grammar school Latin in The Player's Boy

[smellingbottle.livejournal.com]

Would some kind Latinist please provide a better translation than mine of the Latin phrases Nicholas and Adam exchange when Philip Catchpole passes at the start of The Player's Boy, and again when they meet at the end of The Players and the Rebels?

... Adam stated loudly and improbably, 'Mores puerorum se inter ludendorum detegunt,' to which Nicholas replied loudly and automatically, 'Pervenire ad summa sine industria non potest'... (The Player's Boy)

Comments

[robvic.livejournal.com]

Something about

the morals of the boys are revealed by their games amongst themselves

and

It is not possible to reach the top without industry

I think...

[helixaspersa.livejournal.com]

Yes - 'Boy's manners/morals reveal themselves in their games' - the reflexive 'se' is refering to the 'mores' not the boys because 'se' must refer to the subject of the sentence. Inter + gerund like that is common later Latin usage.
The second one is 'It is impossible to attain at the highest level [literally: to reach as far as the top things] without hard work.' They may well come from Erasmus' 'Adagia' - much studied in the Elizabethan school room.

That's more than you wanted to know isn't it?

[robvic.livejournal.com]

that is impressive!! My Latin A-Level was far too long ago...

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

And we didn't have the dubious advantage of having to speak Latin all day at school. As late as the 18th century in some schools there would be a boy (known as the "lupus") to spy on his schoolmates and report them if - outside lessons - they spoke to each other in English. The boys in question would then be beaten.

[smellingbottle.livejournal.com]

I now keep hearing the second phrase as Nicholas doing a sort of Gordon Gekko in Wall Street voice, which is certainly not the kind of thing Erasmus was thinking about...

[smellingbottle.livejournal.com]

Thank you!