James Fenimore Cooper's [justly?] neglected novel, Satanstoe, contains a picture of Colonial-era life in the area of New York...quite interesting, actually. In the early chapters it gives an account of the celebration of the Pinkster festival, which Cooper refers to as a kind of "black Saturnalia." (Meanwhile, two of the slaves of the main character's family are called "Caesar" and "Pompey"...)
In non-African-American-related matters, there is also an amusing comparison of (Classical) learning in New England (Yale: bad) versus in New Jersey (Nassau Hall, the antecedent of Princeton: good). Jason Newcome, the Puritan and graduate of Yale, "had not the smallest notion of quantity; and he pronounced Latin very much as one would read Mohawk, from a vocabulary made out by a hunter, or a savant of the French academy..." The main character, Cornelius Littlepage, considers that his own "knowledge of the classics went beyond that of Jason..." That being so, it is also interesting to note Corny's account of his training and curriculum. Before college, he studied "until [he] could translate the two first Aeneids, and the whole of the Gospel of St. Matthew, pretty readily." At college:
I read all of the New Testament, in Greek; several of Cicero's Orations; every line of Horace, Satires and Odes; four books of the Iliad; Tully de Oratore, throughout; besides paying proper attention to geography, mathematics, and other of the usual branches. Moral philosophy, in particular, was closely attended to, senior year, as well as astronomy. We had a telescope that showed us all four of Jupiter's moons. In other respects, Nassau might be called the seat of learning. One of our class purchased a second-hand copy of Euripides, in town, and we had it in college all of six months; though it was never my good fortune to see it, as the young man who owned it was not much disposed to let profane eyes view his treasure. Nevertheless, I am certain the copy of the work was in college; and we took good care to let the Yale men hear of it more than once. I do not believe they ever saw even the outside of a Euripides...
Finally, and unsurprisingly, the sense that English schools were far ahead in the teaching of the Classics appears: "Mr. Worden laughed at both; said that neither [Yale nor Nassau] had as much learning as a second-rate English grammar-school; and that a lower-form boy, at Eton or Westminster, could take a master's degree at either, and pass for a prodigy in the bargain..."
Comments