rudiments; hence also the exultation of the fond parent who proclaims his child a proficient in a language of which he parrots a few hackneyed phrases. Such mistaken notions would not be so prevalent, if people would test the difficulty of the acquirement in the way in which they can best judge, that is, by ascertaining how far any foreigner residing among them has succeeded in speaking their language. The failure which is generally experienced in mastering the pronunciation, accent, and idiom of a strange language, even after long residence in the country where it is spoken, fully corroborates our observations.

We are very much inclined to distrust the pretensions of those who profess to teach to speak and write several living languages. They may have gained, through diligent study of grammatical treatises, acquaintance with the general structure of different languages; but it is impossible that they could have mastered the pronunciation and accent, and the immense amount of words and idioms required for the expression of thought in all the concerns of life. This acquisition demands more extensive practice and intercourse with persons speaking those languages, than could, in ordinary circumstances, have fallen to their lot. Latin, Greek, and Hebrew may be taught by one individual, because their pronunciation presents little difficulty, and reading the works written in them is all that is required; but we do not believe that, among teachers of living languages, there are two in a hundred who know two languages, beside their own, sufficiently well to have it in their power to impart complete knowledge of them. Yet, such is the extreme inconsistency of people on this subject, that, in schools and colleges, the office of teaching Greek and Latin, or rather of teaching to translate some portions of a few Greek and Latin volumes, is commonly entrusted to different persons, while one professor is not unfrequently expected to teach to read, to hear, to speak, and to write two or three living languages, and all that often for a lower salary than is given to either a Latin or a Greek professor.

*

* A striking example of this depreciation of the modern languages and of those who teach them, has lately been given in Ireland: at the examination for degrees in the Queen's University, held in Dublin (September, 1852), the Greek and Latin Examiners received each 1007. for their services, whereas only 40%. were given to the examiner in Modern Languages-the professor who examined in History and English Literature fared no better.

VOL. II.

X

SECT. III.-TIME REQUIRED FOR LEARNING LATIN AND GREEK.

Let us now inquire what time is requisite for gaining critical knowledge of the ancient languages, exclusive of the arts of speaking and writing them. Although really less useful in after-life, and comprising fewer objects to be attained than the modern, yet, as it is probable that they will long retain the privilege of preparing our youth for the learned professions and the higher stations in society, more time may be devoted to them than a barely practical knowledge of them would require. If the aim of classical learning be merely to understand the ancient writers, this can be fully accomplished in one year, or two at the utmost; but, as that instruction is usually intended to serve as an instrument for raising the intellectual character of the student, forming his taste in literary matters, and improving him in his native tongue, its period may be extended to three years. And not only can he, within this period, be made to understand the classics thoroughly; but the profound thoughts and noble sentiments which abound in them may be rendered familiar to him, their beauties and excellences minutely pointed out and explained, and means afforded him of imitating them, and transfusing into his own language what they possess worthy of imitation.

This period of classical study has, before now, been deemed sufficient by many eminent men, beside those whose opinions we have already recorded. The decree of the French National Convention of the 19th December, 1793, enacted, "There will be six classes for the study of the Latin language. Scholars of ordinary talent and application will go through two classes in a year, so that, at the end of the third year, they may have accomplished their course of Latinity." We need scarcely observe, that these limits are exclusive of the use which may, thenceforward, be made of the practical knowledge thus gained of the ancient languages, as auxiliaries to literary, philosophical, or professional studies.

After the age of twelve, the time of young persons may be divided daily into three equal portions: one for sleep, another for meals and physical exercise, and the third for study. Eight hours a day of serious application are, during the third period of youth, sufficient for all the purposes of intellectual education,

although, in many schools, more time is devoted, not unfrequently, to the exclusive study of the dead languages. These eight hours may be equally divided between literary and scientific pursuits. Three years, at the rate of about three hours a day of earnest application by himself and six hours a week of lessons with a professor, would fully suffice to a diligent learner of thirteen, to accomplish the classical course, comprising Greek and Latin, without interfering with the other intellectual pursuits which ought to form part of a liberal education. These languages are attended with more profit when studied simultaneously with the sciences; because the meaning of words is then elicited by better acquaintance with the things of which they are the signs, and scientific nomenclatures are explained by reference to the classical sources from which they are derived.

We fix these limits for the classical course, that it may be terminated before commencing professional education; but these will not be sufficient, if both be conducted simultaneously. The various studies which would then claim the attention of the learner, would not allow him to take from them four hours daily : less time would have to be allotted to Latin and Greek,-the period of learning them becoming proportionably longer. If Latin alone be learned (and it is fully adequate for securing all the collateral benefits now proposed from ancient literature), the classical course might still be extended over five or six years,― devoting to it one hour every day in private study, and three hours a week with a teacher. In our subsequent observations, however, we will advert to a three years' course, leaving those who make the study embrace a longer period to modify our suggestions accordingly.

Although there is less inconvenience in learning together Greek and Latin, these being only read, than there would be in learning two living languages, yet, as the divided attention of the learner would not probably permit him, consistently with the time claimed by other studies, to follow all the directions given in the Book on Reading, the learning of Greek, if enforced, may perhaps be postponed until entering the second year, when the principal difficulties presented by the reading of Latin have disappeared. Two years' study of Greek would then suffice, as that language is not so difficult, nor its literature so extensive, as the Latin.

SECT IV. OF GREEK BEING LEARNED THROUGH LATIN.

Greek, at whatever time it is commenced, should be learned through the native tongue, rather than through the Latin. A foreign language can be studied through another foreign language only when the latter is sufficiently familiar to the learner to be made a direct vehicle of ideas, and the medium of communication between him and his instructor,-a degree of proficiency now seldom attained by modern Latin students,— then the resemblance between the two idioms, which, in the simultaneous study of them, would have been a cause of confusion, renders one an auxiliary to the other.

The practice of explaining the Greek classics through Latin, which formerly prevailed, when that language was a common vehicle of thought among the learned, and when the modern dialects were as yet too imperfect to interpret the Greek, is now very generally and deservedly growing into disuse. One of its most baneful effects is to debar learners from the means of improvement in their native tongue, to which translation is so conducive. Improvement in Latin has also been alleged as a motive for making it the medium of learning Greek; but it is not justified by utility; for this course only teaches the art of composition in the language which is used as a medium, and this is not required in Latin. This method, to which our ancestors were driven, has now nothing to recommend it, for there is not between the two languages that resemblance which would facilitate the learning of one by the other. Greek, although bearing some affinity to Latin, has, in its syntactical arrangement, more conformity with French and English. Besides, having become again a living language, it should, as such, be learned through the native idiom. If one of the two must be learned through the other, Greek ought to be made the medium for learning Latin, because it is easier, and, as a living tongue, it may be useful in after-life as a vehicle of intellectual communication.

The languages of modern Europe, which are adequate to the expression of thought in a high state of civilisation, offer to the learners, whose national idioms they are, greater facilities for translation than an ancient tongue which they but imperfectly know. The use of Latin as an interpreter of Greek is fallacious and circuitous; for, in general, the learner not only cannot render by it the force and beauty of his original, but, in most

cases, his incorrect and uncouth Latin does not even permit him to come clearly at the ideas: these are to him distorted and confused, because he sees them through a distorting medium : unable to arrive at the unknown through the unknown, he is often compelled to apply, as a last resource, to the native words, which alone are identified in his mind with the ideas, and which alone can convey them to him accurately and perspicuously. Thus he loses considerable time in overcoming unnecessary difficulties, in looking for interpretations of interpretations in his Greek and Latin lexicon. Latin is an obstacle against, rather than an assistance towards, understanding the Greek text; it impedes rapidity of conception, and renders the author's meaning unintelligible to the learner. The use of it is one of the greatest obstacles to the knowledge of Greek, and the source of the misery which often accompanies that study; it is perhaps, also, the chief cause why it is so much neglected. "I cannot," says Coleridge, “but lament the inveterate practice of learning Greek after and by means of Latin,-a practice so injurious to a vivid and exact apprehension of the former language, that nothing but the want of a competent Anglo-Greek lexicon and grammar can excuse the continuance of it in any school."

We would observe here, that annotations which are intended to explain either the Greek or the Latin classics, ought always to be given in the native tongue of the students, as presenting greater clearness and precision-the essential requisites in all explanations. They would thus be oftener consulted, and better understood, whilst the taste of learners would run no risk of being injured by the unclassical Latin in which they are frequently written.

SECT. V.-PROGRESSIVE ORDER OF CLASSICAL STUDIES.

We will now state the order in which learners may proceed in the study of Latin, and a similar course may be adopted for the Greek, when learned as a dead language.

Acquaintance with a large stock of words being the first requisite to understand Latin authors, the study of them forms the occupation of the first year. The chief exercise of this period, consequently, consists in oral and written translation of easy prose works-the initiatory books which we have denominated "reading vocabularies." The interpretations and

* Introduction to the Study of the Greek Classic Poets.