides and Xenophon.
In the French the answers given by the higher classes were excellent. The translations from Molière, an author by no means easy to render felicitously, were very good.
I found also that the junior classes were being well-trained in the elementary principles of the language.
In German, the examinations were this year exclusively oral. The translation of the passages from the German, proposed by me to the pupils, as well as their answers to questions in Grammar, were entitled to high praise.
Gordon Allan.