ABSTRACT
Gaelic is Celtic, and the so-called Scotch tongue is English with provincial pronunciation and provincial words. Most children hate learning Latin or Greek, even more than they hate learning French or German: they possibly fed that the dead languages can never mean anything to them. The teaching of classics is one of the ugliest signs of civilisations social insanity. Language is a means to an end. Its end should be to be able to read the masters of old, or to speak to foreigners. Scotland’s love for Latin springs from its ecclesiastical past. The vogue that Latin has had in Scotland, never had the aim of reaching up to the great Roman authors: its aim was to reach down to the dog Latin of the priests. The progress of a nation can be gauged from its attitude to Latin and Greek. Grammar is a scaffold and Scotland decorated the scaffold and forgot about the building.
