much longer than that which he can devote to them. He could then employ to their greatest advantage every moment he is with them, both in giving them the advice or explanations they require, and in imparting such information as may supply the deficiencies, or correct the errors of their books. In the learning of the ancient languages, the application of this precept would prove most beneficial, as it would tend to shorten the period of classical studies.

A language, more than any other branch of instruction, may, to a great extent, be acquired without the aid of a teacher; for it is based on imitation. Primitive languages were formed by imitation; the modern are derived from the ancient by imitation. “All languages,” says the celebrated tutor of Elizabeth, “both learned and mother tongues, be gotten, and gotten solely by imitation."* As a child acquires, of himself, the vernacular tongue by imitating the living models, so does an adolescent learn foreign languages by imitating the written models: in either case, the frequency of impressions tends to secure the powers of expression. If this great principle were well understood and properly applied, it would bring the knowledge of languages down to the level of the meanest capacities, and, in a great measure, within the grasp of those whose pecuniary means deny them the advantage of teachers.

3. A good Method is applicable to public Instruction.

One of the chief merits of a method is to render instruction accessible to all classes of society; for it is really useful, in a national point of view, only inasmuch as it is practicable for the great majority. In this age of liberty and progress, when every individual, however humble his condition, may select the career in which he thinks he can best secure his advancement in life, or serve his country, the machinery of education should be contrived with a view to this philanthropic object. To instruct the greatest number in the shortest time, and at the smallest expense, consistent with efficiency, ought to be one of the first aims of a system of national education.

In any community, even the most highly civilised, those who are capable or willing to impart information, are few in comparison with those who are in need of it. Teachers will therefore often be surrounded by large numbers of learners,—the larger

* Roger Ascham, the Schoolmaster.

in proportion as the knowledge to be taught is the more useful, as is particularly the case with foreign languages. Too great an assemblage of students, however, must be avoided. A lecturer may address as large a class as his vocal powers permit; the energy of his delivery and the efficiency of his instruction, increase even with the number of his hearers; but a teacher, whose office consists not only in imparting information, but in examining and exercising his pupils, cannot effectually, within an hour or two, teach more than twenty in a class. When the number of learners is limited, the professor can frequently call upon individuals to produce, to test, to apply the knowledge they have acquired; he can remove their doubts, correct their errors, and afford them opportunities for personal investigation. The subject of instruction being thus thoroughly handled and sifted, is considered in all its bearings, and fastens more firmly on the minds, than if the pupils were listeners only.

The little encouragement offered to the educational profession, by deterring many competent persons from embracing it, tends to diminish still the number of instructors; and the few who are willing to undertake the task are so miserably remunerated that, in their own defence, they endeavour to make up for the parsimony of parents by crowded classes. In this state of things, as it is impossible to collect into one class any number of pupils, whether children or adults, who can remain perfectly on a par throughout the course-since their age, capacity, inclination, time, and previous knowledge, must soon create considerable differences between them-it becomes urgent to adopt a method which shall provide for these diversities of progress in learners, that those who are below the average ability of the class may not be left in hopeless ignorance. It can be truly simultaneous only when it affords to persons of different degrees of proficiency the means of benefiting equally from the same master and the same instruction.

All the exercises and mnemonic lessons which require a teacher to attend separately to individual learners should, in public schools, be superseded by such oral instruction as is suitable and profitable to all the members of a class. However, as this is not always practicable; the mutual or monitorial process, which admits of endless variety of application, should be had recourse to, as the most effectual means of teaching large numbers and saving time and expense. While it brings the superior intelligence and knowledge of the higher scholars to bear upon those

who are less advanced in age and standing, it extends indefinitely the benefit of public instruction. No system should assume an exclusive form; it should, on the contrary, vary with the ages, capacities, and wants of the learners. A method, to be truly rational and useful, must bring the objects of study within the grasp of the meanest capacity; it should ensure the proficiency, if not of all, at least of a large portion of students. The invariable uniformity of the ordinary scholastic method, and its total disregard of the diversified circumstances of learners, are partly the causes of its ill success. Under its baneful influence, the great majority of boys pass through the classical course, without gaining an adequate knowledge of ancient literature.

The work of self-tuition, recommended above, and monitorial teaching, will greatly facilitate the adaptation of a method to public schools; because, in the first case, the improvement of learners, not depending on the professor so much as on themselves, will always advance according to their respective application and industry; and, in the second, the diligent students, instead of being kept back by the indolence or dulness of their class-fellows, will not only enable these to keep pace with them, but be afforded a new means of improvement; for, by teaching what they know, they will know it better. The professor's task being thus lightened, he will be the better enabled to attend to what exclusively devolves on him, and to what may be beneficial to all his pupils in class. His business will chiefly consist, as it ought, in showing them how to think and how to learn, rather than in hearing or teaching them; this is the assistance most required by learners, and most suitable in public instruction.

4. A good Method is in accordance with Nature.

The natural process by which the vernacular idiom is acquired demonstrates what can be done by self-instruction, and presents the best model for our imitation in devising a method of learning languages. Without premeditated design on his part to learn, or on that of his parents to teach him the language, a young child unconsciously gains the power of understanding it when spoken. From the moment his perceptive faculties are in full activity, prompted by curiosity, he notices the looks, the tones, the gestures, which accompany the phraseology addressed to him, and, aided by sympathy, he readily apprehends the idea

conveyed by the language of action. Once in possession of the idea, he instinctively associates it with the phraseology, the representative character of which becomes obvious to him by repetition. Thus he gradually masters the import of words, and finally understands the articulate language independently of the natural signs.

As the child, afterwards, wishes to express his particular wants and feelings, he instinctively repeats the expressions he has heard but mostly modifies them conformably to others which are familiar to him; he adapts to different words, the order, verbal inflections, and grammatical concord, which he has heard used on similar occasions. If, for example, he hears the following phrases: I like a good child; John will eat the cakes; he will, according as the case requires, repeat these phrases verbatim, or modify them one by the other, and form similar ones which he never heard before; he will alter them somewhat as follows: I like a good cake; I will eat good cakes; John eats cakes; John will like the cake, &c. When he repeats the expressions which he has heard, he speaks by imitation; when he alters them, he speaks by analogy. The one exercises his memory, the other his judgment. Such imitations and analogies, the first manifestations of his dawning reason, permit him always to suit his language to his social wants; analogy, especially, enables him to multiply his expressions in proportion to his increasing stock of ideas. It is from imitation and analogy that custom derives its authority in language.

Curiosity, sympathy, and perception, are sufficient to enable a young child to understand what is said-imitation and analogy to enable him to speak. The same result would be obtained in a foreign language, if these various faculties could be made to act a prominent part in the learning of it, but this cannot always be done completely; two of these faculties-sympathy and perception are more especially suited to the social condition of infancy, and are not generally available in acquiring a foreign language after this period. However, our mental constitution provides for this deficiency, because their place is efficiently supplied by imagination and conception, which act respectively in the absence of persons and things as sympathy and perception do in their presence. With regard to the other three faculties, curiosity, imitation, and analogy,-they are active and efficient at every period of life, and ought, consequently, to be resorted to in a rational method.

Although circumstances do not always permit the complete adaptation of the method of nature to the study of a foreign language, the fundamental principles on which it rests should always be kept in view, namely, example and practice. By these principles the child is easily and successfully led from the ideas to the signs, from the phraseology to the words, from the facts of language to the rules of grammar. By them also he may be led in a foreign, as in the native tongue, from hearing to speaking, and from reading to writing.

The practical process of nature must also be taken as a guide in tracing the path which, through a gradual conquest of difficulties, may lead to the full possession of a language, that is, the power of thinking in it. It cannot be said to be known, unless its expressions directly and instantaneously awake the ideas which they represent, or flow from the lips as the offspring of thought.

The object of language is to associate signs with ideas, expressions with impressions. To know it is to possess the double power of conceiving ideas on hearing or seeing their signs, and reproducing these same signs orally or in writing, on conceiving the corresponding ideas. These two elements of language are alternately cause and effect, and exercise a reciprocal action on each other. Their close association in the mind being indispensable to the complete knowledge of a foreign language, the method should direct the practice towards the accomplishment of this object. The more closely we imitate nature in the acquisition of a foreign language, the more readily shall we think in that language.

5. A good Method comprises Analysis and Synthesis.

The complete knowledge of a language consists in the power of using it readily in all its forms and in every way in which it is required. This power depends on example more than on precept, on practice more than on theory. None of these great principles, however, should be neglected; a good method employs them all in turn. As example and practice present materials for decomposition and classification, so precept and theory assist in recomposing the elements into their syntactical combinations and in generalising the facts of language. the study of the arts, decomposition and recomposition, classification and generalisation, are the ground-work of creation.

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