Laudator Temporis Acti

D.S. Colman, "Confessio Grammatici," Greece & Rome 7.1 (March, 1960) 72-81 (at 80):

We schoolmasters are supposed to be pedants. We always have been γωνιοβόμβυκες μονοσύλλαβοι, οἷσι μέμηλε | τὸ σφίν καὶ τὸ σφῶιν καὶ τὸ μίν ἠδὲ τὸ νίν, 'People who bumble away in obscure corners, muttering in monosyllables and fussing about σφίν and σφῶιν, and μίν and νίν'. Of course we are, and of course we have to be. Why is it considered pedantic to insist upon accuracy in a literary or linguistic subject, but laudable to demand precision in the laboratory or in the mathematical discipline? Our scientific colleagues surely insist that their pupils weigh and analyse with perfect exactitude. Our mathematical friends do not regard the placing of a decimal point as a detail unworthy of scrupulous attention. But if we insist upon distinguishing between an aorist and an imperfect, or between a spondee and an anapaest, we are frowned upon as men who exalt the letter at the expense of the spirit. If we speak of Greek accents, hands are flung up in sheer horror. But I am entirely unrepentant. I simply do not believe that anyone's interest in the classics was ever killed because he was made to address himself to them with a close regard for accuracy. It was killed by bad teaching, by dull people, and that is a very different matter.

Related post: Corner-Hummers.