terms when, having gained some proficiency in the practical knowledge of the language, he wishes to study the science of

grammar.

As soon as the knowledge of a few verbs has rendered their terminations and forms sufficiently familiar to recall at once their respective meanings, the learner, in going through the exercise of conjugating them, should dispense with repeating the English in connection with the foreign verbs; but, as he utters the different parts, he should mentally associate with them the ideas they represent. This process would save time, and be a good preparation for thinking in the foreign language.

3. Of the practical application of verbs to the expression of ideas.

Sentences are the units of speech, as propositions are the units of thought the sentence, of which the verb is always an essential element, must be completed by the addition of other words. Isolated words, to whatever class they belong, have often but vague signification; they require to be incorporated in phrases to have their various acceptations determined, and thus be made available for speaking or writing. Besides, the great difficulty in using a language consists not so much in knowing its words, as in knowing how to arrange them. The learner, then, ought, at first, under the direction of his teacher, and, afterwards, by himself, frequently to combine with the verbs some substantives, pronouns, or adverbs, which may complete the sense. He should conjugate propositions rather than verbs. The simple conjugation conveys nothing to the understanding, and fatigues children by its monotony; whilst conjugating by propositions must interest them, as it offers to their minds ideas as well as words, and makes them conscious of the usefulness of their labour. Words are also better remembered when combined into phrases, than when unconnected; because association and judgment come then in aid of memory.

As in music the practice of the scales is a preparatory step to the execution of tunes, so the conjugation of verbs in all their forms is a preparatory step to the formation of sentences. Their application in conversation or composition is the great end proposed in learning them. Confining one's-self to the parrot-like task of conjugating them is complete loss of time. Acquaintance with the conjugation being once gained, the student should go

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farther, and practise each verb promiscuously, in connection with the words that usually accompany it in the communication of ideas. But, as hearing ought to have precedence of speaking, the professor should, at first, utter models of pronunciation and phraseology in the foreign language, by introducing the different parts of the verbs in a variety of sentences, affirmative, interrogative, and negative, which his pupils should translate viva voce into their own. When they have heard many such sentences, and are well impressed with the pronunciation and construction, they will find no difficulty in forming analogous combinations on being given the corresponding English. The same verb, by means of words annexed to it, may form an endless variety of expressions, and will afford a learner, for several sittings with his teacher, abundance of practice in hearing and speaking; it should be dwelt on, until its practical application to the expression of thought is clearly understood, and has become familiar. Analogy, the most efficient guide in acquiring the art of speaking, will facilitate the mode of applying other verbs to the same practical purpose. This analogical process of phrase-making will be explained more fully in Book x.

The frequent and diversified application of the same verbs to useful phraseology is not only the surest means of gaining power over the verbal inflections of the language, and recollecting both the verbs and the words associated with them; it is also a powerful incentive to exertion and perseverance. Repetition is a vital principle in the acquisition of language. The practice of including in each day's lesson those previously learned should, as much as possible, be applied to whatever the child commits to memory: as fortunes are acquired by saving, rather than by making money, so knowledge is secured by retaining, rather than by learning lessons. In the usual routine of task-learning, so little are children impressed with the idea that they ought to retain what they learn, that they would consider it a downright injustice on the part of their instructor, if he expected them to repeat a lesson which they had said a fortnight before.

4. Of learning the words of a vocabulary.

In an inflected language, learners will gain familiarity with the declensions of substantives and adjectives, if, at each lesson, they incorporate a few of these words in short sentences,

illustrative of their concord and various cases, similarly to what was suggested for the verbs in the foregoing Section. Such sentences will not only explain the use and power of the inflections, as well as the precise import of the words thus combined, but will also considerably aid the memory in retaining both the words and the relations expressed by their inflections: because association and analogy concur in impressing them on the mind, while repetition renders habitual the intelligent use of inflected forms.*

The study of substantives and adjectives should, in the commencement, be confined to such as may secure to the learner a knowledge of their inflections, or facilitate, by familiar phrases, a practical acquaintance with the verbs and the most useful words among the other parts of speech. If the vocabulary of a living language were put into his hands at the outset, he could not avoid adopting a bad pronunciation, incidental to the rapid and careless manner in which words are usually repeated when being committed to memory. It would also be injudicious early to burthen memory with a large collection of nouns, when these cannot as yet be applied in conversation or composition; for they are not more useful in the preliminary speaking or writing exercises than as a preparation for reading. A beginner cannot foresee what will be the subjects of his first conversations or compositions; he must therefore be at a loss to know to which out of the immense number of nouns he should give the preference. If, on the other hand, to be prepared for every topic of conversation he wishes to lay in a large stock, he will find it a troublesome task to commit many to memory; because the detached words of a vocabulary do not form in the mind that chain of necessary association by which ideas recall each other and being learned before the student is sufficiently advanced to employ them in conversation or composition, they are soon forgotten. Words are remembered not so much by being well learned at any one time as by being occasionally heard, read, and used in the expression of thought, as occurs in acquiring the native tongue by the iterating process of nature.

Learning the words of a vocabulary, as a means of improving the memory, is also objectionable, for it does not exercise it in a

Lemare's Cours de Langue Latine presents a large number of classical phrases which illustrate the inflections and grammatical concord of substantives, adjectives, and verbs. This work, remarkable for the variety and justness of its applications cannot be too much recommended to the attention of teachers and adult learners.

useful manner. The cultivation of a faculty in a particular direction does not extend its power in another: thus if the sense of taste be exercised in distinguishing different kinds of tea, it will not discriminate better between one kind of wine and another, and vice versâ; if the sight be exercised on colours, it will not appreciate forms or distances the better; and if exercised on either forms or distances, similar partial exclusiveness of improvement will be produced. So it is with the intellectual faculties, their development is always in accordance with the means by which it is attained: the person who has been much engaged in learning mere words will not, from that special exercise, acquire greater power in recollecting facts, localities, dates, the elements of a professional pursuit, the subject-matter of a book or of a spoken discourse. In short, the practice of committing to memory detached words and phrases gives to this faculty nothing more than an aptitude for parroting another man's words and phrases, and such an aptitude will never raise its possessor in the scale of intellect, or enable him to carry on more successfully the affairs of life.

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"Is not," says Degérando, "the nomenclature of a language taught as a preparatory exercise, whatever care may be taken, most uninteresting, and hence most prejudicial to the first stage of the study? when it is so important to make this first stage easy and agreeable. Can the pupil find any great attraction in the study of unconnected words, the use of which he does not yet see, and which are only a heap of lumber accumulated before him? What pleasure could we ourselves find in reading the pages of a dictionary, if we were condemned to such a task ?"*

In the hands of a teacher a vocabulary may become a useful auxiliary; he should have recourse to it according to the wants of his pupils, and draw from its stores the various elements of the phraseology on which he desires to exercise them. Knowing himself the use and value of these elements, he may easily fix their particular sense by the context in which he introduces them. If an instructor knew how to diversify that context, he could enable learners to determine exactly the signification of words, in the same way as is done in acquiring the native tongue.

However, the facility with which, in most instances, we dispense with substantives, and especially with the names of sensible

* De l'Education des Sourds-muets.

objects, precludes the necessity of studying them at the commencement, when young persons may be more usefully engaged in learning words more immediately required. The things which concrete substantives represent can often, when alluded to in conversation, be pointed at, described, or explained by signs: so in the native tongue it frequently happens that we speak of things, the names of which we know not or have forgotten. But the properties and qualities expressed by abstract substantives and adjectives, the modifications of ideas indicated by determinatives, and by moods, tenses, and persons of verbs, as well as the relations and circumstances of time, place, quantity, manner, and comparison, expressed by prepositions, conjunctions, and adverbs, could not well be conveyed by gestures, looks, and tones; an early knowledge of the words and inflections significant of the most familiar among such notions is therefore indispensable.

At a later period, when the learner has acquired command of the verbs and the secondary words, committing to memory a vocabulary of substantives, adjectives, and verbs may prove an interesting and beneficial exercise; because he then can apply these words as he learns them. Useless as they are to a beginner, they become indispensable to a person who has gained some proficiency in speaking, and who, in proportion to his knowledge of them, can extend his sphere of conversation. Being learned at the same time as practice elicits their usefulness, they will be more eagerly studied, more easily retained, and more properly applied.

If the student undertakes the learning of a vocabulary when he has made some progress in reading, the task will present no great difficulty; for in the course of his practice the most useful substantives, adjectives, and verbs must have repeatedly occurred in circumstances which have fully explained their different acceptations. Their subsequent employment in the formation of sentences will not only be the best mode of impressing them on the memory, but will also be the most gratifying reward for the labour of learning them.