however, should be neglected; for 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 generalizing the facts of language.

We call analysis the method which rests on example and practice, and leads by induction to the principles under which the facts of language may be classed; and synthesis, the method which makes precept and theory the starting point from which to arrive, by deduction, at the forms of expression.

In the acquisition of a foreign language, translation into the native tongue, the learning of words from the connected discourse-either in hearing or reading,--the study of the foreign writers, the expressing of ideas by analogy with the standard phraseology, and the discovery of grammatical principles by induction from the language, are examples of the analytical process. The learning of words, definitions, and rules of grammar, as an introduction to the study of a foreign language, and the writing of matical exercises, are examples of the synthetical process.

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By analysis we discover truths; by synthesis we transmit them to others: hence the former is called the method of invention, and the latter the method of doctrine. Analysis, consistently with the generation of ideas and the process of nature, makes the learner pass from the known to the unknown; it leads him, by inductive reasoning, to the object of study, and is both interesting and improving, as it keeps the mind actively engaged. Synthesis, on the contrary, which imposes truths and sets out with abstractions, presents little interest, and few means of mental activity in the first stages of instruction. But, although it yields to analysis in efficiency, for all practical purposes, it should not be entirely rejected; it is necessary for completing the work commenced by analysis. These two processes are a mutual assistance and proof to each other. In a rational method we should follow the natural course of mental investigation; we should proceed from facts up to principles, and then from principles down to consequences; we should begin with analysis and conclude with synthesis.

The benefits derived from a foreign language, considered as a vehicle for receiving and communicating ideas, are consequent on a knowledge of it, and commensurate with the wealth of its literature, with the advancement in science of the nation to which it belongs, and with the number of persons who use it habitually. But the other benefits-improvement in the native tongue and intellectual discipline-which arise from the very exercises by which the foreign language is learned, are only incidental, and depend not so much on the language as on the method pursued in its acquisition.

There are two distinct modes of proceeding in learning a foreign language; the one is the practical or natural process, the other the comparative or artificial. Tho former is the more rapid and the more successful for merely acquiring the use of a language; but the latter, although a slow mode of proceeding, is the only means by which the incidental benefits can be secured.

The practical and the comparative methods have each their distinct sphere of action: the former exercises the powers of perception, imitation, and analogy: the latter, those of reflection, conception, comparison, and reasoning; the first leads to the art, the second to the science of language. The practical process requires little mental effort, and leads instinctively to a mastery of a language; the comparative process, on the contrary, by presenting difficulties which unceasingly call the reflective powers into action, inures the learners to self-reliance, self-direction, and intellectual labor, which constitute its chief merit as an instrument of moral and mental discipline. The one teaches how to use a language, the other how to use the higher faculties of the mind. The combination of both would constitute the most efficient system.

Daily experience offers striking illustrations of the incomplete results of these two methods, when pursued separately. Those who have been confined to practice in

acquiring their own or a foreign language, have not, by this acquisition, added much to their original stock of mental activity; and, although they may speak either language with great volubility, they are generally deficient in literary discrimination. On the other hand, a considerable number of persons could be found, who, having attended to the analysis of a few foreign standard authors rather than indulged in extensive reading, or in the practice of the language, could not, in the least, use it as a vehicle of thought, whilst, through its means, their intellectual character has been raised, their taste refined, and their power of native expression improved.

The distinction between the practical and the comparative method shows why the study of a second language, whether ancient or modern, is more favorable to mental culture than the acquiring of the native tongne. But the benefits of the comparative method depending, in a great measure, on a practical knowledge of the vernacular, this ought to be mado the groundwork of the study of a foreign idiom. A complete course of education should commence with the vernacular, and means should be unfolded for imparting it to young people, and for making it, at the same time, the medium of mental development during the first period of youth. Foreign languages will afterwards become the most efficient means by which to improve the powers of oral and written composition in the native tongue.

A child learning a foreign language under circumstances similar to those in which ho acquired his own, may follow the same course with equal results; but the case is different with learners who have passed the age of childhood, and who study the language through their own as a branch of scholastic instruction, or who have not the advantage of an instructor's daily assistance: another course must, in this case, be adopted, as conformable, however, with that of nature as circumstances permit.

The comparative method, which art supplies as a substitute for the natural process, although generally slower in imparting a practical knowledge of a language, possesses the advantage of being a better instrument of mental training, as was remarked before. Being, moreover, the only means by which the acquisition of foreign languages can be rendered accessible to the generality of people, we will here enter into some more minute details as to the order prescribed by this method, and examine how the four branches of reading, hearing, speaking, and writing, which constitute the complete knowledge of a language, may be rendered auxiliary to each other in the gradual advancement of the student.

The articulate and the written signs of language, being conventional, a familiarity with their import and form must be gained before they can be properly applied to the expression of thought; in other words, we must commence by receiving, not by commu. nicating ideas. It is only after ideas have, by means of their signs, been impressed on our minds, that we can, by imitation, express the same or analogous ideas in using the same signs. Impression of language, which is effected through hearing and reading, must therefore precede expression, which is effected by speaking and writing. This order is the more rational as the practice of the former two branches is considerably easier than that of the latter two: the arts of hearing and reading only require a previous slight acquaintance with the words and phraseology; and, in many instances, the object is attained by merely guessing. This is so true, especially as regards the power of understanding oral expression, that a child twelve or eighteen months old is already a proficient in it, who would be utterly incapable of improvement in any other department of language. In a foreign tongue, as in the native, we may, from the context, or by analogy, understand words which we never heard or saw before; we may also be directed to the meaning of a speaker or writer by a previous acquaintance with the subject; but, for the purpose of speaking and writing, neither the most acute sagacity, the most in ventive powers, nor the most thorough knowledge of the subject will avail: not

only should we previously know the words expressive of the ideas to be conveyed, but we should also be intimately acquainted with their various shades of meaning, their inflections, grammatical concord, syntactical arrangement, and idiomatic forms.

This is sufficiently proved by experience: the greater number of those who listen to orators in the pulpit, at the bar, or in public assemblies, would be utterly incapable of speaking for five minutes on the subjects treated by those orators, although they may understand them perfectly. Very few are those who can write with ease and correctness, in their own language, on even the simplest subjects, whilst tens of thousands read and clearly understand the popular works. Persons of an ordinary capacity and with an ordinary education, are very nearly on an equality with the brightest geniuses and the most profound scholars, in the exercise of hearing and of reading; but the well-educated far surpass the ignorant in the power of speaking and writing: in fact, superior minds alone can approach perfection in these two arts. This remark applies with equal force to foreign idioms: they are often translated with considerable facility and correctness by persons who would be utterly unable to speak or write them with tolerable accuracy.

Impression and expression constitute the double object of language, and mark the principal subdivision and order of the study. Correct impressions are received from proper models, and correct expressions are produced by a judicious imitation of them. Models are of two kinds, men and books. The child, while acquiring the native tongue, is under the influence which he receives from the former: the mother, the nurse, his elder brothers and sisters, in fact, all those who approach him, act as living models. If they speak correctly, the little imitator has the benefit of a good pronunciation and accurate expressions; if incorrectly, he adopts unconsciously a defective mode of speaking.

The home-learner of a foreign language has not usually the advantage of living models; for the professor cannot, in his occasional lessons, adequately supply the place of those by whom childhood is surrounded: he must, therefore, have recourse to books. The reading of foreign authors, by translation, becomes the groundwork of his study, as hearing is the groundwork in the native tongue. Books present great facilities for studying the language in the absence of the teacher; they can, in point of matter and style, as well as by means of explanations accompanying them, be adapted to a beginner, and to every degree of capacity and proficiency. That the highest degree of perfection in reading, exclusively of pronunciation, can be attained, independently of any assistance from an instructor, is proved by experience; for self-instructed persons common. ly secure this object to the exclusion of the other departments of the study.

Books are a good substitute for men, when a language is learned away from the country where it is spoken. To read a work is to listen to its author; a language is then learned as practically and imitatively, by reading books, as by listening to men. The analogy between these two modes of proceeding is complete: translating the foreign books into the native tongue interprets the foreign idiom to the beginner, as the language of action interprets to the infant the meaning of the persons who speak the vernacular within his hearing. The one is learned from the writers as the other from the speakers.

In the vernacular tongue, the child left to himself acquires the pronunciation with the import of oral expression, as a natural consequence of his hearing it habitually, and remains ignorant of the written signs, which he subsequently learns by a special course of instruction based on his knowledge of the spoken words. In a similar way, but in an inverted order, the person who begins the study of a second language through the medium of books, gains at first a familiarity with its written form; he must, afterwards, by suitable exercises in hearing, be taught the import and pronunciation of the spoken words corresponding to the written words with which he is acquainted.

In the foreign, as in the native tongue, these two points,-reading and hearing,— are the most important, both as ultimate objects and as means of learning to speak and write. We must have long observed, in books and in conversation, what ideas people attach to words, before we can, in our turn, use these conventional signs in speaking or writing. Reading and hearing must, in a rational method, first be aimed at, as being the means through which imitation—the first law which presides over the acquisition of language-enables us to gain the power of speaking and writing. The study of the latter two branches will afterwards afford learners the opportunity of applying the second law,-analogy. The comprehension of what is written and spoken affords also the means of analyzing speech and deducing the science of language; it thus becomes the foundation on which is raised the reconstruction of it; analysis leads to synthesis.

Having assigned to each of the four branches its place and degree of importance, we will now, before entering on the details of the method by which their acquisition is best secured, conclude our general observations on the study of language by adverting to the impropriety of making grammar an introduction to it, at the same time examining in what a course of grammatical studies consists.

Grammar may be viewed in two lights, either as a collection of rules which serve to guide us in the expression of thought, or as an investigation of the principles of language deduced from the nature and relations of the ideas to be represented. In the first light, grammar, applying only to the facts of one language, is called particular, and constitutes an art; in the second, grammar, proposing to explain the nature of words and their relations by the nature and relations of the things which they represent, and also to account for the mode of using them by a consideration of the mental operations on which it depends, is said to be general, because it embraces the principles of all languages; it then constitutes a science, being founded on the universal and immutable laws of external nature and of the human mind. There are as many particular grammars as there are languages; whereas, there is only one general grammar, one science of language.

The art of grammar gives the rules for using the materials of one language; the science of grammar gives the rationale of all the facts of language. The art is local,— its rules are established by custom; the science is universal,-its principles are independent of custom. The former is available to those who possess the materials of one language, the latter to those who are acquainted with several idioms: the one, when studied at a proper time, is conducive to the acquisition of a critical knowledge of a language; the other affords no aid in this acquisition, but tends to exercise the higher powers of the mind.

Of these two departments of grammar, the art is the one more especially resorted to as an auxiliary to the study of a foreign language, because it is the record, and not the rationale, of the facts which, by exhibiting the usage of a language, has led people to presume that students could thus be made to conform to that usage. With regard to the science of grammar, no one can, consistently with reason, entertain the opinion that it is capable of affording assistance towards gaining skill in reading or speaking a foreign language; for it is evident that the power of philosophizing about language in general, and the power of using one in particular, are completely distinct. It is only through a confusion of terms, that the denomination of grammatical science is sometimes given to the theory of particular languages, when considered as auxiliary to their acquisition.

That little assistance is given by grammars in acquiring a language, appears from 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 generalized-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 great writers by them.

Although Hebrew is a most ancient language, yet it was only in the year 1040 of our era, 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, nor to David in the composition of his sublime psalms, nor to any other of the sacred writers.

Plato, among the Greeks, indulged in grammatical rescarches, as may be seen in his book "Cratylus;" but Aristotle, his disciple, was the first who analyzed 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 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 had, 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.

Long after the revival of letters, in the sixteenth century, Dépautère in France, and Lily in England, wrote, in doggerel 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. It was some time after, in the reign of Elizabeth, that the practice was first introduced of writing Latin exercises, against which the learned Ascham vehemently declaims; and, about the same period, regular dictionaries made their first appearance. But the system of teaching by grammar and writing exercises by the help of dictionaries, was not prevalent until about the middle of the seventeenth century; and, from that period, it may, without hesitation, be affirmed, that few celebrated practical Latinists have been known anywhere.

Before the introduction of these supposed aids, Latin was spoken and used actually as a living language by all literary men. Some of the most distinguished among these have declared, that practice in reading the classics and listening to their instructors,

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