It was the literature of the classical world itself, of course, not Grammar as narrowly understood, that opened doors. But study of the one made possible intimacy with the other, and since the languages studied were Latin and greek, reading literature presupposed an exhuastive grammatical grounding. Grammar was the font of eloquence.
~T. L. Simmons, Climbing Parnassus, p.97
2 comments:
You might enjoy this: http://www.koinoniablog.net/2009/04/the-history-behind-basics-of-biblical-greek.html
by Bill Mounce, about the Greek textbook he wrote. In the post he writes: "When I started teaching Greek at Rockmont College (now Colorado Christian University) in 1982, I used Machen. It is a really good book, but I quickly learned that the students Machen taught were not the same as the students I was teaching, most notably the lack of general English grammar."
(Machen's Greek textbook was written in 1927, I believe.)
I'll look forward to reading the post by Dr. Mounce, Amy! I be;lieve we have a copy of his book here, but we used Machen around for my eldest son. Ben did three years of Koine Greek, three years of Spanish, a year of German and a year of Latin in junior-high and high school. Tim, my less-language-savvy child, completed three years of Latin. It has served them both very well, and truly did open the doors of literature to them!
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