It
is usually a little tremulous, not quite sure of itself, and indeed its
best adornment is generally the sobriety induced by an overshadowing
sense of paternal correction and solicitude always present to check
rashness and desultoriness, and make it at least "gang warily" with a
finger on its lip; and their attainments in Latin are, at the best,
receptively rather than actively of value.
In Catholic girls' schools, however, the elements of Latin are almost
necessity. It is wanting in courtesy, it is almost uncouth for us to
grow up without any knowledge of the language of Holy Church. It is
almost impossible for educated Catholics to have right taste in
devotion, the "love and relish" of the most excellent things, without
some knowledge of our great liturgical prayers and hymns in the
original. We never can really know them if we only hear them halting and
plunging and splashing through translations, wasting their strength in
many words as they must unavoidably do in English, and at best only
reaching an approximation to the sense. The use of them in the original
is discipline and devotion in one, and it strengthens the Catholic
historical hold on the past, with a sense of nearness, when we dwell
with some understanding on the very words which have been sung in the
Church subsisting in all ages and teaching all nations.
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