[MA-203]
A VANISHED PREPARATION FOR ART
Of all the things the grammar school did, the most valuable was its training in Latin style, for this was an artistic exercise, while all other occupations were aimed solely at learning. To put the German essay first is barbarism, for we have no classical German style developed by a tradition of public eloquence; but if one wants to use the German essay to further the practice of thinking, it is certainly better if one ignores the style entirely for the time being, thus distinguishing between exercise in thinking and in describing. The latter should be concerned with multiple versions of a given content, and not with independent invention of the content. Description only, with the content given, was the assignment of Latin style, for which the old teachers possessed a long-since-lost refinement of hearing. Anyone who in the past learned to write well in a modern language owed it to this exercise (now one is obliged to go to school under the older French teachers); and still further: he gained a concept of the majesty and difficulty of form, and was prepared for art in general in the only possible right way: through practice.