"The Hamiltonian System" which is applied in exactly the same fashion to all languages, to the simple and the complex, to the uninflected and the deeply inflected, is this.-Some easy book in the language to be acquired is chosen, in which the teacher reads aloud each word with a literal translation, after the mode which is known in grammar schools, as construing; but without any regard to elegance in the English version. Each word in the original is rendered by him uniformly by the same English word. The learner repeats after him sentence by sentence. In this way, without paying attention to the grammar, or looking into a grammar or dictionary, the mind is furnished with a stock of words. After the pupil has made some progress in this kind of knowledge, "A grammar," says Mr. Hamilton,"containing the declensions and conjugations, and printed specially for my classes, is then put into the pupil's hands, (not to be got by heart, nothing is ever got by rote in this system,) but that he may comprehend more readily his teacher on grammar generally, but especially on the verbs." The teacher then explains the grammatical rules, and illustrates them by examples; and finally, the pupils translate from English into the language to be acquired. According to this plan, it is pretended that a pupil will in ten lessons of an hour each, acquire ten thousand words; and that he will acquire a knowledge of any language with very little labour, and in a very short time, compared with that employed in the ordinary methods of teaching.

What is and what is not new in this system? We shall refer, in answering this question, not to barren speculations or forgotten bookswhich it would be unfair to plead in bar of the pretensions of a practical teacher, but to the general practice of other instructors and to ordinary school-books.

In the first place, the practice of furnishing learners with a stock of words at the very commencement of their study of the modern languages, especially French and Italian, by the practice of literally translating after the masters, or by the help of interlineal translations, is not new even in England. It has been the common practice of French teachers in this country, at least from the commencement of the present century, and was at a much earlier period general on the Continent. But the Hamiltonian System is peculiar in this, that while the process of fixing these words on the mind is going forward, attention to the grammar is altogether excluded. The teachers of the simple languages, according to the received system first taught (by rote, which Mr. Hamilton so much dreads) the articles, the plurals of the nouns, then the verbs, step by step, while they acquire that stock of words which serves to give interest to the study of a language. Mr. Hamilton endeavours to give them the stock of words first.

It is peculiar also to Mr. Hamilton, that he applies this plan rigidly to deeply inflected languages.

Now in these his peculiarities, a little reason and a little experiment would show Mr. Hamilton to be wrong.

There is one grand error in his system, that he considers the knowledge of grammar as a matter quite distinct from the knowledge of the signification of words. But a grammar of any language is a system of rules concerning the signification of words, and intended to facilitate the knowledge of them; and it is only a good grammar

in as much as it answers that purpose. Thus by the conjugations of verbs are taught the meanings which in each mood and tense are superadded to the simple signification of the root; or the time and manner which are connoted, as logicians call it, with that root, when certain terminatious, inflexions, or prefixes are employed. Now as these terminations, inflexions, and prefixes are the same in many roots, and are, by reason of their analogy, easily remembered, as compared with the radical syllables, it has been commonly deemed worth while, first to commit them to memory, in order that the learner, abstracting himself from the consideration of them, may the more easily remember the roots themselves. This is the methodization of memory, which it is the purpose of Mr. Hamilton to confuse.

We will give in Hamilton's own words the account of the manner in which he supposes his pupils learn grammar. After an account of the first ten lessons, in which the learners read the Gospel of St. John (in Greek) in the way we have described, he says:—

From what has been stated, it would seem that it is intended to communicate a knowledge of words only in this section, [he chooses to call ten lessons a section,] and this certainly is the primary and ostensible object of it; but from the mode of teaching, pronouncing, repeating, analytical transposition, and translation, a correct pronunciation, and a familiarity with the construction, idiom, and grammar of the language, are also infallibly obtained.-[Good Lord!]-To these advantages the teacher must not hesitate to sacrifice the harmony of English periods; nay, his translation must not be the English of the phrase, but the English of each word, taken according to the grammatical construction, which must never be deviated from; the teacher rendering each word by a corresponding part of speech; and giving to each word one definite, precise meaning, and one only. So far is the accuracy in this point carried, that should the English language furnish no word which exactly corresponds with the word translated, then a word must be made for the purpose, as for the Latin word tenebræ, or the French word ténèbres, the word darknesses must be used in English. In the thirteenth verse of the first chapter, the Greek word harination occurs, it must be rendered of blood, to show that it is used by the Greeks plurally, and that it is the genitive case. Thus is every case of every declinable word marked by its corresponding preposition; and thus also is every verb marked by such a sign in English as will point out its mood, tense, and person to the pupil (each tense having its appropriate and exclusive sign). In the participles and in the infinitive and imperative moods, these signs are used to the total neglect of all rule of language, as respects the English, which is used only as a vehicle to convey to the mind of the pupil the mode in which a Greek expressed himself. Thus, the twentysecond verse of the first chapter must be translated thus :—iva that, duμev we might give, ἀπόκρισιν answer, τοις to the, πέμψασιν sent-ing, ἡμᾶς thus ; senting being intended to mark the Greek word, is the participle derived from the aorist. The pupil having thus read and translated the whole of the Gospel of St. John, has acquired a practical knowledge of the verbs, and of the construction of the language generally, much more accurate and extensive than is acquired by the study of grammar during many months; he may then occasionally read the verbs as they are found in grammars, during the second and third sections, and thus unite theory with practice. Five sections of ten lessons each have been found abundantly sufficient to communicate the knowledge of any modern language, to write and speak it with correctness and facility.-Preface to a Key to the Greek Testament, executed under the immediate Direction of James Hamilton.-p. xii.

This last sentence we have not been able to refrain from quoting, though we shall endeavour to subdue our enormous indignation at the quack who ventures, in a sentence which shows that he cannot write English-not to assert, for nothing is asserted in this string of wordsbut to insinuate, that he can, by his mummery, teach a man or boy of common capacity, to write and speak any modern language, German for instance, in fifty hours. Neither will we remark on the blunders in

detail-on the improbability that his pupils, learning from his "appropriate signs" the modes, tenses, and persons, when, by the supposition that his instructions only have been listened to, they cannot know in this section, that there are such things as modes, tenses, and persons, in nature or the impossibility, with all his barbarisms, of his noting, by one invariable, and at the same time appropriate and exclusive sign, each Greek tense. We only look, at present, for the object he blunders in the pursuit of-which is, the attempt, in his section of ten hours, to make a learner form for himself a Greek grammar. A person of ordinary capacity is expected, while he is listening to the teacher, attending to the pronunciation, and fixing in his memory the primary significations, so far to abstract and compare, as to be more familiar with the grammar than a man, of the same capacity, who has studied it for months-that is, he is to make a grammar, and learn it also, in a thirtieth part of the time in which he could learn it when made for him. Oh, fie! James Hamilton. But this is not all-he is obiter to make a grammar, containing, of course, all the persons of all the tenses of all the moods of the verbs, out of a book, in which-the odds are Lombard-street to a China orange-not half of them are to be found. Fie, James Hamilton!

Now, let the experiment be made in the body of a school-boy of the brightest capacity, who shall have the advantage of knowing previously the Latin grammar-let it be "executed under the immediate direction of James Hamilton," and we will bet five shillings to James Hamilton's reputation, that after the first section the learner shall not be able to decline any one noun in the Greek language, whatever process be applied to him. How could a boy, even if he possessed the ingenuity of Young, or Champollion, give the duals of nouns, from the perusal of a book in which there is not, we think, one instance of that number?

But if we take a language of a simple construction, the French for instance, what rational man can doubt that much time would be saved, if, instead of setting the pupils to learn by rote, (for that is the real process,) words in a language, of the connexion and analogies of which they have no previous ideas, for an hour each day-half, a third, or a quarter of that time were devoted to the perusal of the articles, substantives, adjectives, pronouns, verbs, not perhaps in the order of their arrangement in the grammar, but in that of the frequency of their recurrence, and their practical importance. To begin early with translations is of use, because it gives an interest to the study of a language, flatters the pupil with the appearance of progress, and induces him to encounter that labour for which it would be otherwise difficult to find a motive. But to continue and go on with it, to the exclusion of the grammar, which is Hamilton's peculiarity, is a waste of time; because it is an attempt to teach grammatical rules by a method the most difficult that can be devised.

The plan of Hamilton is defended by a reference to the mode in which foreign languages are acquired, by men who pass into foreign countries. There can not be any more practical and ready method of proving its absurdity. Let two persons make the experiment in a country, of which the language is unknown to them, the one aiding himself by a grammar of the language, the other dispensing with it,

Or let one of these persons use

and the result will soon be apparent. a grammar from the beginning, and the other take it up after attempting for a month to learn some of the words by rote-who can doubt which of them would be found to have lost his time?

*

Voltaire's History of Charles XII. has been published with a double translation, to which are prefixed, some observations on the Hamiltonian System, which-though somewhat too indulgent-though they attribute too much importance to Hamilton's peculiarities, are the best we have seen on the subject. The writer of the preface introduces Roger Ascham's (Queen Elizabeth's tutor) account of his own method of teaching, with the following remark :

Ascham's favourite method of double translation, would form a most useful supplement to (say substitute for) the system; and as many of his remarks are strictly to our purpose, we shall extract some of them from his "Schoolmaster," together with two very remarkable illustrations of their truth.

"After the child hath learned perfectly the eight parts of speech, let him then learn the right joining together of substantives with adjectives, the noun with the verb, the relative with the antecedent. And in learning farther his syntaxis, by mine advice, he shall not use the common order in common scholes, for making of Latines; whereby the child commonly learneth, first, an evil choice of words, then a wrong placing of words; and lastly, an ill framing of the sentence, with a perverse judgment, both of words and sentences. These faults, taking once root in youth, be never, or hardly, plucked away in age. Moreover, there is no one thing that hath more either dulled the wits, or taken away the will of children from learning, than the care they have to satisfy their masters in making of Latines.

"There is a way touched in the first book of Cicero de Oratore, which, wisely brought into scholes, truly taught, and constantly used, would not only take wholly away this butcherly fear in making of Latines, but would also with ease and pleasure, and in short time, as I know by good experience, work a true choice and placing of words, a right ordering of sentences, an easy understanding of the tongue, a readiness to speak, a facility to write, a true judgment both of his own and other men's doings, what tongue soever he doth use.

"The way is this: after the three concordances learned, as I touched before, let the master read unto him the Epistles of Cicero, gathered together, and chosen out by Sturmius, for the capacity of children.

"First, let him teach the child chearfully and plainly the cause and matter of the letter; then, let him construe it into English, so oft as the child may easily carry away the understanding of it; lastly, parse it over perfectly. This done thus, let the child, by and by, both construe and parse it over again; so that it may appear, that the child doubteth in nothing that his master taught him before. After this, the child must take a paper book, and sitting in some place, where no man shall prompt him, by himself, let him translate into English his former lesson. Then shewing it to his master, let the master take from him his Latin book, and pausing an hour at the least, then let the child translate his own English into Latin again in another paper book. When the child bringeth it turned into Latin, the master must compare it with Tully's book, and lay them both together; and where the child doth well, either in chusing or placing Tully's words, let the master praise him, and say, Here you do well. For I assure you, there is no such whetstone to sharpen a good wit, and encourage a will to learning, as is praise.

"This is a lively and perfect way of teaching of rules; where the common way used in common scholes, to read the grammar alone by itself, is tedious for the master, hard for the scholar, cold and uncomfortable for them both.

"I had once a proof hereof, tried by experience, by a dear friend of mine, when I came first from Cambridge to serve the Queen's Majesty, then Lady Elizabeth, living at worthy Sir Anthony Denny's in Cheston. John Whitney, a young gentleman, was my bedfellow; who, willing by good nature, and provoked by mine advice, began to learn the Latin tongue, after the order declared in this book. We began after Christmas; I read unto him Tully de Amicitia, when he did every day twice translate out of Latin into English, and out of English into Latin again. About St. Laurencetide after, to prove how he profitted, I did chuse out Torquatus' talk de Amicitia, in

A great improvement (especially as it is executed in this instance) on a single interlinear translation, which is generally either unintelligible or unfaithful.

the latter end of the first book de Finibus; because that place was the same in matter, like in words and phrases, nigh to the form and fashion of sentences, as he had learned before in de Amicitia. I did translate it my self into plain English, and gave it him to turn it into Latin; which he did so choicely, so orderly, so without any great miss in the hardest points of grammar, that some in seven year in grammar scholes, yea, and some in the University too, cannot do half so well.

"And a better and nearer example herein may be, our most noble Queen Elizabeth, who never took yet Greek nor Latin grammar in her hand, after the first declining of a noun and a verb; but only by this double translating of Demosthenes and Isocrates daily, without missing, every forenoon, and likewise some part of Tully every afternoon, for the space of a year or two, hath attained to such a perfect understanding in both the tongues, and to such a ready utterance of the Latin, and that with a judgment, as they be few in number in both the Universities, or elsewhere in England, that be in both tongues comparable with her Majesty. And to conclude; surely the mind by daily marking, first, the cause and matter; then, the words and phrases; next, the order and composition; after, the reason and arguments; then the forms and figures of both the tongues; lastly, the measure and compass of every sentence, must needs, by little and little, draw unto it the like shape of eloquence, as the author doth use, which is read."

The principle upon which both these systems are founded is the same, i. e. that the structure and peculiarities of a language are best learned by habitual observation and imitation; by considering the structure as a whole, (and not in its disjointed parts,) and by noting its peculiarities as they occur.

To fix these peculiarities in the mind, one of two ways must be resorted to; either they must be made the subject of distinct and separate rules, and impressed on the memory by the ordinary process of learning by rote, or they must be translated so literally as to arrest the attention by their very discordance with, and remoteness from, our own idiom. This is the real secret of the Hamiltonian method; and therefore the observation of an intelligent foreigner, that "the more barbarous the translation, the better," however startling at first, will be found, on reflection, to be the result of an accurate consideration of the subject. If your translation be such, as to be at all readable, if it fall in with the language which is familiar to the pupil's ear, with his accustomed manner of arranging his words and clothing his thoughts, he will read it, and will understand that a given sentence in French is equivalent to the corresponding one in English; but he will not acquire a habit of putting his thoughts into a French dress. The repetition of the un-English turns of expression, which it is impossible he should read glibly, will, it is presumed, impress on his memory whatever is usually learnt by rules.

It never was imagined by the enlightened advocates of the system, that the use of interlinear translations ought to supersede the study of grammar. It is obvious that a language might be acquired, in its purest and most correct form, by what is called the natural mode, that is, by mere imitation, without so much as the consciousness that speech is the subject of rules. To this end nothing would be requisite but the absence of all vicious models. No such situation of things can, however, be commanded; nor, if it could, would the knowledge so acquired be any thing more than vocabulary knowledge. The mind, having gone through no process of generalization, would, of course, neither be furnished with principles applicable to other languages, nor trained to habits of accurate thinking. It is therefore, on all accounts, necessary to master the rules, both general and particular, by which language is governed. But the advocates of the Hamiltonian system contend, that the study and application of the rules of a language ought to follow, and not to precede, the acquisition of the words and phraseology: that the examples being already in the mind, the rules are learned with great comparative ease, and take rapid and deep hold on the memory; whereas nothing can be conceived less likely to engage the attention of a child, or even to baffle the perseverance of a man, than a series of unapplied grammar rules.—p. xii.

With regard to inflected words, we are strongly inclined to think the old way the best, particularly with young children, whose ear is caught with the jingle of sounds. We believe that a child would learn the parts of a noun or verb with much less trouble This is, in the sing-song way, than by picking them up detached as they occur. however, a question of fact and experience. Whichever way it may be determined, it has nothing to do with the learning of grammar rules, which take no hold on the ear, with very few exceptions, on the understanding of a child. Ascham, as we have seen, sets out with supposing the accidence learnt; and his royal pupil, though all her knowledge of the syntax and idiom of the Greek and Latin tongues was gained by reading and imitating the best authors, began by learning the inflexions of the nouns and verbs. p. xvi.

nor,