Salt Lake Tribune | 1912-02-11 | Page 44 | As the Romans Do

As tlie Romans Do BY ELBERT HUBBARD. WU13RBVBR the Romans conquered a . country and their business was to conquer they established estab-lished schools. Iu these schools-they schools-they taught the manners,, customs and language of Rome. ."What., would you' do 7 This' has been the universal. rule sincii history began the country conquered hus been forced -to learii tho language of the conquerors. The Latin tongue became at once the ofticial languago of every coun-Irv coun-Irv that Ifomc overran.-just as the Americans have introduced American Ameri-can schools in Cuba and the I'hilip-pines I'hilip-pines for-tho teaching of the Eng- lisli language. The schoolma 'am follows the Hag. Always aud forever I he con-; ' qucred are made to forget their history his-tory and abaiVdou their language. Spain iu 1400 made it a capital offense to " speak arid write iiyi Hebrew. In Poland, Kussian is the official -language. ' ' Jin .Ireland the Gaelic was for. "years a forbidden tongue, spoken j only in 'whispers, behind docked J doors. i ' In all our Indian. schools the. pupils pu-pils are forbidden to speak their tribal language, and punishments arc ofteu imposed for so doing by , forbidding the culprit the dining- ' ronm. The Romans established I heir schools iu Gaul, and always and forever the Goths,. I'icts, Ostrogoths Ostro-goths and. vandals were forced to speak as the Komans sjiokc and do as the Koinans did. The only seeming exception, to this rule was "in the perpetuating of the Greek tongue by the Unmans. Un-mans. Rut this was on account of the value which tho Romans placed ' on Greek learning; moreover, Greek was not taught until Greece had as a nation ceased to exist. The Teutonic tribes, subdued by Rome, 'still teach the language o'f -their captors and-count; it an ac- complishmeut that brings invitations invita-tions to the salacious ami mildly ' wicked four-o'clock. We regard any mnn -who can speak and write tlic latiu language ' as being immune from the .taunt of-being of-being a barbariaiu Once tho barbarian was dimply a man who was not a Roman, but when he learned the language of" Rpmc he was accepted as a citizcu, provided he did as the Romans.' did. Also, the man who could speak Latin did no work all th. drudg- . cry was performed by barbaric sla0fc. To do useful labor was to forfeit vour social position. And the precedent still sunhes in good society aud is fostered in our schools and colleges. To break from this tyranny of the past and point to an ideal' that has never been realized will be tho work of -tho pedagogue of the future. fu-ture. . We will not incarcerate the youth iu order to teach' hi'ni. lroul air and bad light wilj riot always In: ever-present factors iu au edu cation. We will work for qualifies, quali-fies, not cleverness: foivsclf-sulli-ciency, not. ' marks." V The ideal education will tend to-. to-. ward bodily grace and vigor for physical effectiveness, -for truth, courtesy, efficiency and happy self- ' reliance.' We will have physical , culture, not athletics. Instead, a goodly pan of our education, will be useful effort, in gardens, meadows, groves and fields, under the blue sky or in the face of wind and rain: men nnd women working side by side under skilled leadership in joyous equality, filled with health and ani- 1 matiou. Out-of-door schools where useful work- forms the principal curricu- bun not lessons from musty books and- lectures bv anemic professors will cure u of our maladies, pluck front- memory its rooted sor- j row, louder hospitals obsolete, and ; make our bodies lit. dwelling places - of tho Holy Spirit. i