taught. But no one can, by any method, or with any written explanation whatever, learn by himself to understand a foreign language when spoken, or to speak it correctly.

If the study of Latin and Greek be restricted to the really useful, three hours a week devoted by a professor to a class of twelve, will suffice, through the course, for enabling them to master either language, provided these students be desirous of improvement, and capable of self-direction. But with children too young to be either inclined or able to study by themselves, there is no assignable limit to the time he should devote to them.

However, the advantages to be derived from a teacher's services are commensurate not so much with the length and frequency of his lessons as with the usefulness of the occupations in which he is engaged with his pupils. He should scrupulously refrain from those exercises which have been shown either not to require his aid or not to conduce to the ends proposed. In modern languages the frequency of his attendance ought to increase proportionably with the advancement of learners; for the preparatory work of gaining familiarity with words and collecting materials of expression, depends chiefly on their own diligence, and scarcely needs his assistance; whereas the subsequent application of these to conversation and composition can be effected only under his guidance. When they are beginning to converse and write with some fluency, they cannot be too frequently in his society, if they wish to attain skill in these two arts.

Whatever be the language or the branch in which the instructor is engaged with his pupils, he should always keep in mind that the efficacy of teaching does not depend so much on the extent of the knowledge which he possesses as upon his power of communicating it, of commanding attention, of imparting interest to study, and of bringing all the moral and mental faculties to bear on the pursuit. His efforts, above all, should tend to make self-teachers of his pupils: and the more he has made them independent of him, the more successfully and the more nobly will he have accomplished his task. Patience, cheerfulness, and affectionate words will effect these objects more certainly than magisterial gravity or unbending severity.

Long after the period of education such an instructor would continue to be the friend and best adviser of his pupils. If the unjust and unreasonable depreciation in which people hold the

intellectual benefactors of their children did not early inspire youth with disrespect and ingratitude for those to whom they owe what is to them far more valuable than life itself—a good education, we should, oftener than we do, see the pupils consider as the friends of their manhood those who have been the instructors of their youth; and the intimacy arising between the man of letters or of science and the man of the world or of business, would be an abundant source of advantage to both and to society at large.

SECT. VII.-ON KEEPING UP THE KNOWLEDGE OF A FOREIGN

LANGUAGE.

Social intercourse with a professor would enable a learner to keep up, and even extend beyond the limits of the educational period, the practical knowledge of the living language once acquired. It is therefore desirable that the professor be always a welcome and respected visitor in the families of his pupils: if he is not worthy of civility and attention, he has no right to be employed as a teacher. The proficient in a living language should avail himself of every opportunity to practise it; he should endeavour to preserve it through life by mental and oral reading, as well as by conversation, whenever circumstances permit. The mental discipline, cultivation of taste, and improvement in the native tongue, which are earned by proper study of the ancient languages, may be considered as an equivalent for the time, trouble, and expense devoted to that study: even though, at the termination of the collegiate course, Greek and Latin be laid aside and forgotten, the intellectual benefits arising from the comparative method will be enjoyed through life. Living languages not conferring usually these benefits, owing to the foreign teachers' imperfect knowledge of the language of their pupils, should be learned for their utility as sources of information and channels of communication, while the mental discipline which they may equally promote should not be neglected, whenever the acquirements of the teacher and the age of the pupil render it practicable.

When, especially, the art of reading is once attained, that is, when the learner can read the foreign language mentally and with nearly the same ease and pleasure as his own, its practice should be persevered in: first, to derive from it the instruction or mental enjoyment expected from its possession; secondly, to add more

and more to his stock of the materials required for speaking and writing; lastly, to prevent forgetting the language. We would forget even our own, if we did not often repeat, or hear repeated, its words and phraseology. The power of retaining an art once possessed depends not on the degree of skill attained in it, but on the habits formed by long continuance in the practice. In the possession of a language especially, he who does not advance retrogrades: each day brings losses which demand to be compensated by new acquisitions; we begin to forget from the moment we cease to learn.

It is then no cause for wonder that Latin and Greek are so soon forgotten. During the whole scholastic period only portions of classics are read, the aggregate amount of which would scarcely make a dozen volumes. Moreover, after leaving school, people seldom keep up the practice of those languages, partly, because they associate with them only disagreeable recollections, partly, also, because they do not read them with sufficient ease to take pleasure in the practice; but, particularly, because, beyond the scholastic classics, ancient works are rare, from which to derive amusement or instruction. Besides, the opportunity is never afforded of practising them in conversation, as frequently is the case with the living languages.

People should turn to account in manhood what they have learned in childhood: it is the business of parents and instructors to direct the attention of young persons only to what is useful. It is irrational to neglect a language which has been once acquired, and more irrational still for an adult to learn one, or for a parent to impose it on his child, merely because it may be a fashionable acquirement. Fashion should never enter, as a motive of study, in the education of youth; and yet many of those who learn languages have no other.

German, for which there has been of late so great a demand in this country, owes much of its popularity to this spurious source, rather than to its intrinsic value, or the richness of its literature. We can easily conceive that matrimonial alliances in the Royal Family with German princes may render the German language both useful and agreeable to persons in high life, who approach those princes, who travel abroad, or who have the means of purchasing and leisure for reading German works; but we do not understand why people should learn it, as often occurs, through mere fashion, and without the expectation of useful results. They, indeed, deserve to be ridiculed, if not severely

censured, who waste time in learning a foreign language without any intention of visiting the country where it is spoken, or the probability of meeting people with whom to converse; without having either the means or the desire of procuring works in that language beyond the school books indispensable for its acquisition. It is obvious that the little which is thus acquired cannot be long retained. What would be said of the folly of acquiring skill on a musical instrument with the intention of never performing? It is equally absurd to imagine that young people can derive mental improvement or practical benefit of any kind from mere rudiments of Latin or any other language, and, under that impression, to confine them to the first elements of classical instruction, as is often the case with boys not destined for a learned profession. The first steps in the arts are more mechanical than intellectual: in the study of a foreign language, learning declensions and conjugations, searching for words in a dictionary, parsing, construing, translating literally, and writing elementary exercises, are all more irksome than profitable to the mind. Yet, almost exclusively to these minor occupations, the attention of learners is long confined before they can enter into communion with the standard writers, and many leave school without deriving any benefit whatever from their classical studies.

Advantages of a really intellectual character arising from the study of a foreign language, cannot be obtained until many volumes have been read and great proficiency has been gained. That the higher powers of the mind may be efficiently exercised and talent for composition in the native tongue improved, students should, by great familiarity with the foreign phraseology, be trained to embrace the thought simultaneously with its expression, to infer the laws of language by induction and generalisation, to compare the genius of the foreign and the native language, and, finally, to enter into the spirit of a foreign author and appreciate the beauties of his style. It is only at a very advanced stage that the elegance, force, and harmony of ancient writers can be properly felt, that the intellectual faculties can, from analysis of their style and contemplation of their thoughts, be invigorated, and that the reading of their works can be made a means of relaxation and a source of delight through life.

CHAPTER II.

RECAPITULATION.

SECT. I.-SUMMARY OF THE FIRST PART.

HAVING pointed out the different objects of the study of language, the various exercises which lead to the attainment of each, and the advantages arising from them, we will now briefly recapitulate the characteristic features of the method we recommend.

After having divided Education into its natural branchesphysical, moral, and intellectual,—we entered minutely into the development of intellectual education, because it is more immediately the design of this Essay. The distinction between Education and Instruction has been sufficiently established by our classification to prevent these words from being confounded one with the other.

Although in our psychological classification we deviated in some points from the beaten path, we, nevertheless, recognised the same fundamental principles and arrived at the same conclusion as the most eminent among modern philosophers, in reference to education, namely, that, as man is endowed with a diversity of innate powers, given him for a wise purpose, and differing in energy in each individual, it is the duty of the educator to study the human constitution and to cultivate all these powers in the child entrusted to his care.

The usefulness of linguistical studies relatively to the other branches of instruction, has, by an exposition of the various departments of human knowledge, been exhibited so as to show the fallacy of making the dead languages engross exclusively the period of education. The necessity of shortening the time usually devoted to those studies, has been rendered still more obvious by an inquiry into the abuses of the old scholastic course, which neglects much useful information for