memory is exercised to the exclusion of his other faculties, and he forms the pernicious habit of using language devoid of thought. Is it possible that, in the boundless range of information demanding the action of memory, an instructor could not find a subject more useful and more comprehensible to children for the cultivation of that faculty than grammar?

Some advocates for the early learning of grammar, in order to reconcile this practice with the undeniable fact that young children cannot understand it, assert that, as they learn it only for future use, they will understand it when they have occasion to apply it. This specious argument clearly proves, that if these rules are to be made available only at a later period, no inconvenience can arise from postponing the learning of them : "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." It may be added, that, if, at the time of being learned, they are not understood, that is, if the memory is not assisted by judgment, they cannot be long retained. So that, in commencing the study of language by that of grammar, the child runs the risk of knowing neither the one nor the other.

Some people, aware that grammar is extremely dry and uninteresting to children, and yet unwilling to depart from the usual practice of making it the preliminary step to the study of language, have resorted to various means of decoying children into a knowledge of it: some have turned it into verse, ever set it to music; others have contrived games as means of initi ion. Among such contrivances we will mention the burlesque m hod which was devised for the young Duke of Orleans, the bi her of Louis XIV. A great number of little puppets were ranged on a table in battle array, and divided into different troops, under the banners of the parts of speech. In the evolutions of these grammatical soldiers the battalions of adjectives were made to join those of substantives, and these two, closely united, formed the wings of the army. The main body was composed of verbs, which were supported in the rear by their auxiliaries, the adverbs, conjunctions, and others, which formed the corps de reserve. This well-disciplined army, having at its head Dépautère, the great grammarian of that day, advanced in perfect grammatical order, and vigorously attacked the solecisms and barbarisms, the avowed enemies of grammar, who, being of course irregular and undisciplined troops, were soon routed and cut to pieces.

Ludicrous as is this mode of acquiring grammar, it is perhaps

less irrational than learning it by heart. It is downright tyranny to impose on children the irksome task of committing to memory these abstract and, to them, unintelligible rules, especially when they are not yet in possession of the means of applying them. The study of grammar must be deferred until after the age of twelve. But, at whatever period it is learned, no time should be } wasted in learning it by heart. If it be clearly understood when being studied, the learner will run no risk of forgetting it, provided he read extensively and notice the frequent applications of it which he may meet in his practice.

The true way to arrive at a knowledge of grammar is by illustrating, not by learning its rules. No set of rules committed to memory will either form a profound scholar, or, what is infinitely more important, create habits of patient observation and judgment. A man might be acquainted with the results of many profound inquiries in all the various sciences; he might take them on credit, and act as if he believed them to be true; but his understanding would not be one jot advanced above that of an uninstructed workman. If the knowledge of all facts and the conclusions of all researches could be poured into a man's mind, without labour of his own, he would really be less wise than he who has been properly trained to work the rule of simple proportion. On the other hand, it is not the letter but the spirit 1of the laws of language which can be productive of benefit. In grammar, as in the sciences and in morals, we can apply a law or reason from a principle only in so far as we have entered into its spirit; the most accurate rule, the wisest precept, if adopted without being perfectly understood in all its bearings, cannot be made to suit all possible circumstances; it will even become a continual source of errors.*

That so few are versed in grammatical science may, in a great measure, be ascribed to the premature study of it, and to its being made a purely mnemonic exercise. Grammar has been rendered so uninteresting to learners in general; that they dispense with it as soon as they can, and preserve through life a sort of aversion to it, which hinders them from resuming its study at a time when it might be of service.

Let us then hope that we shall soon see discarded from every school a method which, as Degérando observes, is in direct opposition to the nature of things, which besets with abstractions the noviciate of a mind yet unprepared for them, and * See Geo. Long, Introductory Lecture. Lond. University.

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which preludes the study of a language with the very notions which the knowledge of that language alone can give.*

The unreasonable practice of occupying childhood with so unsuitable studies has met with just censure from many writers and educationists besides those we have named; but as this censure applies also to the use of grammar as an introduction to the study of language, the mention of a few among the most eminent of those who object to it will be more appropriate in the following chapter.

* See De l'Education des Sourds-muets.

CHAPTER II.

INSUFFICIENCY OF GRAMMAR AS AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF A LANGUAGE.

SECT. I.-PROGRESS OF GRAMMAR AMONG THE ANCIENTS.

To prove how little assistance is given by grammars in acquiring a language, let us examine what was accomplished before their existence.

A language must be long in use and have attained a certain degree of consistency,—it must be spoken and written by men of talent and information, who give it a character of stability, before it can become the object of grammatical inquiry, before its words can be classified, or their syntactical concord and arrangement be generalised-before, in fact, its genius and form can be subjected to a code of laws. Hence we find that, in all languages, grammars have been subsequent to standard literary works ; they are formed from great writers, not these by grammars.

Although Hebrew is the most ancient language, yet it was only in the year 1040, A.D., that it was, for the first time, reduced to principles and rules by Rabbi Judah Chiug of Fez.* The grammatical art afforded, consequently, no assistance to Moses in writing the Pentateuch, to David in the composition of his sublime psalms, or to any other of the sacred writers.

Plato, among the Greeks, indulged in grammatical researches, as may be seen in his book "Cratylus ;" but Aristotle, his disciple, was the first who analysed language, divided the parts of speech, and laid the foundation of a grammar. To these incomplete essays four books of syntax were afterwards added by Apollonius of Alexandria; and many years elapsed before grammar was publicly taught, for the first time, at Athens, by Epicurus. These were the first grammarians of a people who, long before, had produced almost all the literary master-pieces

* See Vossius, De Arte Grammat., and J. Wilkins, An Essay towards a Real Character.

which are still the delight of the learned, and, among others, the works of Homer, Pindar, Euripides, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Thucydides, and Xenophon.

Rome did not, it is true, remain so long without grammatical works; Ennius had early turned his attention to points of grammar; so have, afterwards, Varro and Cicero. Julius Cæsar himself, in the midst of camps, had written a treatise on the analogy of words; but it was only subsequently to the glorious Augustan age, that regular grammars were in use among the Romans, when the Latin language was in its decline. In the study of the Greek, which held in their education the same degree of importance that French does in that of modern nations, they made no use of grammars, but acquired it altogether by reading and conversation. It was only when the young Romans knew Greek practically, as they did their own language, that they were sent to the schools of the grammarians, whose office it then was to perfect their delivery, and explain to them the beauties of the best writers.

Those instructors who, in the time of the Roman republic, assumed the name of grammarians (grammatici), were not engaged, as the name seems to imply, in lecturing or writing on what now constitutes grammar: their chief occupation consisted in directing the attention of their pupils to composition, oratorical delivery, and the highest branches of literature. This epithet was afterwards in so great repute among the Greeks and the Romans, that the most illustrious writers took pride in it. It was, in fact, given to those who were eminent in eloquence, history, and philosophy.

SECT. II.-INTRODUCTION OF GRAMMAR IN MODERN EUROPE; SCHOLARS AND WRITERS FORMED WITHOUT ITS AID.

Long after the revival of letters, in the sixteenth century, Dépautère in France, and Lily in England, wrote, in doggrel Latin verse, incomplete essays of Latin grammar. Lily was assisted in the composition of his work by Dean Colet and Erasmus, who, themselves, very sparingly enjoined the use of it in classic learning. This work, now known under the name of the Eton Latin Grammar, has undergone some modification, but is still, in many respects, despite the royal recommendation,* a

* In 1545, Henry VIII. published an edict to enforce the use of Lily's Grammar in

Schools.