to their minds."* "There is," says Locke, “ more stir a great deal made with grammar than there needs; and those are tormented about it, to whom it does not at all belong; I mean children at the age wherein they are usually perplexed with it in grammar-schools."+ "Though grammar," observes also Horne Tooke, "be usually amongst the first things taught, it is always one of the last understood." The celebrated author of " Elements of Criticism," in adverting to this subject, makes the following observations, "In teaching a language, it is the universal practice to begin with grammar and to do every thing by rule. I affirm this to be a most preposterous method. Grammar is contrived for men, not for children It is a gross deception, that a language cannot be taught without rules To this day I never think, without shuddering, of Dépautère's grammar, which was my daily persecution during the most important period of life. Curiosity, when I was farther advanced in years, prompted me to look into a book that had given me so much trouble; at this time, I understood the rules perfectly, and was astonished that, formerly, they had been to me words without meaning, which I had been taught to apply mechanically without knowing how or why."§ "Grammar is not learned and never can be learned at school; and the attempt to teach it, the mode of teaching it, and the pretence of teaching a language through it, are insults to the common sense of mankind as to the experience of ages.”|| Grammar, considered abstractedly and previously to a knowledge of the facts on which it rests, as when it is made an introduction to the study of a foreign language, is only a vague and abstruse theory. A child, unprepared by any practical acquaintance with the language, is utterly unable to conceive its metaphysical definitions. He would understand the first book of Euclid much sooner than the first principles of grammar. The elementary notions of geometry are always clear, because they can easily be brought within the power of intuition; they speak to the eye as well as to the mind, but grammatical principles, being purely abstract, are only addressed to his reflective powers. Thus, if we once show to a child an isosceles triangle and an equilateral triangle, and explain to him their respective * De l'Enseignement régulier de la Langue Maternelle. properties, little as they differ, he will never take one for the other; but if, for example, we repeat to him a hundred times the definition of an adverb and a conjunction, still the next time he meets a word of either kind, he will hesitate on deciding to which class it belongs. How many persons are there who have learned Murray's Grammar for years, who, in the maturity of reason, would be at a loss to distinguish, in every instance, one of these parts of speech from the other? A preposition is said to denote a relation; but "few people," says Adam Smith, "will find themselves able to express very distinctly what is understood by a relation. Ask any man of common acuteness, what relation is expressed by the preposition of; and, if he has not beforehand employed his thoughts a good deal upon these subjects, you may safely allow him a week to consider of his answer."* "No abstraction, no metaphysical definitions," says Saint Marc-Girardin, 66 should enter in the elementary teaching of grammar. On this point I agree, in the wishes I form, with the conclusions of the German Congress held recently at Mayence. There, in that assembly of the masters of the new science (education), it was decided that the irksome and barren labour of studying the abstractions of grammar ought to be spared to children. This instruction should be given in the highest classes, and conjointly with the philosophical instruction with which it is so closely connected. In the elementary classes the learners must be confined to practical exercises; they must be taught grammar from he usage of the language. And, indeed, whatever way it is learned it is by this means alone it is known."+ SECT. IV.-LEARNING GRAMMAR BY ROTE OBJECTED TO. Many of those who insist on the early study of grammar, having themselves, conformably to the general practice, merely committed it to memory in their childhood, are unable to render its principles perfectly intelligible to young people: they either attempt to explain its metaphysical terms by other metaphysical terms equally obscure, or task their memories with a lesson which should be addressed to their understandings. Children of apathetic disposition are satisfied to repeat unmeaning sounds, * Dissertation on the Origin of Language. De l'Instruction intermédiaire dans le Midi de l'Allemagne. and they gladly follow a practice which saves them the trouble of thinking; but is there any thing more disheartening to a child of intellect, than to be obliged constantly to repeat technicalities to which he does not attach ideas? "When I remember," says Lami, "the way in which I was taught, methinks that my head was put in a bag, and that I was made to move on by dint of the whip, being beaten whenever I went crookedly; for, indeed, I could not see any thing. I understood nothing of the rules which I was forced to learn by heart."* Blind attachment to old practices is not the only reason which keeps up this parroting system. Grammar being, on the one hand, usually commenced at a time when the memory is active and the judgment yet unformed, and being, on the other, generally taught at school, in the lower classes, by persons unacquainted with the philosophy of language, it is found more convenient to give tasks than explanations to children. The verbatim repetition of the text is even sometimes insisted upon, so that, under this implicit injunction to attend to words rather than to sense, they seldom make an effort to comprehend what they learn. This practice is the more absurd, as scarcely any two grammarians could be found who have treated of the same points in the same terms. Learners often recite the definitions and rules with imperturbable correctness; and the instructor, usually taking for granted that lessons so well delivered must be equally well understood, makes no further inquiry: the children, on their part, proud of their performance, although unconscious of the meaning attached to the words they have uttered, take especial care not to ask for explanations, lest they should appear dull of apprehension; or, most probably also, lest they should thus prolong a lesson from which they are anxious to be released; so the system continues. “It is this mode of teaching," says Cobbett, "which is practised in the great schools, that assists very much in making dunces of lords and country squires. They get their lesson; that is to say, they repeat the words of it; but as to its sense and meaning, they seldom have any understanding."+ The paramount object of early education should be the development of all the intellectual powers: but, if the child does not fully understand the grammatical principles which he is desired to learn by heart, he acquires words without ideas; his * Entretiens sur les Sciences et sur la Manière d'Enseigner. † Grammar of the English Language. 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, even set it to music; others have contrived games as means of initiation. Among such contrivances we will mention the burlesque method which was devised for the young Duke of Orleans, the brother 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 of 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. VOL. I. C C |