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Reading the Classics Author(s): John Burnet Source: Greece & Rome, Vol. 11, No. 31 (Oct., 1941), pp. 38-39Published by: on behalf of Cambridge University Press The Classical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/641405Accessed: 19-03-2015 21:33 UTC

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READING THE CLASSICS

[It is thought that the following extracts from a letter of Dr. John Burnet to an ex-pupil may be of general interest.]

Y OU would do well to make a special thing of Homer. Read it in large lumps and get up Monro's 'Homeric

Grammar' afterwards. I have been reading the Odyssey at the rate of four books a day since I came here. It is the only secret. It is so much easier to pick up the theories of modern scholars, so far as they are worth picking up, when you have a large first-hand acquaintance with the actual litera- ture. That is the primary fact we have to deal with, and all the rest is 'trimmings'. I never knew what scholarship meant till one lucky summer when I was inspired to read Plato from cover to cover.

When I was a student at Edinburgh, I read right through Euripides with a fellow-student. Its gets wonderfully easy after a play or two.

I am grateful for your kind remarks about my teaching. I believe that I have a kind of gospel to preach about the right way of teaching Greek, but the problem is only partially solved yet. The ideal is very wide private reading on the part of the student and very minute interpretation in class on the part of the teacher. When I first came to St. Andrews it was hard to persuade anyone to read anything outside the class work, but I have noted a decided improvement of late. My idea in introducing weekly 'unseens' this year is to encourage that. But I shan't be satisfied till I get people to read Greek litera- ture as if it were modern literature. I have myself read all Classical Greek literature in this way-it can be done in a year-and it makes me surer of my ground than anything else could do. I try not to let a day pass without reading the equivalent in quantity of a book of Homer, and I generally read a speech of Cicero's too, so as not to forget my Latin. The two together take under two hours of my time, and they are the most usefully spent hours of the day. Of course there are some writers, e.g. Pindar and Aeschylus, who can't be

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READING THE CLASSICS 39

managed in this way till you have been through them minutely, but most Greek writers are easy enough.

I have written more than I meant, but I am more ambitious that my pupils should do well than for anything else. I hope to see you get a fellowship, and I know I am putting you on the right track for that. If anyone had told me twenty years ago what I am telling you now, I should have made more of my existence.

GREEK CROSSWORD SOLUTION

'Ti 'E (N 4T 'H T K '0 '"N 9T I'A "E "T 13 1'A

A1TTIOAAYAAy P I O M 0 N

'P IM. A I K 0 IZ A T A H T A "A

AO7'•"AA I K 0 1 M HN

TT I A A K 0 "E "N T ?A"B A T T "P A I 'B 0 N "Al I1 B E "A T A

0-YAEN NI A EN0 A Y'Ar0' F 'I T A N I 0 1I •• A I I

"AA1l E AI 0 TT A A E 0. N 10 K T - AMME' NA I

4K P A I NIOM

E0 N"4E i I A lZ 1I 0 A A E N"B I E -N 0 E A Y T 'A1I

ONITA150oHH

I A{I T O ~'NO I "1501 "IE I E~

.N NOTES

ACROSS. I. Locksley Hall-'Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay.' 15. Plato, Theaet. x55c. 16. dp(QL)Gdv. 17. Anag. gwp6; Kai. 18 & 4. Aesch. Ag. 408. 19. II. xi. 88. 20.

dA•+K6•r)q- Wv'. 21. Eur. Andr. 116 (masc.). 25. Hdt. iv. 155. 26. Anag. Btdvop (voc.). 30. Plato, Phdr. 234e. 33. Inverted pail. 36. 'Rare' in case expressing Instrument (dative). 38. A simple pair. 39. Hdt. iii. 32. Cambyses. 40. Hdt. 1. 82, Spartans and Argives at Thyrea. 41. Anag. KoviaELS ldir7a. 46. 11. ii. 765. 47. Eur. Herac. 647. 48. d4vO-Ea. 49. yvciiZO aeavr(6v). 5o. Anag. dTovia. 51. Celery, Od. v. 72. 52. Rev. dJxov. 53 & 7. Plato, Rep. 327c. 54. Ar. Eq. 840 (fut.).

DOWN. I. Figure, quoted by L. & S. from Demetrius on Style. 2. gnrw--Ld. 3. Ev. Luc. 5. 17 (sing.). 5 & 6. A circle at Elis, or (with rough breathing) the ecliptic. 8-1o. Aor. Med. Opt. of vaia-- mood used in 'remote' conditional clauses. 9. Dough rolled for pastry (Ath. 3. II3d) (dative). II.

o6,Ait ce7a vwOpin OABflS Herod. 4. 53. Iz. Segment. 13. Od. xi. 384. 14. Thuc. 2. 45. 22. Hdt. i. 211. 23. Genitive feminine. 24. Bad throw at dice. 27. A favourer of the Blues (dual). (M. Ant. i. 5). 29. Dative expressing further object. 3 I. Ionic Opt. (mood of indefinite frequency) of i'qtnapo0atL; anag. of ol wraipot. 32. Looks both ways. 33. Epithet of Apollo in alphabetical poem-words beginning with nu. A.P. ix. 525. 34. 11. iii. 399. 35. Rev. &ia-'bathing drawers'. 37. i.e. boiled-Od. x. 359. 42. aofap(6d) anag. dpot. 43. To the Centaur. 44. Dativus Incommodi.

T. W. M.

Correct solutions from L. E. Eyres, Ampleforth College; and W. A. Jesper, Haxby, York. The Editors regret that the list of correct solvers was accidentally omitted from the

last number.

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