explanations attached to the foreign text of these initiatory books, combined with the assistance of a professor or a monitor, and with careful study of the declensions and conjugations, as also of the words of the Second Class, will enable a learner to familiarise himself within that year with the words and phraseology of about eight or ten small volumes. The extent of reading must, for the first year, be more limited in the ancient languages than in the modern, because their transpositive construction makes this branch more difficult to be acquired; the works also to be read, being generally of a higher standard or more serious cast, demand more care and time for translation, than the juvenile modern works which may be put in the hands of beginners.

We have, in Book VIII., Chap. I., Sect. II., mentioned some of the elementary works which appear best calculated for introducing beginners to the translation of Latin, and familiarising them with its words. To these may be added the easiest classics, such as Eutropius, Phædrus, Aurelius Victor, Justin, Cornelius Nepos :-forming, in all, ten or twelve introductory volumes, which may be had with literal and free translations accompanying the text. They may be read in the following progression, one within the first three months, two within the second, three during the third, and four during the last quarter of the year, or the first six volumes a second or third time over. These historical volumes and the classics which will be subsequently read, will become more interesting, be more clearly understood, and their subject better remembered, if, in accordance with our suggestion, learners pursue simultaneously with them a similar course of study in their national writers.

The extensive reading which we presume may be accomplished within the first year, although contrasting strangely with the extreme slowness of the ordinary method, will not be found exaggerated, when it is considered that the student does not, as in the common routine, waste time in frequent applications to the dictionary, in learning grammar and passages of authors, or in writing exercises. His progress in translation is also forwarded by the teacher being thus enabled to devote more time to the explanation of the verbal and phraseological difficulties of the Latin authors. Besides, the books being better adapted to his capacity, by reason of the age at which he begins, and of the explanations attached to them, he can read them with more interest, diligence, and profit. We have known many persons, especially young girls from thirteen to sixteen years of age, who,

in their study of French, have, through diligence and by an insensible gradation of difficulties from juvenile prose to standard poetical works, accomplished in one year the reading of above twenty volumes in that language. Will it then be affirmed that boys of the same age cannot read ten small volumes of easy Latin within the same period?

In the second year, books with interlineal or marginal interpretations must be dispensed with. The extensive vocabulary of words with which the first year's reading has familiarised the learner gives him great facility in discovering from the context the meaning of new words; however, to remove doubts, he may now use a dictionary, or, to save time, apply to a correct translation of the original, if he have not the advantage of a living assistant. His version from the classics ought to be less literal than in the preceding year; for he proposes, at this second stage, not so much to ascertain the value of words as to enter into the spirit of the author's ideas and style. This double object can be best effected by free and correct translation,— translation of ideas rather than of words, which will at the same time exhibit the difference of genius between the two languages.

The eight or ten volumes translated in the first year, will enable the learner to read, within the second, the principal historians, consisting of twelve or fifteen volumes duodecimo, including some of those which he has already read. Concurrently with this practical course, he must direct attention to the study of grammar. Its rules will be constantly illustrated by verbal and syntactical analysis of the classical text and reciprocal reference of the grammar to it. Double translation, which should also make part of this second year's instruction, will afford further opportunity to elicit and apply the principles of the two languages. The professor, in explaining the authors, will direct the attention of his pupils to the elements of good style in both the Latin and the native tongue.

The third year is to be devoted to the mental reading of the orators, philosophers, and poets. No standard classic should, if possible, be neglected; for the ever-varying transposition of Latin words, generating great diversity of style among its writers, makes it imperative to extend the circle of reading, in order to surmount all the difficulties presented in its literature. But, as the number of Latin classics is very limited, some of them may be read several times over, especially those which are most congenial to the tastes or suited to the future avocations of students.

In this year also, the works which hold the highest rank among the classics, should be analysed by the professor, and commented upon in reference to style and thought, whilst his pupils, the better to perceive their beauties and appreciate their merits, concurrently study grammar, prosody, synonymy, rhetoric, logic, and the different branches of literary criticism. Students, especially those who are destined to run the career of classical tuition, or whose taste inclines them to philological pursuits, must turn serious attention to the science of language, and be frequently exercised in grammatical, rhetorical, and logical analysis.

Double translation should be continued, and turning back into Latin a standard translation of one of the classics should then be commenced by those who are ambitious of emulating the writers of antiquity. But, the attention of the student should be particularly directed to translating and imitating them. In the first and second year, he aimed at gaining a knowledge of the language; in the third, he should render that knowledge subservient to the highest intellectual acquisitions: he should endeavour to transfuse into the native tongue and appropriate all the beauties of the ancient writers; thereby quickening and purifying his taste till the acquisition of a copious stock of select language ensures him the finished style of a scholar. Latin is perhaps a fitter instrument for practising vernacular composition through the exercise of translation, than most modern languages, by reason of its transpositive collocation, which considerably adds to the difficulty of that exercise, and assimilates translation more to original composition.

Thus a youth, at the age of sixteen, after a three years' course, and without having neglected other studies, will have gained an extensive and critical knowledge of Latin or Greek, and have laid in a large stock of invaluable materials gathered from the choicest fields of literature. Just habits will be formed, and the great aims of a student's life appreciated. No painful or puerile recollection being associated with the best productions of antiquity rendered familiar by practice, he will feel no disinclination at any time to resort to them, in order to keep up his classical knowledge, or to make them subservient to further improvement in the native tongue. But another great advantage resulting from this economy of time, is that, not encroaching on other branches of instruction, Latin may be studied by any young person anxious to embrace an extensive range of information,

and as yet undecided respecting his future vocation. The consequent saving of expense also brings classical learning within the reach of a greater number of persons than the old system, which renders it accessible only to the wealthy.

The practical knowledge of Latin, thus completed at sixteen, far from being thenceforward neglected or forgotten, may be used as an auxiliary in professional education, which ought to commence at this age. Literary and scientific pursuits may derive from it considerable benefit, while the classical masterpieces, by proper analysis, translation, and imitation, will ensure thorough knowledge of grammar, rhetoric, and oratory, and thus serve as the most efficient means of advancement in all literary pursuits; other valuable Latin works in various departments of literature and science, now only known by name, and a great number of which have never been translated, may be read with profit by those who aspire to eminence in the learned professions. Linguistical should always be combined with professional studies, whenever practicable.

We have not included, in this summary of a classical course, original prose or poetical composition, although they are not forgotten in the Book on Writing; because, in our opinion, these acquirements are not useful either immediately as a mental exercise, or remotely as likely to be of advantage in after-life, except, perhaps, to the Catholic clergy, and to those who make it their profession to teach the ancient languages. Classical teachers, who cannot, indeed, be too deeply versed in Latin and Greek, ought to prepare for their office by a systematical course of composition in those languages; but it is preposterous to require of boys destined for any other profession, including even those denominated the learned, in which the power of composing in a dead language cannot be of any use whatever, to devote to its acquisition considerable time and labour, and all this, as R. L. Edgeworth remarks, to acquire empty honours at college, and to comply with long-established routine and prejudice.

*

SECT. VI.-DEGREE OF USEFULNESS OF A TEACHER.

If a good method is necessary to advance with certainty and rapidity in the acquisition of a foreign language, the assistance afforded by a judicious, well-informed instructor, is not less

* Essays on Professional Education.

necessary for its complete attainment. When thoroughly versed in the language of his young pupils, as may be expected in a classical teacher, he can efficiently assist them in translation; and although, in this respect, his services may not be equally required by adults, they will prove useful in enabling them to investigate doubtful points, advance more rapidly, and discern beauties and defects of style, which would have escaped them in solitary study. With a literary critic and refined scholar for a teacher, accuracy is acquired, taste formed, and depth of information ensured.

The improvement of learners in the second branch entirely depends on the teacher: it requires good management, correct pronunciation, and ability to read well, to perfect learners in hearing and pronouncing the foreign language. Acquisition of the third branch is equally dependent on him; he must have great command of the two languages to conduct the exercises in phrase-making. He should be well informed, to induce his pupils to speak, by conversing with them on their favourite subjects, or their various pursuits: he should, indeed, be a man of universal information. To be able, for example, efficiently to assist advanced students in acquiring facility of expression in history, politics, natural philosophy, the fine arts, he should be skilled in these different departments of knowledge. Finally, to forward young persons in the fourth branch, he should be a thorough grammarian and a good writer in the foreign language, as well as in the native idiom of his pupils, so far as this double acquisition is possible; for, on inspecting their translation into either tongue, or any other composition, he should not allow the most trifling error to pass uncorrected, lest they be confirmed in bad habits; and he should support by a grammatical rule every correction which he indicates.

The importance of the teacher's services varies with the language and the learner's degree of proficiency. The study of modern languages embracing among its objects the art of conversation, which is not aimed at in the ancient, requires that pupils be more frequently with their instructor; for it is through his exertions they can acquire the power of understanding the spoken foreign language, of pronouncing and speaking it. An adult may, with proper explanatory books, dispense altogether with a teacher, when the art of reading is alone aimed at, as is especially the case with Latin: the celebrated scholars, Scaliger, Cujacius, Muretus, and Ramus, were, among many others, self