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'aunt'?" a question which raises problems before which the deceased wife's sister falls into insignificance. Another question was, "What is the feminine of 'patron '?" No doubt patroness

Abstract.
Quadruped,
Building materials,
Warlike weapons,
Rich and poor,

Confusion of thought could scarcely go further. Now let us look at another famous too famous grammar based on so-called philosophical principles. In this grammar the poor little word it receives a marvellous development. In some sentences it is explained to have

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"backward reference," as in the sentence, "The day is fine, -no one doubts it; "in others it has "forward reference, as "It is healthy to walk;" while in other cases it has an "indefinite reference," as "It rains." When syntax is reached, still more complex explanations are necessary. A simple sentence is said to be

a

"naked" sentence; a complex one is "clothed," or "filled out with" additions. It would be difficult to imagine a grammatical illustration more grotesquely false than this. A simple sentence, expressing a single idea, is naked, imperfectly clothed ! This principle is evidently responsible for the intolerable prolixity of much of our Scottish writing and speaking, as though a sentence, if not smothered in verbiage, could hardly be considered decent. Then the wholly misleading word "enlargement" plays an important part: A temporal subordinate clause is styled an enlargement of time," a conditional clause, an "enlargement of condition," and so forth, as if the word "enlargement" conveyed any meaning whatever ex

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cept increase of bulk. In the sentence, "Those concerned in it were to be arrested," the words in italics are considered to be a "restricted adjunct"; but in the sentence, "The minister, having obtained information of the conspiracy, was enabled to prevent it," the words in italics are called a "co-ordinating adjunct." unfrequently these distinctions, manufactured with so great care, are absolutely false for in another well-known grammar used in our schools we are introduced to a case called the "nominative of address"; and (mirabile dictu!) this nominative is said to be sometimes the subject, and sometimes the object, of the verb. The instances given of this remarkable grammatical phenomenon are follows: (1) "A hot day, gentlemen;" in this instance a hot day is apparently the "nominative of address," and is the subject to the verb. (2) "A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!" Here a horse, a horse, is still the "nominative of address," only it becomes the object to some verb understood ! It is unnecessary to cite further examples; these instances show how very unnatural and complicated a science grammar tends to become when constructed to suit the idiosyncrasies of a language like English.

In Latin and Greek no such vagaries are possible; they exhibit

the fundamental and universal laws of grammar in a logical and consistent form. If these laws are broken, the fact is apparent, and the reason why can at once be explained. Hence it is the experience of all teachers that those who really know Latin and Greek grammar understand the grammatical principles of all languages; where as nothing is commoner than to find scholars who have been taught English grammar entirely at sea when confronted with the logical preciseness of the classical languages.

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It may be said, however, that, granting this to be true, grammar might be equally well apprehended through German or French through Latin and Greek. a great extent this is perfectly true. German especially, which is an inflected language, can be taught upon rigorously scientific principles, and might be made almost, if not quite, as efficacious an educational instrument as Latin or Greek. But as a matter of fact, this is not done; and all modern languages, regarded as educational instru educational instruments, err in this, that they have developed great refinement and complexity of ideas at the expense of obscuring and crowding out of sight the simple radical principles of language. They are more subtle, more abstract, and the simple grammatical relations are buried beneath anomalies, exceptions, and irregularities. No modern language equals the classical languages for typical simplicity of form, and for adhesion, even in their exceptions, to scientific principles of construction. Added to this, the modern languages are usually acquired rather for practical purposes than as a scientific discipline; and if strict and idiomatic accuracy were demanded -such as good scholars attain in Greek and Latin-the process

would be at least as laborious, probably more laborious, than in the case of the classical languages.

Such are the reasons which will determine the teacher who has his choice between languages, to prefer Latin or Greek as the medium of teaching grammar, to English. If, however, it be granted that where a choice is possible, English is an unsuitable language for the teaching of grammar, it is no less necessary to insist upon the converse proposition, that whatever be the language taught, whether it be ancient or modern, it should be so taught as to have the greatest possible effect upon the pupil's knowledge of his own language, and with a view to his acquiring the power of using it for his own purposes with ease, simplicity, and force.

Experience has proved that it is not possible to become a master of language without knowing more languages than one. The Greeks suffered from knowing only one language: this led them frequently to mistake differences and similarities of names for differences and similarities of things. The Romans deemed the possession of a knowledge of Greek indispensable for an educated gentleman; and all generations of educators are agreed that there is no mode by which a man can so surely acquire a mastery over his own language as by comparing and contrasting it with another, learning to separate what is essential in expression from what is accidental, and habituating himself to translate, not only correctly, but idiomatically, from the one language into the other. A good teacher will not allow a pupil to translate word for word one language into another, without regard to idiom; he will endeavour to guide his pupil to the choice of the most apt and simple

words, and to the corresponding idioms in the two languages. Thus in learning Latin side by side with English, the pupil should be taught at every step not only to understand fully the meaning of the Latin author, but to turn it into the most pure, vigorous, and simple English which he can command. He should be taught to eschew Latin and Latinised words so far as possible, and to use plain, vigor ous Saxon; for, paradox as it may seem, the true Latin scholar is precisely the man who will most avoid Latin in writing English. He will use pure unadulterated English; for what he most appreciates in Cæsar, Livy, Virgil, and Horace, is that they wrote pure unadulterated Latin. This process, no doubt, may be carried on in the learning of all languages; but the process is especially fruitful when it is pursued in connection with Latin or Greek. The whole cast of these languages is so different from that of English, they are constructed upon principles so fundamentally different, that a really good translation from either of these languages into English or vice versa, implies that the student has dived into the very essence of the thought, and can reclothe it in a new form, so as to express a similar meaning with equal force and purity in the other language. Add to this that the classical authors studied are for the most part themselves models of good style. Their works deal with the great fundamental facts, thoughts, and sentiments of humanity, which are at the root of all human knowledge, and form the necessary basis of all languages and all literature. There are as great and greater writers in modern literature: but classical literature is more compressed; it deals with simple, typical

ideas capable of being apprehended by, and of making an impression upon, young minds, and occupies comparatively so small a compass, that it is possible to go over a considerable portion of its best products even within the narrow limits of a school course. To take in these ideas is a training in universal human thought; to render them adequately into English implies not understanding only, but judgment, taste, power over language-in short, all the elements of literary culture. The ideas of a French or German author may often be translated into English almost as they stand, because all modern thought runs more or less in similar grooves; but in Greek or Latin the thought is cast in moulds so different that it must be taken to pieces before it can be reproduced in English, and if it has been imperfectly or wrongly apprehended, the pupil has no power of concealing or slurring over his want of understanding.

It would be, of course, absurd to pretend that such an education in language, or as I should prefer to call it, in literature, can be obtained only from a study of the classics. I wish only to point out what are the special advantages claimed for the classical languages for an education of this kind, and to show that the idea that there is an essential difference between a classical and a modern education, in regard to the kind of literary culture to be derived from them respectively, is wholly erroneous. The classical instructor, like the instructor in modern subjects, aims at giving his pupils a mastery over the principles of language in general, whether ancient or modern; he aims at enabling them to write or speak their own language well and forcibly; he seeks to open their minds in regard to all the great

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subjects of human life and history, to appreciate the beauties of style, and to cultivate a taste for literature. If he fails in these ends, he fails in the main objects which a classical education is intended to secure if he succeed, it can only be by keeping these supreme objects unceasingly in view.

We have thus seen that the classics, if they are to do their function in the work of secondary education, must be made a living study, must be brought into direct relations to English, and be so used as to become the foundation of the pupil's thought and knowledge in all the great human subjects of instruction. I would now reverse the picture, and point out how frequently it happens that the teaching of English, which ought to be the most living of all things, is lifeless and unintelligent, and is, in fact, so conducted that it is English, and not Latin or Greek, that veritably deserves the character of being "a dead language." I have already spoken of "the essay" or theme as prescribed in many of our schools. We have seen that in these exercises the object is not to enlarge the scope of the pupil's knowledge-not to make him think correctly, or to express in some new and more compact way what he knows-but to string together a number of sentences that have more sound than sense, that are grammatically correct, and are correctly spelt and punctuated. And there is this further mischief, that the standard of taste of such educators generally prefers long words to short words, Latin or Latinised words to English words, and all that long-winded splendour of verbose correctness which is the mark of a semi-educated person, and especially of one who has not been penetrated by the spirit of classical scholarship.

Let us take the subject of dictation. This may be made a most useful and educative exercise. For younger children, there is much training involved in making them reproduce, in their own words, a simple story plainly told, with proper spelling and punctuation. At a later age, a longer narrative, an exposition, a train of argument, and so forth, may be substituted for the story; the great object being to make sure that the pupil understands the whole passage, follows its sequences or its reasoning, and can give back the essence of it independently, in his own words, and with any changes of order or expression that preserve the sense. But too often, in the hands of unreflective teachers, this exercise becomes a mere rote exercise of memory. They try to make the class reproduce the story exactly, in the very same words; and actually regard every variation as a fault, instead of praising it as a merit. Some time ago, in an important school in a considerable Scotch town, I heard a simple story about a wig read out to an intelligent class. Many reproduced the story on their slates verbatim, including some stilted sentences which would have been much better simplified. These versions were praised: those which gave the whole sense shorter, and in better English, were pronounced imperfect. At last I asked the first boy, "Tell me, what is a wig?" He had not the faintest idea! and I had to ask seven boys individually before I could get a correct answer to the question. Thus in this class, which did this work so correctly, it was to be inferred that there were at least sixsevenths who did not know what the whole story was about! This I call dead unintelligent teaching.

Take, again, the subject called

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"composition."
text-book half filled with exercises
of the following kind. A number
of bald detached sentences are
strung together, each closed with
a full stop. They all relate to a
common subject; a river, a country,
an animal, an event, and so forth.
Each sentence gives one simple
fact related to the subject. This
exercise is to be taken home, and
the pupil is required to string these
simple sentences into one long con-
tinuous whole, to be read off in one
breath. He takes home the sen-
tences "naked," as our gramma-
rians would say: by jumbling them
up into a confused, cumbrous, com-
plicated whole, he gives them
their necessary "clothing." But
no exercise could be more useless
than this. No ideas are imparted
by the process; the pupil is taught
elaborately to be long-winded, and
to write loosely worded periods,
instead of being taught to do ex-
actly the reverse. If he were
taught to condense a long period
into its constituent parts, and to
resolve complex sentences into
simple ones, he would have gone
through a valuable operation; but
to teach him systematically to turn
simple sentences into complex ones,
is to do him and his style the very
reverse of a service.

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I find a noted of cause and effect, the facts given
in the passage. Not long ago I
heard a class examined as follows.
The subject was the last Russo-
Turkish war, compressed into about
one page. The teacher kept his
finger on the place, and questioned
the class by taking up each sen-
tence as it stood and turning it
into an interrogative form. "After
many months of negotiations vain-
ly protracted, the Russians did—
what?" The prompt answer from
the boy examined was, "Crossed
the Danube." "Quite right." Then
turning to another boy: "It took
the Russians-what-to effect their
purpose?" Much doubt and hesi-
tation. At last a successful boy
shouts, "Six months.'
"Quite
right; it took them six months."
"Next boy: After many bloody
battles, and much delay caused by
the heroic resistance of Plevna,
Turkey did-what?" This was a
puzzler. The question went round:
at last an intelligent boy answered
triumphantly, "Lay prostrate at
the feet of Russia!"
I at once
asked what was the meaning of
"prostrate," but no satisfactory
answer could be obtained. In
another case I noticed a master's
finger slip too far down the page,
between one question and the
next, and he inverted all modern
political history, by assigning to
1884 a series of figures which re-
lated to 1832. In another school
I found that an advanced class
had written down on their slates,
from dictation, an admirable sum-
mary of a period. On examina-
tion I found they were nearly all
equally good, and all the good
ones were identical. It turned
out that these advanced pupils had
simply reproduced the dictation
word for word.
In the passage
there occurred a very unusual
phrase. Not one pupil could ex-
plain it: I turned to the teacher,

No subject can be more stimulating to boys than history, if taught with intelligence, but history is too often taught as a mere piece of "cram." The class has a page or half a page of some densely compressed history to get up for a lesson, and the teacher, instead of bringing out the intelligence of the class by grouping the facts in an interesting pictorial way, and fixing their minds upon the ideas which it contains, contents himself with asking the pupil to reproduce verbatim, one by one, without any explanation, without any tracing

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