never be acquired separately from them; they should be learned on the principle of the necessary association which exists between ideas in a connected discourse, rather than on that of accidental association, as is commonly practised in learning lists of detached words. Nor can they be available for any practical purpose, unless they have been frequently and diversely combined by analogy in the expression of thought. But it is not enough for a learner to confide information to memory, or to attain skill in any performance; the possession of an art, to be long retained and be made available for practical purposes, must become, by the repetition of the mental operations requisite for acquiring it, or by reiterated application of its principles, a fixed habit of the mind, or of the muscles. A language will be the more available and the longer remembered as the knowledge of it is more completely secured by confirmed habit in the use of it in its different departments. SECT. III.-GENERAL PRINCIPLES ON WHICH A RATIONAL Although no method can be pointed out for the acquisition of any branch of knowledge, which would suit every individual and every circumstance, there are, nevertheless, general laws, deduced from the functions of the human mind and from the nature of the knowledge to be acquired, which can be made to bear on the study. The brief summary which we have just given of the characteristic features of the method we advocate for learning foreign languages, presents the application to this department of instruction of the great principles laid down in our introductory Book. The practical details of the course founded on them may, to a certain extent, be familiar to experienced and skilful professors; but they have as yet been confided only to tradition. We will, in the course of this work, endeavour to unfold them, so as to show their application in particular cases, and it is to be hoped that a due observance of them will guard against gross error. None of the great principles which constitute the fundamental laws of a rational method have, we hope, been neglected; and here we shall recapitulate those which may be called the axiomatic truths of methodology : 1. The method of nature is the archetype of all methods, and especially of the method of learning languages. SEC. III.] PRINCIPLES ON WHICH A RATIONAL METHOD IS BASED. 217 2. The classification of the objects of study should mark out to teacher and learner their respective spheres of action. 3. The ultimate objects of the study should always be kept in view, that the end be not forgotten in pursuit of the means. 4. The means ought to be consistent with the end. 5. Example and practice are more efficient than precept and theory. 6. Only one thing should be taught at one time; and an accumulation of difficulties should be avoided, especially in the beginning of the study. 7. Instruction should proceed from the known to the unknown, from the simple to the complex, from concrete to abstract notions, from analysis to synthesis. 8. The mind should be impressed with the idea before it takes cognizance of the sign that represents it. 9. The development of the intellectual powers is more important than the acquisition of knowledge: each should be made auxiliary to the other. 10. All the faculties should be equally exercised, and exercised in a way consistent with the exigencies of active life. 11. The protracted exercise of the faculties is injurious: a change of occupation renews the energy of their action. 12. No exercise should be so difficult as to discourage exertion, nor so easy as to render it unnecessary: attention is secured by making study interesting. 13. First impressions and early habits are the most important, because they are the most enduring. 14. What the learner discovers by mental exertion is better known than what is told him. 15. Learners should not do with their instructor what they can do by themselves, that they may have time to do with him what they cannot do by themselves. 16. The monitorial principle multiplies the benefits of public instruction. By teaching we learn. 17. The more concentrated is the professor's teaching, the more comprehensive and efficient his instruction. 18. In a class the time must be so employed that no learner shall be idle, and the business so contrived that learners of different degrees of advancement shall derive equal advantage from the instructor. 19. Repetition must mature into a habit what the learner wishes to remember. 20. Young persons should be taught only what they are capable of clearly understanding, and what may be useful to them in after life. These axiomatic truths are at the foundation of every rational system of instruction: their application cannot fail to secure the acquisition of knowledge, and of languages in particular. They constitute, as already stated, the common principles into which may be resolved nearly all the suggestions made in the following pages; an intimate familiarity with them is, therefore, indispensable for the full and clear comprehension of our method, the more particularly as, to avoid repetition, we will dispense with referring to them. (11.) 219 BOOK IV. NATIVE TONGUE. "First follow Nature, and your judgment frame By her just standard."-A. POPE.* "As the ancient and modern languages cannot, consistently with reason and propriety, be taught before our native tongue, our first step must be to make ourselves masters of the language of the country in which we live."-SIR W. JONES.† "The intimations of sense give the primary incentive to all the faculties, and furnish one very important element in our experience."-J. D. MORELL.‡ CHAPTER I. PRESCRIPTION OF NATURE RESPECTING EARLY INSTRUCTION. SECT. I.-OF EARLY MENTAL CULTURE. THE universal admission that success in life and personal consideration depend on intellectual development and extensive knowledge, have led many, in their ignorance of physiological principles, to force mental labour on young children. But, in most cases, both the minds and bodies of the little sufferers have been enfeebled by an over-exertion of the brain, when as yet imperfectly formed. There is nothing more painful to witness than the unnatural disproportion which mental precocity introduces between physical and intellectual life. Parents and teachers have much to answer for, who, regardless of the manifest designs of nature, condemn young children to sedentary occupations, and force intellectual acquirements upon Essay on Criticism. their tender minds, at the risk of unduly exciting the nervous system, injuring the brain, and undermining the constitution. So close is the immediate connection between mind and body, that the former cannot be over-exerted without the latter feeling the baneful effects of the undue excitement. The most eminent physicians of ancient and modern times proclaim the fatal influence which overstraining the mind of youth has on the health and bodily frame. Of the numerous medical authorities which we could bring forward on this point, we will confine ourselves to one, that of the celebrated Tissot, who says, “Long continued application in childhood destroys life. I have seen young children of great mental activity who manifested a passion for learning far above their age, and I foresaw with grief the fate which awaited them; they commenced their career as prodigies, and ended by becoming idiots, or persons of very weak minds...... No custom is more improper or cruel than that of some parents who require of their children much intellectual labour and great progress in their study. It is the tomb of their talent and their health."* Of those who have survived the direful effects of a premature and exclusive excitement of the mind, few indeed have ever risen to eminence. The histories of the nations among which classical literature and the sciences have been much cultivated, and which have consequently afforded parents opportunities or inducements to force abstract studies upon their children, abound in facts which prove the truth of these observations. Intellectual precocity is but too frequently attended by premature death or debility through life. The instances are very rare of young geniuses having arrived at old age; whilst, on the contrary, many of those whose education began comparatively late, have remained engaged to the end of a long life in the most intensely intellectual labour. "Experience," says Dr. Spurzheim, "demonstrates, that of any number of children of equal intellectual power, those who receive no particular care in childhood and who do not learn to read and write until the constitution begins to be consolidated, but who enjoy the benefit of a good physical education, very soon surpass, in their studies, those who commence earlier and read numerous books when very young. The mind ought never to be cultivated at the expense of the body; and physical • De la Santé des Gens de Lettres. |