132 A profound proposing some speci knowledge of Greek and Latin is not perhaps so essential at the present day, when the learned languages have ceased to be the sole vehicle of communication between learned men. But these studies involve manifold advantages independent of such practical utility; and as they are still considered a most important branch of a liberal edu B cation, the easiest method of pursuing them is a subject well worthy of attention. The laborious plan on which boys are now taught, or rather left to learn, the languages of Greece and Rome, is evidently one of those abuses which is countenanced on the authority of parties interested in its perpetuation. We know that it seems easier in all cases to follow that course to which we have been accustomed from our youth, and we are not readily persuaded that the labour we have ourselves bestowed on any acquisition, could be advantageously exchanged for a less irksome exercise. Besides the force of such general prejudices, the members of the scholastic profession, individually if not collectively, are often subject to restrictions of a peculiar nature. Each master considers himself bound to adopt that mode of instruction which is most generally received in other schools, and is unwilling to incur the trouble and risk of improving his stock, while there seems a more certain demand for the inferior article prepared by his own education. Locke justly observes, -"It is no wonder if those who make the fashion, suit it to what they have, and not to what their pupils want. The fashion being once established, who can think it strange, that in this, as well as in all other things, it should prevail? And that the greatest part of those, who find their account in an easy submission to it, should be ready to cry out, heresy! when any one departs from it? It is nevertheless matter of astonishment, that men of quality and parts should suffer themselves to be so far misled by custom and implicit faith." According to the earliest mode of scholastic instruction in England, it is clear that masters were accustomed to take a very active part in the instruction of their pupils, and to interpret Greek and Latin from the resources of their own knowledge. Soon after the first printing of dictionaries with English interpretation, this duty was in great measure remitted by the master, and has gradually been disowned altogether; so that the pupil is now compelled to teach himself the classic languages, with an infinite loss of valuable time, and a gratuitous infliction of disgusting drudgery. Instead of having "the cause and matter" of his lesson clearly interpreted by the master, and then repeating it himself, till perfectly impressed upon the memory, according to the reasonable scheme proposed by Ascham, he is now condemned to the tedious process of turning over and over the leaves of a bulky dictionary; and that which |