Question 1: What is Neo-humanism? How does it differ from Renaissance Humanism?

What

affect did it have on Latins future?

Neo-humanism, called so to distinguish it from the humanism of the fifteenth and

sixteenth centuries, was a series of educational transformations in Germany that had its roots in

the eighteenth century and was fully recognized in the nineteenth. Neo-humanism had a number

of things in common with the humanism of the Renaissance but its main goal differed very much

from that of the humanists of the Renaissance. Like Renaissance humanism the neo-humanists

looked back to the ancients with ancient Greece at the center, going so far as to see the Greeks as

the originals and the Romans as imitators. Moreover, they believed that a person was shaped by

the propagation of language, in both cases, Latin. However, the neo-humanists ultimate goal

was not fluency in Latin for communication but for education. Thus, they were to spend more

time reading the classics and mastering their style instead of using time to converse in Latin.

One neo-humanist, Johann Ernesti, preferred good German be written than less-than-perfect

Latin. This turning away from Latin as a means of communication the affected its study as the

forerunners of the neo-humanist movement felt that pure study, not study for professions sake,

should be the goal of education. So, for the Latin and Greek languages it was their very inutility

that gave them their esteem.

Despite these blockings imposed on Latin as a means of communication, the language

continued to be a must in education. Latin even saw new emergences in places like Russia,

which had long been under the thumb of the Greek Orthodox Church and Slavic traditions. Latin

even grew in strength in the United States, which Leonhardt notes as odd as the academic

writings were not written for a European audience. This means that Latin was an important
educational tool that seemingly had no practical usage. Moreover, this meant that the Latin

millennium of Europe was coming to an end.

What this transformation meant for Latin education was that it became open to a new

form of investigation. That is, since Latin was now primarily being learned for its logical

constructions, the shift from learning phrases and idioms that would lead to communicative ends

to examination of grammar was fully underway. This shift eventuated in the rote forms of

learning that affect Latin education to this day.

For me this is a strange circumstance in that the fate of Latin was somewhat decided by a

number of leading men in some particularly well-renowned universities. Because of their

attitudes toward educations purpose, Latin lost its status as a universal means of communication

and became a subject whose study was more useful for understanding other subjects.
Question 2: How did the rectors of the Thomasschule affect Latin teaching?

The Thomasschule is a university in Leipzig whose foundation dates to the Middle Ages.

The rectors of the Thomasschule in a way are representative of the change that Latin education

underwent over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In this way they are

integral in understanding the end of Latins millennial reign in Europe. The first rector that

Leonhardt discusses is Johann Heinrich Ernesti who held the position from 1684 to 1729. This

Ernesti was very much a scholarly Latinist who wrote in Latin and focused his instruction on

neo-Latin much more than the classical canon. He did this as it would prove more useful to his

students once they finished their schooling and enter their professional lives. One change he

made that seemed to foreshadow later reforms was that he had the Latin prayers replaced with

German prayers. After Ernesti died, Johann Mathias Gesner became rector in 1730, whom

Leonhardt describes as one of the forerunners of neo-humanism. Though he was a highly

learned scholar that revised many great Latin works, Gesner was less concerned with Latin as a

communicative tool than fluency, while he held modern languages in high regard. Though he

reinstated the Latin prayers Gesner seemed to have little interest in spoken Latin. The third

rector considered is Johann August Ernesti who was a well-known editor of classical works.

This Ernesti was even more against spontaneously spoken Latin and preferred that good German

to poor Latin. While he was more focused on the classics than Gesner, his interests were in their

content, especially Ciceros philosophy. Whereas the earlier Ernesti had demanded his students

to use Latin communicatively, this Ernesti forced his students to read and understand the style of

the classics. It is this later Ernesti whose thoughts on Latin teaching would have a large impact

on our world of Latin education.

 This Ernesti, who was very obsessed with the classics and very much against the use of

Latin as method of communication that set the precedent for the neo-humanistic movement that

was soon to start. As rector then, Johann August Ernesti helped to solidify what we now call the

classical canon and helped strike a major blow to communicative Latin. In addition, Johann

Sebastian Bach was in consideration for cantor of the Thomasschule and his arguments with

Ernesti led to a separation of Latin and music. Thus the developments made by the rectors of the

Thomasschule seem to be the driving force behind the fall of Latin as a communicative language.

This again seems very odd to me that a famous school can bring about such change that

we feel its reverberations still today. Despite this, since Germany had not yet become a unified

country, the German language was not yet as all encompassing as in other countries that had

become unified and thus Latin still maintained esteem there. In this way it does seem logical that

such a drastic shift in educational style in Germany could influence other countries that had an

already waning Latin system.

Question 3: How did the rise of the natural sciences affect Latin teaching?

Leonhardt explains that, while neo-humanistic attitudes toward Latin were gaining

strength, many other historical languages were also being rediscovered and they were subject to

study in the manner of the natural sciences. Thus, the classical languages began to be studied not

as a model for good style in writing or correct idiom usage, but as a scientific endeavor to get

behind textual issues of the language. As Leonhardt says, Latin had given up its position as a

lingua franca in exchange for being the most important historical language studied in the

nineteenth century.

This new, method-based study of Latin naturally had a great affect on how the language

was taught. In a somewhat practical sense Latin was used as a measure of good and bad

students, so this would seemingly mean that, should one not be competent enough in Latin, they

could be denied access to profitable path. Moreover, Latin education took on a systematic form

to assist in future logic and mathematics studies and thus it was of utmost importance that a

student that wished to have a career in this path learn their Latin very well. Despite this

necessity of Latin, the language was still derided in favor of Greek, since the neo-humanists had

ancient Greece at their center.

In order to undertake this new focus on Latin as a historical language the first attempts at

finding the method behind Latin syntax was formulated. While the humanists of the Renaissance

and even those neo-humanists were staunchly opposed to the writing of a Latin grammar book,

but in the mid-nineteenth century many grammars were produced because those learning Latin

could not hear, speak, or write the language in their time learning. Not only were these

grammars written but also they were done so in the manner of a scientific study. In addition to

this the writers of these grammars employed analytical theory to their writings so that, should
one be unsure about a particular usage, their grammars could show them the correct usage.

Despite the scientific aims of the authors these grammars do not show much alignment with the

linguistic methods of the time but tend to focus on one particular author and his own style.

What had happened then, was that Latin teaching had been restructured into lessons that

were not meant to shape the individual- as they were for the humanists and neo-humanists- but

for logical ways of thinking. It seems a shame to me that this one century has so drastically

altered Latin education, from communicative language to language for the educated class to

scientifically investigated relegated to reference books, all while maintaining its need to be

learned. Moreover, this method for learning has gained such a force that pockets of other

theories on how to teach Latin must be created or rediscovered and none have been able to

overtake it. As Leonhardt says it is sad to me that Latin has become a historical language needed

only by a handful of specialists.

Question 4: For Leonhardt, why do the consequences of Latin education for our written cultural

heritage go unappreciated? Why are they problematic?

Leohardt notes that, if a text is discovered and only a few people are able to read it, they

will be mere archivists but will not be able to bring its history to life. So these artifacts can give

us a clue to the way things were at the time but for those who cannot read the texts, they become

unharmonious pieces of music, displeasing to the ear. Leonhardt also notes that most do not

understand the consequences for our written cultural heritage, and he gives two reasons for this.

The first reason is that many feel that the most important texts have already been translated and

interpreted. This can be seen has a logical end for those who think only of the classical canon as

important. So, only the fine details of textual criticism or investigation of unimportant texts

remains. This issue is easily dismissed, for, as Leonhardt noted earlier in the book, the vast

majority of Latin texts are found outside of the classical period, many cuneiform tablets lie

unexamined, and fragments of famous works like the Epic of Gilgamesh await curious eyes in

museums. On this point I am reminded of Menos paradox that one cannot search for what they

already know (i.e. the classical corpus) since we already have why continue looking for new

texts; and what cannot search for what one does not know (in this case, the unexamined texts),

for how will they know what to look for, and if found, how will they know?

Leonhardts second reason is that people often underestimate the amount of knowledge

one needs to engage fully with historical documents. Many, even highly educated people have

only a passive knowledge of Latin, even if they teach it and thus it takes great pangs to

understand the philosophy or theology of text, let alone edit and translate it. For this reason

Leonhardt compares us to the scholars of the Middle Ages in that we need more people who are

able to efficiently read, understand, and make accessible the many texts that remain untouched.
 I think Leonhardt is absolutely right. The difficulty in identifying, understanding, and

producing a highly accessible translation that captures the nuances of an ancient language and

reproduces them in a modern one is a real problem, especially in the field of Classics. I feel that

what is called the grammar-translation method is a misnomer because, as mentioned,

translation is an art, not merely a clunky, extremely rigid rendering of a text into another

language. This form of translation is fine at the start but if this is the goal, there should be

ample time in teaching the art of translation. I hope that in the coming decades people will be

learning Latin and other ancient languages without having to resort to a modern language so that

this middle-man is cut out and people can understand the Latin as Latin and not the Latin

through the filter of a modern language.