SECT. IV. OF READING IN SCHOOLS.

Success in acquiring the art of reading is commensurate with the learners' powers of self-tuition and the energy with which they exert them. But their improvement must be much retarded, if they prepare for their teacher, as the school phrase is, only as much as he has time to hear them translate; for, in ordinary cases, the time which he can devote to each pupil and to this part of the instruction is, especially in large classes, very limited. This practice is one of the chief causes why boys, in general, take so long to learn so little of Latin and Greek. Yet, it must be admitted that more time may be devoted to the oral translation of these languages with the instructor than could be given to the translation of living languages; because the pupils have not, as in studying the latter, to attend in class to the various exercises indispensable for acquiring the spoken language. We will, in the next Book, explain the manner in which a class may be examined in translation without loss of time to any of its members, and so as to secure the attention of all, although they may read different parts of the same author, or even different authors, according to the diversity of their progress.

Young persons, if properly encouraged to voluntary reading, will cheerfully indulge in the exercise; for, of all the tasks which it is requisite to perform in learning a second language, reading is undoubtedly the easiest and least irksome. Whatever be the age of the learner, if the book is interesting and instructive, and adapted to his capacity and taste, he is fully repaid for his trouble; and coercion becomes unnecessary. Application and perseverance will carry him to the highest degree of skill in this branch. These moral faculties, properly directed, always triumph in the end. Newton and Buffon were wont to say they were indebted to them alone for all they had accomplished. The slow mode of proceeding usually pursued cannot, however, be avoided, when learners are too young, or too indolent to be left to themselves-evils which unfortunately are very prevalent, owing to the ignorance or culpable carelessness of parents, who either anticipate the progress of nature, by imposing on their children intellectual labour above their strength, or neglect to train them early to the moral habits and mental activity on which their success at school depends. In any case, great credit is due to the professor who stimulates his pupils to continued efforts.

VOL. II.

L

His principal aim should be to exercise the faculties of the young, to encourage their efforts, and point out the right road, rather than to impart actual information, which can be obtained at any time from books and experience. The great secret in education consists in exciting and directing the will: that system is the best, which elicits the greatest quantity of voluntary exertion from learners.

Let interest be once awakened in the pursuit, and there will be no need of imposing tasks on learners: application and industry will follow. Emulation also will be excited in a class; for there will always be some of its members who, anxious to improve, will devote time and attention to reading; others will be stimulated to exertion by witnessing what their fellowlearners have accomplished.

But, although an extensive range of reading in a foreign language ought to be encouraged, yet a hasty and unscholarlike mode of effecting it should, especially in the ancient languages, be most strenuously discountenanced, as prejudicial to mental discipline, which is the chief object of classical studies. To guard, therefore, against the evil consequences of a reading competition, in which young people, desirous to outdo their fellow-learners in quantity, might read carelessly and superficially, they should be occasionally requested to give, in their own language, sometimes orally, sometimes in writing, the substance of what they have read in the foreign author. This exercise of memory would accomplish several objects: it would prove that they have really read and understood what they state, would make them more careful in reading, from the consideration that they would have to report on it, would engrave on their minds the subject of their books, and would, finally, afford them effectual means of improvement in the native idiom, if their instructor were thoroughly conversant with its genius and elegancies. This mode of examination is suitable to every stage of the classical course, and is sufficient, consistently with the ends proposed from it; but it would not satisfy the exigencies of a living language, which it is desirable to speak; the learners ought then, as soon as they can make this language the vehicle of their thoughts, to use it in summing up the subject of their reading.

The importance of the matter, as well as the quantity which the students read in their private studies, increasing with their progress, their intellectual powers would be proportionably

exercised by vernacular summaries given of their reading. But of higher importance to them would be the facility and correctness of elocution in their own language, which they would thus acquire. This exercise would bring them one step nearer to extempore speaking than the practice of giving the substance of a passage read in the native tongue; because, in the latter case, they are assisted by the recollection of both expressions and ideas; but, in the former, they are given only the ideas, and must themselves provide expressions. We will explain, in the Book on Speaking, in what manner similar exercises may be performed in the foreign language.

The benefits of the course which we have now explained can be best felt by students able to read in the absence of an assistant; for their progress depends on their own industry, not on lessons from a teacher, who can be but of little service to them in mere translation or mental reading. To those who have only made their pupils proficients in the first branch, no other credit is due than that of having excited them to exertion; this, however, it must be admitted, is no inconsiderable merit in a teacher.

In this department of instruction, as in every other, it must never be forgotten that learners ought not to do with the instructor what they can do by themselves, that they may have time to do with him what they cannot do without him. When they read books suited to their understanding and proficiency, and containing proper explanations, they require little assistance; the teacher may then, in class, according to their age and the nature of the text-book, direct his attention chiefly to the subjects of instruction more particularly devolving on him, and which are detailed above. (See Sect. II. of this Chap.) But, that the less advanced learners in a class may not engross the time of the professor to the prejudice of the more advanced, and may, by due preparation, derive profit from his instruction, they should, in the interval of the lessons, be assisted by their more talented class-fellows. In large schools, those among the latter who are of an age to be trusted with delegated authority should be appointed as monitors, having, each, under his superintendence, one or more boys, according to the size of the class, and whose duty it would be to see that those who are committed to their care understand the construction and meaning of the foreign author, especially the portion to be analysed and commented upon in the assembled class. The more a learner

reads by himself, the better will he be able to aid those of his schoolfellows who are in need of assistance. If difficult passages occur which a monitor cannot explain, they should be submitted to the professor: thus, with the exception of these passages, there would be no necessity for his devoting time to the translation. The right of appeal to him would be sufficient security against misdemeanour on the part of the pupils, or partialities and errors on the part of the monitors. By the adoption of this plan, not only are slow learners duly assisted, but they become instrumental in the advancement of the quick learners, who improve themselves by teaching; while neither is, in class, neglected for the other by the teacher. We leave to our readers to contrast the moral consequences of the kindness and gratitude thus created between schoolfellows with the baneful effects of the fagging system introduced in some of the great schools of England.

In concluding the subject of reading, we cannot refrain from remarking that anxiety for improvement, or partiality to the foreign language, should not be carried so far as to induce learners to use, in their devotional exercises, prayer-books and bibles written in that language, so long as they do not read it mentally with as much facility as their own. This practice, not unfrequently adopted, is objectionable, because the consideration demanded by the words of a language but imperfectly known necessarily draws from higher contemplations the mind of the reader, who is thus led to pray with the lip rather than from the heart. Communion with the Supreme Being and the performance of religious duties should never be made subservient to worldly purposes.

149

BOOK IX.

SECOND BRANCH-HEARING.

"How many people injure themselves because they wish to speak before having learned to listen profitably. They think that study and practice are required for speaking, but not for hearing."-PLUTARCH. *

"Let Prosody be a living practice with which the study of language begins-not a dead theory with which it ends." -J. S. BLACKIE.t

CHAPTER I.

COMPREHENSION OF THE SPOKEN LANGUAGE.

SECT. I.-PREVAILING ERRORS RESPECTING THE POWER OF

COMPREHENDING ORAL EXPRESSION.

THE exercises for acquiring the spoken language, which will be elucidated in this and the following Book, are chiefly applicable to living idioms, and particularly to the French, which, at the present time, is the great medium of intercourse between European nations.

We have already remarked that the four arts which constitute the essential subdivisions of the study of a language, are completely distinct one from the other, and that each requires special exercises for its attainment; yet the generality of persons who either teach or learn foreign languages, are under the impression that the power of speaking them implies that of understanding them when spoken, as occurs with the vernacular tongue. This prevalent error, by leaving out of the circle of studies the art of comprehending oral expression, is the primary cause of the general deficiency of learners in this department, *On the Art of Listening.

† On the Studying and Teaching of Languages.