The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin Part 18

2.

To ill.u.s.trate what I mean, I proceed to take an instance. I will draw the sketch of a candidate for entrance, deficient to a great extent. I shall put him below _par_, and not such as it is likely that a respectable school would turn out, with a view of clearly bringing before the reader, by the contrast, what a student ought _not_ to be, or what is meant by _inaccuracy_. And, in order to simplify the case to the utmost, I shall take, as he will perceive as I proceed, one _single word_ as a sort of text, and show how that one word, even by itself, affords matter for a sufficient examination of a youth in grammar, history, and geography. I set off thus:-

_Tutor._ Mr. Brown, I believe? sit down. _Candidate._ Yes.

_T._ What are the Latin and Greek books you propose to be examined in?

_C._ Homer, Lucian, Demosthenes, Xenophon, Virgil, Horace, Statius, Juvenal, Cicero, a.n.a.lecta, and Matthiae.

_T._ No; I mean what are the books I am to examine you in? _C. is silent._

_T._ The two books, one Latin and one Greek: don't flurry yourself. _C._ Oh, ... Xenophon and Virgil.

_T._ Xenophon and Virgil. Very well; what part of Xenophon? _C. is silent._

_T._ What work of Xenophon? _C._ Xenophon.

_T._ Xenophon wrote many works. Do you know the names of any of them? _C._ I ... Xenophon ... Xenophon.

_T._ Is it the _Anabasis_ you take up? _C._ (_with surprise_) O yes; the Anabasis.

_T._ Well, Xenophon's Anabasis; now what is the meaning of the word _anabasis_? _C. is silent._

_T._ You know very well; take your time, and don't be alarmed. Anabasis means ... _C._ An ascent.

_T._ Very right; it means an ascent. Now how comes it to mean an ascent?

What is it derived from? _C._ It comes from ... (_a pause_). _Anabasis_ ... it _is_ the nominative.

_T._ Quite right: but what part of speech is it? _C._ A noun,-a noun substantive.

_T._ Very well; a noun substantive, now what is the verb that _anabasis_ is derived from? _C. is silent._

_T._ From the verb ??aa???, isn't it? from ??aa???. _C._ Yes.

_T._ Just so. Now, what does ??aa??? mean? _C._ To go up, to ascend.

_T._ Very well; and which part of the word means _to go_, and which part _up_? _C._ ??? is _up_, and a??? _go_.

_T._ a??? to go, yes; now, ?s??? What does ?s?? mean? _C._ A going.

_T._ That is right; and ???-as??? _C._ A going up.

_T._ Now what is a going _down_? _C. is silent_.

_T._ What is down? ... ?at? ... don't you recollect? ?at?. _C._ ?at?.

_T._ Well, then, what is a going _down_? Cat .. cat ... _C._ Cat....

_T._ Cata ... _C._ Cata....

_T._ Catabasis. _C._ Oh, of course, catabasis.

_T._ Now tell me what is the future of a???? _C._ (_thinks_) a??.

_T._ No, no; think again; you know better than that. _C._ (_objects_) Fa???, Fa???

_T._ Certainly, Fa?? is the future of Fa???; but a??? is, you know, an irregular verb. _C._ Oh, I recollect, ?s?.

_T._ Well, that is much better; but you are not quite right yet; ?s?a?.

_C._ Oh, of course,.

_T._ ?s?a?. Now do you mean to say that ?s?a? _comes from_ a???? _C.

is silent._

_T._ For instance: t??? comes from t?pt? by a change of letters; does ?s?a?in any similar way come from a???? _C._ It is an irregular verb.

_T._ What do you mean by an irregular verb? does it form tenses anyhow and by caprice? _C._ It does not go according to the paradigm.

_T._ Yes, but how do you account for this? _C. is silent_.

_T._ Are its tenses formed from several roots? _C. is silent. T. is silent; then he changes the subject._

_T._ Well, now you say _Anabasis_ means an _ascent_. _Who_ ascended? _C._ The Greeks, Xenophon.

_T._ Very well: Xenophon and the Greeks; the Greeks ascended. To what did they ascend? _C._ Against the Persian king: they ascended to fight the Persian king.

_T._ That is right ... an ascent; but I thought we called it a _de_scent when a foreign army carried war into a country? _C. is silent._

_T._ Don't we talk of a descent of barbarians? _C._ Yes.

_T._ Why then are the Greeks said to go _up_? _C._ They went up to fight the Persian king.

_T._ Yes; but why _up_ ... why not _down_? _C._ They came down afterwards, when they retreated back to Greece.

_T._ Perfectly right; they did ... but could you give no reason why they are said to go _up_ to Persia, not _down_? _C._ They went _up_ to Persia.

_T._ Why do you not say they went _down? C. pauses, then_ ... They went _down_ to Persia.

_T._ You have misunderstood me.

_A silence._

_T._ _Why_ do you not say _down_? _C._ I do ... _down_.

_T._ You have got confused; you know very well. _C._ I understood you to ask why I did not say "they went _down_."

_A silence on both sides._

_T._ Have you come up to Dublin or down? _C._I came up.