wed her literature and her art.

Rome and the Modern World. After conquering the world, Rome impressed
her language, laws, customs of living, and modes of thinking upon the
subject nations, and they became Roman; and the world has remained
largely Roman ever since. Latin continued to live, and the knowledge of
Latin was the only light of learning that burned steadily through the
dark ages that followed the downfall of the Roman Empire. Latin was the
common language of scholars and remained so even down to the days of
Shakespeare. Even yet it is more nearly than any other tongue the
universal language of the learned. The life of to-day is much nearer
the life of ancient Rome than the lapse of centuries would lead one to
suppose. You and I are Romans still in many ways, and if Caesar and
Cicero should appear among us, we should not find them, except for dress
and language, much unlike men of to-day.

Latin and English. Do you know that more than half of the words in the
English dictionary are Latin, and that you are speaking more or less
Latin every day? How has this come about? In the year 1066 William the
Conqueror invaded England with an army of Normans. The Normans spoke
French--which, you remember, is descended from Latin--and spread their
language to a considerable extent over England, and so Norman-French
played an important part in the formation of English and forms a large
proportion of our vocabulary. Furthermore, great numbers of almost pure
Latin words have been brought into English through the writings of
scholars, and every new scientific discovery is marked by the addition
of new terms of Latin derivation. Hence, while the simpler and commoner
words of our mother tongue are Anglo-Saxon, and Anglo-Saxon forms the
staple of our colloquial language, yet in the realms of literature, and
especially in poetry, words of Latin derivation are very abundant. Also
in the learned professions, as in law, medicine, and engineering, a
knowledge of Latin is necessary for the successful interpretation of
technical and scientific terms.

Why study Latin? The foregoing paragraphs make it clear why Latin
forms so important a part of modern education. We have seen that our
civilization rests upon that of Greece and Rome, and that we must look
to the past if we would understand the present. It is obvious, too, that
the knowledge of Latin not only leads to a more exact and effective use
of our own language, but that it is of vi