without neglecting, in any, the literary and scientific subjects of general interest.

The adoption, in higher schools, of the conversations on objects would prove most beneficial to the junior classes as a preparation for classical and scientific studies. The different professors who may be attached to such establishments, by conversing, each in his turn, with the children, would afford them further means of extending their knowledge of things and of language; because each teacher, following the bias of his mind and yielding to his habits of study, would naturally turn the conversation on the peculiar topics with which he is best acquainted. The pupils would also acquire clearness of thought and variety of expression, as the same things would be presented to them from different points of view and explained in different ways; while the questions asked by the various members of a class, and the diversity of their remarks, would be profitable to all, and would enliven these conversations by playful competition.

But, wherever this practical course of instruction is introduced, -into families, infant and primary schools, or into higher educational establishments,-it should be carried on every day at stated hours, and persevered in for years. The time appropriated to this purpose should be extended in proportion to the age of the pupils and the seriousness of the subject treated; it may be apportioned, during the first three periods of youth, nearly as follows: one hour daily in the first period, one hour and a half in the second, and two hours in the third; allowing, in the last two, an equal portion of time for occupations in which children may acquire the habit of studying by themselves what depends on their own exertions, such as drawing, penmanship, reading, or preparing whatever lessons may be required of them.

Having now shown how the process of nature may, as it were, be methodized, to give to children a more extensive knowledge of the vernacular tongue, and thus prepare them for entering on the comparative study of foreign languages, we will, as a preliminary step to that study, consider, in the next Book, what is the proper subdivision of the subject.

VOL. I.

323

BOOK V.

ORDER AND RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF THE DIFFERENT BRANCHES OF LANGUAGE.

"Le secret pour apprendre beaucoup est de diviser les difficultés."

C. F. RADONVILLIERS.*

"Reading maketh a full man, Conversation a ready man, and Writing an exact man."-LORD BACON.†

CHAPTER I.

SUBDIVISION OF THE STUDY.

SECT. I.-THE DIFFERENT OBJECTS PROPOSED FROM THE STUDY OF A LANGUAGE.-NATURAL ORDER OF ACQUIRING THEM.

The complete possession of a language implies the power of using the two sets of signs of which it consists, spoken and written words, either to receive or to communicate ideas. A language presents, consequently, four distinct branches of study. We give them in the order in which they are successively acquired in the native tongue.

1. To understand the spoken language.

2. To speak.

3. To understand the written language.

4. To write.

The possession of the first two branches constitutes the knowledge of the spoken language; and the possession of the other two constitutes the knowledge of the written language. Although there is great affinity between these four branches, *De la Manière d'apprendre les Langues. † Essays. Ess. 50.

yet they are so far distinct, that the knowledge of one, or of two, does not necessarily imply a knowledge of the others.

A great portion of the people, in almost every country, though in possession of the spoken language, remain all their lives ignorant of its written form. The reverse is the case with the deaf and dumb, who can only know the written language. And more limited still is the acquirement of many, who can read the Latin and Greek classics, but can neither converse nor write in the languages to which they belong.

In ordinary circumstances, the learner of a foreign living language, not acquiring, like an infant, the art of speaking through the practice in hearing, but through books, must learn both departments separately, and may consequently possess one independently of the other. It frequently happens, that persons who have made some progress in learning to speak a foreign idiom, not having had much practice in hearing it spoken, experience, when they go abroad, the sad disappointment of not comprehending those whose language they perhaps have studied for a long time. Others, on the contrary, whether from a timid disposition, or from having had better opportunities of hearing the foreign idiom spoken, daily feel how much easier it is to understand than to speak it. A Spaniard and a Portuguese, or a Dutchman and a German, almost understand one another, although speaking each his own language and unable to speak the language of the other. To these facts may be added the case of children, who comprehend what is said to them, long before they have a sufficient stock of words to express their wants and their feelings.

It is obvious that the four branches above adverted to are, to a certain extent, distinct arts, the separate or collective acquisition of which depends on the method pursued; and, although they are auxiliary to one another, special studies and exercises are required for the attainment of each in a foreign language, the student ought not, at the outset, to aim at these four objects together.

Nature, the archetype and source of all perfection, is on this point, as on every other, our best guide. She shows us, by the successful manner in which we learn our native tongue, how we ought to proceed in the study of a foreign language. This fundamental principle needs to be proclaimed loudly and repeatedly; for, although the most important, it is the most neglected. We will subsequently unfold the processes of nature

in enabling a child to acquire language; but, for the present, we must be content with indicating the order which she follows in the successive acquisition of its different departments.

In the preceding Books it was seen that curiosity, sympathy, and perception, which manifest themselves on the threshold of life, enable a very young child, through the language of action, to divine the meaning of those who address him. It is only after he has, by these instincts of nature, overcome the first difficulty of language, and made some progress in associating ideas with the words he hears, that another instinct, as powerful as the first, leads him to the second step; he tries to express his wants by imitating the words and phraseology which he has repeatedly heard. At a more advanced period, he is taught to read, and, subsequently, he learns to write the expressions which have become familiar to him from hearing or reading.

Such is the order of the natural method, in which we see, that the maternal idiom is acquired by a process similar to that through which other imitative arts are learned, that is, by the study of models and persevering efforts in imitating them. So true is this, that if we wish to be understood, we must conform to established usage; we must adopt the received words and idioms; no deviation from these is allowable. The right of neology belongs only to inventive minds who are entitled to attach names to their discoveries, or to eminent writers who, in giving vent to their imagination, may sometimes introduce new expressions, which are readily adopted if applied judiciously and in conformity with the genius of the language.

SECT. II. THE ACQUIRING OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES IN THE SAME MANNER AS THE NATIVE.

When the persons, under whose care the child is brought up, have a ready command of the foreign language they wish him to learn, it may then be easily commenced from the cradle, simultaneously with the national idiom, by following the same order, and adhering to the same laws, that is, by perception, imitation, and analogy.

If the infant be spoken to in the foreign as well as in the native tongue, these two languages will grow equally familiar to him; they will, in fact, be both his own. He might even thus, by the instinctive process of nature, learn two or three foreign languages without confounding one with the other, if he had the