CHAPTER II.

MNEMONIC EXERCISES.

SECT. I.-OF DIALOGUES.

Or all mnemonic exercises, dialogues are perhaps the least useful: they not only fail to cultivate the judgment, but are even inadequate to the wants of conversation However extensive each dialogue, and however numerous those which the learner has committed to memory, they can convey but a very limited circle of ideas, beyond which he loses all power of expression; because, unexercised in forming phrases analogous to those which they contain, he cannot, when conversing, modify the words, change their order, or substitute one term for another, so as to make them supply the incidental wants of social intercourse. We learn to speak, not by repeating, but by forming phrases.

The case of a person learning dialogues is somewhat similar to that which, in a well-known story, is told of a man in the service of Frederick the Great. Whenever this monarch perceived a new soldier in his guards, he never failed to ask him these three questions, How old are you? How long have you been in my service? Do you regularly receive your pay and rations ? A Frenchman, about twenty-two years old, who did not know a word of German, had just been admitted into that corps; and, aware of the three questions which would be put to him by the King, had learned by rote three appropriate answers in the usual order of the questions. Shortly after, Frederick, reviewing his guards, remarked this soldier and did not fail to address him ; but unfortunately he on this occasion changed the order of his questions, and began by the second: "How long have you been in my service?" "Please your Majesty, twenty-two years." The King surprised at an answer which accorded so little with the youthful appearance of the soldier, asked, "How old are you then?"—"Three months, sire,"—"I fear," added Frederick, with

astonishment, "one of us has lost his senses." .”—“Both exactly," unhesitatingly replied the young man, who took these last words of the King for the third question.

The mnemonic process of dialogues is not less pernicious to the understanding of a learner, than to his improvement in the language: he is made the tame repeater of another's ideas, instead of being called upon to express his own. His power of conversing is regulated by the whim and peculiar notions of the compiler; it is dependent on the recollection of dialogues, the greater number of which are deficient in the words and subjects which actually occur in society.

It is obvious that the arts of speaking and writing depend not so much on the recollection of a large number of ready-made sentences, as on a command of useful words and the power of arranging them spontaneously into expressions suited to the ever-changing circumstances of social intercourse. These arts depend more on judgment than on memory. Analogy, the power through the instrumentality of which they are acquired, is, therefore, in the expression of thought, more effective than mere recollection of phraseology: its acquisitions are without bounds; those of memory are extremely limited in their application.

No two games of chess or of whist, perhaps, were ever played throughout perfectly alike. It would be absurd to suppose that conversation, composed of infinitely more elements than either, should, in the different situations of social life, present exactly the same words and the same combinations. In apparently similar situations, there are numberless circumstances which militate against the recurrence of the same facts or ideas. How can it be supposed that a dialogue, for example, between a lady and a milliner-written most likely by a person little conversant with female attire-could serve as a model of conversation between all ladies and all milliners, despite the changes of fashion, and whatever be the season of the year, the dispositions, ages, wants, habits, taste, wealth of the parties, and innumerable other circumstances? Very little, indeed, of the trash which fills the generality of phrase-books could find its place in practical life. The hundreds of dialogues which young martyrs are forced to learn by rote never enable them to speak on any subject. They teach them to repeat, not to converse. However, those who are so tormented are generally spared the trouble of trying if the dialogues they learn can be adapted to any parti

cular case; for they completely forget them long before they have occasion to turn them to account.

The foreign dramas which tyros are sometimes made to commit to memory and perform at yearly examinations in public schools, may be viewed in the same light as dialogues. They possess the same defects and some evil tendencies besides ;they foster in young people an inordinate taste for theatricals, excite love of display, and, worse than all, make them parties to an imposition on their parents. These mnemonic exhibitions may, by a show of elocution, draw public favour to the establishments; but they are, by no means, profitable to the young performers. Could, we ask of every reflecting person, could the ability to repeat a scene, nay, the whole of Shakspeare's plays, impart to a foreigner the power of conversing in English on the most ordinary topics of every-day life? The art of reciting or of quoting and the art of speaking are completely distinct.

If dialogues or dramatic compositions could teach to speak with ease or correctness, actors, who spend their lives in learning and reciting the best of them, should have greatly the advantage over other people in conversation and in public speaking; but we are not aware that they enjoy any superiority in these respects. If they excel other men, it can only be in the power of committing to memory and the art of reciting passages of authors. We allude here to the generality of actors; for it must be admitted that there are in the profession a few highly gifted individuals who, having received a liberal education, and being, as gentlemen and scholars, admitted to the first circles, have the same means as other educated persons of acquiring the capability of expressing themselves with correctness and elegance.

SECT. II.-THE ADOPTION OF DIALOGUES ACCOUNTED FOR.

That the truth of the foregoing remarks has been overlooked in the teaching of living languages, that the senseless dialoguelearning has prevailed, and will probably long prevail, cannot be wondered at, when we reflect that the great majority of English persons who teach a foreign language, not knowing it perfectly, must find it safer and more convenient to have recourse to ready-made phrases, than to venture on an extempore exercise which may bring them into difficulties. As to foreigners who, in their teaching novitiate, are unacquainted

with the language of their pupils, they cannot follow the process of phraseology, which demands great command of that language. Dialogues, on the contrary, presenting corresponding phrases in the two idioms, and thus supplying their deficiency, must be to them a ready means of commencing the work of tuition; they resort to them the more willingly as the juxta-position of these phrases acquaints them with those which they ignore, while their pupils are attempting to learn the others. Persevering for some time in this practice, confirms them in a routine of teaching which, by force of habit, renders the adoption of another course every day more difficult. Few people are either able, or willing, to abandon a beaten track, in order to explore unknown grounds and try experiments in education. If, however, the teaching of foreign languages were attended, as it ought to be, with respect and profit, things would be otherwise; many would prepare for it at home before undertaking it abroad.

In condemnation of the injudicious practice of dialoguelearning, we will again advert to the fallacies on which it rests, by recording the words of an eminent grammarian. Chambaud has thus accounted for the introduction of French vocabularies and dialogues into schools: "The generality of people,” he says, "being incapable of reflecting duly on the nature of a language and the faculties of the human mind, have hardly put their children to the study of the French language, but they expect them to speak it; and, in case they do not, they never fail to tax the master either with incapacity or neglect of his business.

"The masters, on the other hand, being at a loss how to satisfy these unreasonable expectations, and not knowing what to contrive for forwarding their boys, presently begin by making them learn words, dialogues, and phrases; and labour hard to beat into their heads as many common sentences as they can, pretty nearly after the same manner as parrots are taught; and the absurdity is even carried so far in some schools, as to confine the poor boys, under all sorts of penalties and punishments, to the talking nothing else but French; the consequence of which is, they acquire the knack of talking a gibberish which nobody can make anything of. The ignorant parents, charmed, however, with the show their children make of their learning, think them great proficients in the French tongue."

* French Grammar, Preface.

These remarks of Chambaud, although of old date, are applicable at the present day. But we go farther and maintain that French cannot be the language of any establishment in which the instructors and the majority of boarders are not French, or do not use the idiom as their own. It is quite preposterous to suppose that young persons unacquainted with a language will at all converse in it, when not under the eyes of their instructors. Parents would do well to pause ere they give implicit credit to public advertisements announcing that "French is the language of the school." Boys and girls in the school-room must be silent, if they have lessons to prepare or instruction to receive from their teachers; and, when at their sports, can it be supposed that they will prefer a language very imperfectly known to one which is familiar to them?

Whether in schools or in families, young learners should not be urged to speak a foreign language among themselves, when, as yet, they know it but very imperfectly; it would only reduce them to silence and impede the development of their minds. It would tend to inspire them with dislike for the study of that language and, what is worse, would inflict on them the necessity of practising fraud; because, in the absence of those who impose the task, they would most probably resort to their own language. Were they even to submit to so injudicious a practice, the barbarous jargon talked among themselves would give them bad habits of phraseology and pronunciation, of which they would afterwards find it difficult to divest themselves.

SECT. III.-OF MNEMONIC LESSONS.

The practice sometimes adopted of making children commit to memory portions of standard works as a preparation for speaking a foreign language, is more inconsistent with the end proposed, and more absurd, perhaps, than the learning of dialogues. It is, in fact, a mental operation altogether different from the act of expressing one's own thoughts: speaking consists in associating words with the ideas as they arise in the mind, whereas learning by rote consists merely in associating words with each other on the principle of local contiguity: incessant change of words and phraseology characterises the one; immutability of form and order is the essence of the other. In speaking, the attention is intent chiefly on ideas; in repeating, it is intent only on words;