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THE 
 
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 ANCIENT AND MODEM LANGUAGES 
 
 CONSroERED AS BRANCHES 
 
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 GENERAL EDUCATION. 
 
 i Library^ } 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 
 
 34 6 6c 348 BROADWAY. 
 
 1856. 
 

 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1956, 
 
 By D. APPLETON & CO. 
 
 in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the United States, for the 
 
 Sontbern District of New York. 
 
 / 
 
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 7 
 

 •'Am I wrong in believing that the tendencies of the age 
 are in favor of decreasing rather than increasing the 
 amount of time bestowed upon classical scholarship ? 
 
 " Unless I be so, the necessity of a limitation is appa- 
 rent." Dk. R. G. Latham, 
 
 " The interchange of ideas with the contemporaneoua 
 world, is of as much importance as the preservation of the 
 ideas of the past; and the tongues which men now speak 
 are those which men should learn to understand."' 
 
 8iR Robert Kane, 
 
 Never were the means of intellectual communication more need- 
 ed, than at the present day. Such is the spirit of the age, that the 
 members of different communities fraternize under the influence of 
 similar institutions, similar pursuits, and similar tastes. National- 
 ities merge into one great family : they are no longer separated by 
 seas and mountains ; steam navigation, railroads, and the electric 
 telegraph bring into contact the most distant countries. The cheap- 
 ness of travelling, the reduction of postage, and the free circulation 
 of the public press, which will soon be extended to all civilized na- 
 tions, will, not less than the rapidity of conveyance, bring them into 
 closer intimacy with each other, and thus aid in divesting them of 
 national antipathies and prejudices. The old barriers which igno- 
 rance, monopoly, and a want of international intercourse had raised 
 between them, are now, in .spite of the apparent hostility of political 
 parties and narrow-minded patriots, crumbling in every direction be- 
 fore the irresistible power of ^a generous and enlightened philanthropy. 
 Well conducted periodicals spread knowledge in the homes of the 
 humblest ; .and scientific associations call successively into the great 
 seats of industry the intellectual representatives of the civilized 
 world. Isolated labor is every where, and for every purpose, giving 
 
way to the spirit of association : instead of wrapping their discove- 
 ries in secrecy, men of all countries diffuse them as means of uni- 
 versal advancement. The competition of human industry which 
 the great capitals of the world have witnessed of late in their co- 
 lossal exhibitions, marks a new era of international communion ; by 
 creating among the nations of the earth a generous emulation in 
 art and practical science, it has imparted a powerful energy to 
 civilization, and cemented the great pact of universal fraternity and 
 mutual good will. War itself, though horrible as ever, has changed 
 \ts nature under this influence, and together with devastation, now 
 carries civilization in its train. Men, until now bitter foes, are no 
 longer but accidentally so, and wherever they meet on friendly 
 ground, they vie with each other in advancing the great interests 
 which concern mankind. This happy tendency towards close union 
 among nations, is farther shown by the growing taste which they 
 evince for the cultivation of each other's language, and which, 
 together with necessity, has made their study an essential part of 
 modern national education. 
 
 In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when Europe had just 
 emerged from barbarism, and the arts and sciences were at their 
 lowest ebb, the modern languages containing nothing worth read- 
 ing, the people could find the information they required only in the 
 languages of Greece and Rome. These were, indeed, efficient in- 
 \ struments of civilization ; they furnished the elements of liberal educa- 
 tion, and imparted intellectual life to the modern world. All 
 efforts were consequently directed towards them ; and as Europe, 
 with perhaps the exception of Italy, had then but very imperfect 
 dialects, those languages served to record the notions and opinions 
 of the time, and became the vehicles of communication between the 
 learned. Latin, especially, was to them really a living language ; 
 but it has, as well as Greek, lost its importance in proportion as 
 modern languages have been perfected and stored with knowledge 
 in every department. The ancient tongues having thus become 
 very limited in their use, and being studied no longer for their own 
 j sake, but only as a means, it has been asked whether modern langua- 
 * ges cannot supply their place entirely, and be studied both as an end 
 and as a means ? — which suggestion, as may be well imagined, has 
 drawn forth bursts of indignation from those trained exclusively in 
 the old scholastic course, and above all, from those who, deficient in 
 both ancient and modern languages, had been accustomed to look: 
 upon " classical " knowledge as the badge of " a gentleman." 
 
 We may as well at once declare, that we have no sympathy 
 with those who seem to fancy that they have sneered off the whole 
 controversy by \\\e contemptuous phrase, "dead languages," and 
 
whose views niav be best expressed in the words of the parson's son, 
 in Crabbers " Tales of the Hall : " 
 
 *♦ What can men worse for mortal brain contrive, 
 Than thus a hard dead language to revive ? 
 Heavens ! if a language once be fairly dead, 
 Let it be buried, not preserved and read, 
 The bane of every boy to decent station bred ; 
 If any good these crabbed books contain. 
 Translate them well, and let them then remain ; 
 To one huge vault convey the useless store. 
 Then lose the key, and never find it more." 
 
 (B. 16.) 
 
 Too many need to be reminded that the term dead^ as applied to 
 language, is not equivalent to lifeless or barren. It is not always 
 true that " a living dog is better than a dead lion ; " and the solemn 
 words, "he being dead yet speaketli," are true scarcely more of the 
 great departed, tlian of the language he spoke or wrote. We even 
 see no small gain in the possession of a language undefiled by tlie 
 vulgarizing associations, the cant, and slang, and gossip of daily life. 
 
 On the other hand, we are constrained to reject as invalid, not a 
 few of the arguments employed in defence of " classical " instruction. 
 We hear too much of the great benefit which the revival of ancient 
 literature rendered to the world in the middle ages, — a benefit 
 which has been transmitted even to our time, and which, it would 
 seem, requires us, if we would not be ungrateful, to maintain the 
 study of the ancient classics as thoroughly and extensively now as then. 
 The argument may not be put precisely in this form ; but it really 
 comes to this : else, what avails the declamation about " the classic 
 sun scattering the darkness of ages," and much to a similar effect k 
 We grant that the study of the Greek and the Roman languages' 
 and literature ought to be maintained, and that some members of the 
 community ought, for admitted reasons, to attain proficiency therein ; 
 but it surely does not follow, by any simple and unquestionable infe- 
 rence, that the whole body of our educated youth ought to devote 
 themselves to that study, — especially if, as is alleged, so many years 
 of severe labor are required for their tolerable mastery, — a period, 
 moreover, through which, from the nature of things, so few can pass, 
 as the large majority of pupils leave school at an early and imper- 
 fect stage of '' classical " attainment. If this be right, it must be 
 justified on other and quite independent ground. And yet those two 
 things, so widely different, are perpetually confounded. There are, in 
 fact, three questions which it is indispensable to disentangle and to keep 
 distinct : — 1st. The obligations of our modern literature to the ancient ; *^ 
 2d. The importance of preserving the ancient languages from neglect ^ 
 and oblivion ; 3d. The utility of subjecting all our youth indiseri- *- 
 
6 
 
 minately to a course of classical discipline. Too often have we occa- ' 
 sion to observe that arguments in favor really of the first, and still 
 oftener of the second of these positions, are perverted to the support 
 of the third. 
 / Again, we cannot grant the monopoly of aesthetic culture, so often 
 claimed for the ancient classics. The very word " classics " itself is 
 a sort of petrified expression of this fallacy. At the time when the 
 title was bestowed, its appropriateness was beyond a doubt; but 
 since the whole wealth of modem literature has been created, the 
 title has ceased to be exclusively applicable, and ought no longer to be 
 exclusively applied. Of our own English authors we need not speak ; 
 but when we have such writers in German as Wieland, and Goethe, 
 Kichter and Schiller ; in French as Bossuet, Voltaire, Moliere, and 
 Corneille ; in Italian as Dante, Tasso, Ariosto, and Machiavelli : — the 
 term " classics " ought never to be applied even to the immortal 
 productions of Greek or Eoman fame, without the word " ancient " 
 prefixed, by way of a saving clause in favor of modern classics, which 
 also well deserve the name. On this subject one of the stanchest 
 advocates of " classical " training very justly remarks: " The raptures 
 which some people seem to feel in perusing Homer and Virgil, Livy 
 and Tacitus', while they turn over the pages of Shakspeare and 
 Milton, Hume and Robertson, with coldness and indifi*erence, I hold 
 to be either pure afiectation, or gross self-delusion ; being fully satis- 
 fied that we are in no want of models in our own English tongue, 
 which, for depth of thought, soundness of reasoning, for truth of nar- 
 rative, and what has been called the philosophy of history, nay even 
 for poetical beauty, tenderness, and sublimity, may fairly challenge 
 comparison with the most renowned productions of antiquity." * -^ 
 We are M^ell aware that nothing very new can remain to be said 
 upon a topic so often debated ; yet as it is one of ever increasing im- 
 portance, we venture to lay before our readers the following few 
 pages, in which we have collected in condensed form the views of 
 those who have meditated most on the subject, and which, from their 
 being scattered through many volumes and various languages, may 
 ■well nave escaped the attention of even those most interested in the 
 cause of education. Not that in these matters we should blindly fol- 
 low every thing foreign ; nor should we always reject it merely on 
 account of its being so. What Mr. Cousin affirms of the true great- 
 ness of a people, essentially applies to education : — " It does not con- 
 sist in borrowing nothing from others, but in borrowing from all 
 whatever is good, and in improving whatever it appropriates." ^ In 
 
 * J. PiLLANS. The Rationale of School Discipline. Lect. iii. 
 ' V. Cousin. LcQons de Philosophie d VEcoU Normalc. 
 
e 
 
 another place this great philosopher wiys, " The science of education 
 is an essential branch of moral and political philosophy, and, like all 
 other departments of science worthy of that name, it has need of 
 being surrounded by the light of experience ; and to avoid the danger 
 of being misled by fantastic theories, we must lose no opportunity of 
 obtaining an accurate acquaintance with the vaiious systems of edu- 
 cation that are followed by all great civilized nations." * 
 
 Unfortunately, this branch of social science has not yet received 
 with us that share of attention to which its importance renders it 
 entitled : the consequence is, that, while our arts have made im- 
 mense progress, and our manufactures have undergone admirable 
 improvements, the art of instructing men is still subject to the baneful 
 influence of tradition and routine. Educational questions, like ques- 
 tions of law, are yet apt to be decided by precedent; and often a 
 subject continues to be studied, rather because antiquity has sanc- 
 tioned the practice, than because its value is clearly seen. But this 
 slavish idolatry of the past ossifies the human mind, and keeps it 
 in hopeless bondage. The world is now older than it was in the 
 days of our ancestors : they were our juniors; they had only their 
 own experience, we have theirs in addition to ours; our minds 
 are fed in our childhood with the fruit of their maturity ; we start 
 in our career with many advantages of which they were de- 
 prived : we, consequent!}^, ought to know more, and be more ca- 
 pable of discerning right from wrong. It is, then, contrary to 
 reason to sacrifice our views to theirs, and to make their opinions 
 the standard of our conduct. 
 
 The objects of instruction being now greatly multiplied, it must 
 be obvious to all, that the time formerly devoted to "classical" 
 learning must be proportionally shortened, to make room for the 
 study of branches of knowledge indispensable in our advanced state 
 of civilization. Availing ourselves of the favorable position in which 
 we are placed by the present state of educational science, we will, 
 therefore, before entering upon our subject, commence our inquiry 
 by briefly recapitulating the general principles of this branch of so- 
 cial science, introducing a general summary of the acquirements which 
 a complete education should comprise, in order to attach to each 
 study its relative importance, and thereby determine the branches of 
 learning and the departments of language most required at the pre- 
 sent day. 
 
 * V. Cousin. De V Education en Hollnnde. 
 

 ^ 'V!ft„. , 
 
 Education, the first want of society, proposes to confer on man 
 the highest improvement of which his hody^ his mind^ and his soul 
 are capable, with a view to secure his well-being, to fit him for so- 
 ciety, and to prepare him for a better world. Hence, general edu- 
 cation is divided into three branches — Physical^ Intellectual^ and 
 Moral. The first aims at hea lth, strength, and beauty ; the second, 
 at mental power and the acquisition of knowledge ; and the third, 
 at piety, justice, goodness, and wisdom. 
 
 To effect the gradual perfectibility of man's physical, moral, and 
 intellectual constitution, and to secure the various acquirements 
 which constitute his highest improvement, God has given him — in 
 addition to the instinctive impulses which he possesses in common 
 with other animals — physical, moral, and intellectual faculties, or in- 
 nate powers of action, susceptible of being improved, and which it is 
 his duty, as well as his interest, to cultivate within rational limits. 
 Consistently with his original freedom, he has been endowed with 
 the privilege of exerting over his faculties a voluntary control, by 
 which he can modify, regulate, and peifect them ; thus, he becomes 
 the subject of culture and discipline. Different from the animal 
 tribes, which reach the perfection of their being, not by gradual de- 
 velopment, but at once, and without the aid of education, he is a 
 progressive creature ; his powers are unfolded, and his acquisitions 
 made only through a process of slow and careful training. He has 
 to learn every thing, while they instinctively possess all the know- 
 ledge which they want. Education is the law of his nature, as un- 
 controllable and limited instinct is that of the brute. 
 
 41 1 thft aoq^ ^irftrnftnts which contribute towards human perfec- 
 tion, arise from a proper cultivation of the faculties. E^Sgrcise is the 
 source of that cultivation ; it is the vital principle of education. 
 Exercise affects the original powers of man's constitution in two 
 ways; it imparts to them energy in proportion to its quantity, and 
 generates peculiar qualities, aptitudes, or capacities, consistently 
 with its particular nature. But in the application of this great 
 principle, excess and exclusiveness must be avoided. An excessive 
 or exclusive exercise of any faculty would be as prejudicial as its 
 utter neglect. It is the preponderating activity of some one faculty 
 to the exclusion of others, or the over-indulgence in one particular 
 mode of its actions, which produces those inconsistencies of character, 
 
those aberrations of mind, often observed in men. Athouoh the 
 innate powers are few in number, the qualities, aptitudes, and 
 capacities to which their varied exercise, and their different degrees 
 of native activity give rise, are so numerous, so divereified, and so 
 opposite in their kind, that man may be the noblest, or the most 
 contemptible being of the creation, according as they are properly, 
 or improperly directed and exercised. Hence, although his organ- 
 ization is universal and invariable, his physical, moral, and intellec- 
 tual character, which depends on the qualities acquired, varies with 
 time, place, and the 2)r off i-ess of civilization. 
 
 The faculties have all their legitimate spheres of usefulness, and 
 the benefits to be derived from each depend on their harmonious 
 development. They are, in fact, different instruments, all of which 
 are indispensable for attaining man's possible perfection ; and, as 
 such, they require to be duly improved, and properly applied, to se- 
 cure the ends for which he was placed on this earth. Although 
 connected by secret ties, the faculties are yet so independent of 
 each other, that each demands special and distinct exercises for its 
 due cultivation. It is the noble office of education to direct their 
 natural activity, to extend and multiply their various energies, as 
 also to indicate the means by which they may best perform their 
 work, and by which they are most subservient to happiness. 
 
 In order to advance towards the threefold perfection, physical, 
 moral, and intellectual, education should take under her guidance 
 the faculties of man, as they gradually dawn, with a view to aid 
 their spontaneous action, and improve them by proper cultivation. 
 Al the moment of birth they are in complete torpor. The physical 
 faculties, are the firet which manifest themselves, because they are 
 indispensable to our existence ; next appear the moral faculties, to 
 direct the organs of sensation, and to secure the well-being of the 
 individual. The intellectual powers are usually the last to be in full 
 activity. Thus nature indicates the order to be followed in the suc- 
 cessive cultivation of these different classes of faculties, until the 
 general manifestation of them all permits their simultaneous train- 
 ing. The principle of slow progression runs through all that is 
 created to grow and improve. Gradation is an invariable law of 
 nature ; and it is in conformity to that law that the great art of 
 education consists. 
 
 Youth is the season of life assigned by Providence for giving 
 a proper direction to the faculties, for training the habits, and 
 laying the foundation of the physical, moral, and mental character. 
 Still, education does not end here: it continues throughout our earth- 
 ly existence. The discipline to which man is subjected while 
 young, ought to be considered only as a preparation for the great 
 1* 
 
10 
 
 education of life ; its primary object \s to enable him to improve 
 himself afterwards, and to adapt himself to the particular circum- 
 stances in which it shall please Providence to place him. 
 
 The threefold process which transforms the most helpless being 
 into the noblest work of God, is too vast in its details to per- 
 mit us to do justice to the subject in these few pages, which are 
 not offered as a treatise on education, but merely intended to exhibit 
 the fundamental principles of the Science of Education, on which 
 should be based the study of languages, the main object here under 
 consideration. They should be constantly kept in view, as no sys- 
 tem of instruction can be safe or successful, which has not its foun- 
 dation in a knowledge of the constitution of man, and which is not 
 formed with due regard to the end proposed in education. 
 
 /■" 
 f Physical Education has for its objects the preservation of health, 
 the cultivation of the physical faculties, and the acquisition of useful 
 arts and accomplishments. 
 
 Physical perfection may be said to consist in bodily strength and 
 beauty, which are the oflfspring of a healthy constitution and of well- 
 developed organs. The child generally comes into the world in a 
 healthy condition ; it is the duty of the educator, whether the parent 
 or his substitute, to preserve him so. Hygiene prescribes for this 
 object rules, w^hich are but too often neglected. It would be im- 
 possible to state the extent of injury done to humanity by the almost 
 universal ignorance of this important branch of the medical science. 
 The benefits of health are not confined to the individual ; they ex- 
 tend to the community and to the future generation. And not only 
 does health affect physical education, it has a direct influence on 
 moral and intellectual training. Health, in fact, is the foundation 
 of the whole edifice of education. The mind is incapable of exerting 
 all its energies and the heart its kindliest an^'ections, if the body is in 
 a state of debility or disease. 
 
 The connection between the body and the mind, and their re- 
 ciprocal dependence on each other, as established by physiology and 
 psychology, should never be lost sight of. An educator must under- 
 stand the animal economy of man, in order to study with advantage 
 his higher faculties. Whatever he attempts to teach, from the first 
 elements of knowledge to the higher truths of science, his success 
 will depend in a great measure on his acquaintance with the functions 
 of the human frame, and on the extent to which he acts in obedience 
 to the laws of physiology. The mental and the moral powers with 
 which the child is endowed, manifest themselves thi*5ugh the medium 
 of organization, and no plan which he can devise will be successful 
 for their cultivation, that is not in harmony with the laws which 
 regulate that organization. 
 
11 
 
 As the healthy development of the individual, as far as it can be 
 eflfected by a close attention to diet, sleep, cleanliness, air and cloth- 
 ing, devolves more particularly on the parent, we may leave this 
 matter further unnoticed here, and limit ourselves to a few brief 
 remarks on the cultivation of the physical powers and the acquisition 
 of useful arts and accomplishments. 
 
 So irresistible is the natural impulse which prompts to action the 
 muscles and limbs, that, in health, a positive pleasure arises from 
 their activity, although it may be accompanied with fatigue and even 
 danger: their inactivity is, on the contrary, a cause of much uneasi- 
 ness. A judicious training of these organs wound tend considerably 
 to improve the human frame. Grace of deportment, elegance of 
 manners, ease of motion, strength, activity, dexterity, and all that is 
 attractive and pleasing in the physical nature of man, depend, in a 
 great measure, on well-directed muscular exercise. 
 
 Gymnastic exercises afford the most effective means of cultiv^ating 
 and improving the muscular system and the locomotive organs. These 
 exercises, and all sports which demand physical activity, call the 
 muscles and bones into action, strengthen the limbs, and impart a 
 healthy tone to the organs: under their influence the blood circftlates 
 freely, the respiration is quickened, the digestion becomes active, the 
 nervous system is invigorated, and the redundant fluids are driven 
 off by perspiration. More attention should be paid to this branch 
 of hygiene, as it is important to a state to possess an active and 
 vigorous population. It was amongst the Greeks and the Romans, 
 the basis of national education. The great attention which they 
 paid to it contributed not a little to the success of their arms. The 
 Greeks, especially, were as a nation physically and intellectually a 
 superior race of men ; and there is every reason to believe that their 
 unrivalled attention to physical education was highly dnfluential in 
 producing this result. 
 
 Gymnastics embrace all the accomplishments of which the organs 
 of voluntary motion are the instrument", and which may be resorted 
 to as relaxation from mental labor. Still they should not be indis- 
 criminately pursued ; and, although they are generally beneficial, 
 yet as they have each their special sphere of physical improvement, 
 perseverance in any of them should be regulated by the particular 
 circumstances of the individual. In making a selection, therefore, 
 the preference should be given to tliose which favor most the culti- 
 vation of attention, demand most dexterity, are most consistent with 
 future pursuits, and present the greatest chance of utility in after 
 life. 
 
 •^^ Young persons should be induced to attend to manual occupa- 
 tions and useful arts, which might alternate with mental pui-suits ; 
 8uch occiipations and arts would not only be to them a never-failing 
 
12 
 
 source of amusement, but would give them early in life a command 
 of their hands, and would usefully exercise their organs of sense. 
 The excellence at which mere children often arrive in mechanical 
 operations and in some of the fine arts, as may have been seen at 
 a late exhibition of the New York Board of Education, sufficiently 
 proves the early natural capabilities of the physical powers, and the 
 law of nature, in regard to the order of physical and intellectual 
 education. 
 
 The activity of the physical faculties being always, in their de- 
 velopment, in advance of that of the mind, manual occupations not 
 only may be indulged in before intellectual exercises can be seriously 
 commenced, but serve as the best preparation for them ; because 
 most mechanical pursuits demand the co-operation of the mental 
 powers. They particularly exercise attention and perception ; they 
 incite a spirit of observation and invention ; they habituate the 
 mind to the formation of plans, and the observance of proportion ; 
 they bring out, in fact, every intellectual resource. 
 
 The practice of any art, even the simplest, is the application of 
 some of the principles of science : familiarizing young people with 
 facts illustrative of these, will, at a future period, render their study 
 of science more interesting and profitable, as presenting to them 
 innumerable opportunities of applying to practical utility the one in 
 which they may be thus engaged. Mechanical ingenuity has in 
 many instances given rise to intellectual pursuits of the first order. 
 Many discoveries in the arts, have led to the discovery of unknown 
 laws in nature, and of new principles in science ; for, in the progress 
 of knowledge, theory generally follows practice. Had Mongolfier 
 not been a practical as well as a scientific man, the hydraulic ram 
 might for ever have remained as speculative and useless a philosophi- 
 cal project as it was in the hands of Hales. 
 
 If children are accustomed to the use of tools, and are grad- 
 ually taught to work in paper, pasteboard, wood, and metals, as 
 their physical progress permits the difficulty to be increased, they 
 will soon acquire a mechanical skill which may, at a future time, 
 prove very beneficial to themselves and to others. Manual dexterity 
 makes us, in a great measure, independent of others, and gives us 
 the means of providing for our own comforts in most of the circum- 
 stances of life. It is indispensable in many professions, but particu- 
 larly to the votaries of natural philosophy. Those who have dis- 
 tinguished themselves in high conceptions in the sciences, and by 
 useful inventions in the arts, have, for the most part, early in hfe 
 displayed a taste for mechanical operations, and have constructed 
 with their own hands the instruments or apparatus necessary for 
 illustrating their discoveries. Archimedes fabricated his own wonder- 
 
18 
 
 ful machines ; Galileo made his own telescopes ; Torricelli his barome- 
 ters ; Michael Anorelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Roarer Bacon, Benjamin 
 Franklin, Kepler, Herschel, Pascal, Newton, Watt, Fulton, Brindley, 
 Humphrey Davy, Cuvier, Morse, Babbage, Lord Rosse, and many 
 others, were aided by their mechanical skill in gaining celebrity, 
 fortune, and the enviable glory of being the benefactors of mankind. 
 
 Locke and J. J. Rousseau have recommended mechanical pur- 
 suits — the first as a substitute for " the useless and dangerous pas- 
 time of fashion," the second as a provision against adversity. We 
 go farther, and advocate such pursuits as necessary accompaniments 
 to, and powerful means of intellectual education, and as the great 
 instruments of civilization. Labor and industry are for nations the 
 safest means of prosperity, as they are for individuals the purest 
 sources of property and independence. Hence the industrial ele- 
 ment should enter more largely than it usually does in primary edu- 
 cation. Indeed, no system of education is complete which does not 
 provide, by due attention to useful arts, for the activity of the physical 
 powers, for relaxation from mental labor, and against reverses of for- 
 tune. There is no station in society, be it ever so high, which may 
 dispense with them altogether. Many instances might be recorded 
 in which powerful princes have derived benefit from skill in manual 
 occupations. By a law of Solon, the children whose parents had 
 neglected to have them instructed in some profitable trade, were re- 
 lieved from the obligation of maintaining them in their old age. 
 
 But however important physical training may be, it should be 
 kept within judicious bounds, as an excessive activity of the physical 
 faculties is usually acquired at the expense of higjjier faculties. It is a 
 well-known fact, that mental excellence is rarely the portion of those 
 who devote much care and time in increasing the volume of their body 
 and the force of their muscles. We ought to seek in muscular ac- 
 tion only a means of health and diversion, without aiming at a su- 
 periority which is not consistent with the occupation of a highly 
 cultivated mind. " Men," observes Londe, " who give themselves up 
 exclusively to muscular exertions, are deficient in sensitiveness, moral 
 tact, reflection, and intellectual labor." ^ "It would be ditScult," 
 aays also Richerand, " to find in history the example of a man who 
 has combined with the physical powers, which the muscular tem- 
 perament implies, distinguished strength of the intellectual faculties. 
 For excellency in the fine arts and in the sciences, there is need of 
 exquisite sensibility, a condition absolutely at variance with much de- 
 velopment of the muscular masses." " Tissot's aphorism will be 
 
 * Gymncutiqm M^ieale. ' Nouveava. Elements de Physiologie. 
 
14 
 
 found true, in general, that " the man who thinks the most digests 
 the woi'st, and vice versaj he who thinks the least digests the 
 best." 1 
 
 > 
 
 Moral Education has for its object the cultivation and direc- 
 tion of the moral faculties, so as to enable us, through their means, 
 first, to acquire the virtues and fulfil the duties required by our con- 
 dition as creatures of God, and social beings; and secondly, to imbibe 
 the sentiments and inclinations which can insure individual happiness. 
 
 The moral faculties which education proposes to cultivate and di- 
 rect, in order to unfold the qualities which constitute moral acquire- 
 ments, and to advance towards moral perfection, are. Self-love^ 
 Sym'patliy^ Curiosity^ Conscience^ and Will. 
 
 These moral faculties, like the physical faculties, are inherent in 
 our nature; they exist in every individual, independently, of exercise 
 or reflection ; but their activity is greater or less, according to their 
 original degree of energy, which varies in different individuals, and 
 according, also, as they have, or have not been cultivated : whereas 
 the moral acquirements, that is, the consciousness of duties, the vir- 
 tues, affections, and inclinations which proceed from these faculties, 
 and which constitute the elements of inety^ justice^ goodness and 
 wisdom, exist in man only as a consequence of the predominating 
 energy of certain faculties, or inasmuch as they have been inculcated 
 by suitable example and exercise. Apprenticeship is as essential for 
 acquiring benevolence, disinterestedness, prudence, and patience, as 
 it is for attaining skill in any gymnastic feat or handicraft trade. 
 The law of exercise is universal in its application. Moral precepts 
 may be brought to the aid of practice ; but, to be effective, they 
 must be the generalization of good and virtuous acts which have 
 previously come under the notice of the child; otherwise they liave 
 no meaning. A precept of morality is an abstraction ; and it is not 
 by abstractions, by definitions, or by general principles, that virtue 
 can be deeply inculcated in the hearts of children. Good habits, 
 fostered by exara|)Ie, are the foundation of a truly moral education. 
 
 By dint of doing what is right, we at length find it difficult to 
 do what is wrong. " Make sobriety a habit," says Lord Brougham, 
 *' and intemperance will be hateful and hard : make prudence a ha- 
 bit, and reckless profligacy will be as contrary to the nature of the 
 child grown an adult, as the most atrocious ci'imes are to any of us. 
 Give a child the habit of sacredly regarding the truth, of carefully 
 respecting the property of others, of scrupulously abstaining from all 
 acts of improvidence which can involve him in distress, and he will 
 
 ^ De la Sante des Gens de Letlres. 
 
15 
 
 just as little think of lying, or cheating, or stealing, as of rushing 
 into an element in which ho cannot breathe."' 
 
 Still, practice has its liinits: a bhnd and excessive indulgence of 
 ^gZ/'-Zore would produce egotism ; of AS'ym^^a^/iy, weakness ; of Cu- 
 riosity^ indiscretion; of Conscience^ irresolution; and of Will^ obsti- 
 nacy. Excess in the moral acquirements would be equally injurious. 
 Benevolence may instigate to generosity, at the expense of justice; 
 a father may carry firmness to tyranny, and a mother the love of 
 her child to blamable indulgence ; blind patriotism may engender 
 avei*sion for other nations. Whether we aim at the cultivation of 
 faculties, or at the acquisition of moral qualities, excess and exclu- 
 siveness must be carefully avoided. 
 
 It is the sacred duty, as it is the noblest privilege, of parents to 
 secure for their children, and to disseminate through society, the be- 
 nefits of moral education. But, among the numerous portion of the 
 population whose life is consumed in incessant labors, and to whose 
 industry, fatigue, and privations the nation is indebted for its wealth 
 and power, parents are often deprived of sufficient leisure to watch 
 over their offspring, or are destitute of the moral character indispen- 
 sable for guiding them in the path of duty and virtue; well informed 
 educators should therefore supply their deficiency. A portion of the 
 revenues of the state could not be better employed than in moralizing 
 and improving those who contribute so largely to them. Secular 
 education ought to be under the superintendence of government, and 
 enforced upon the people by legislative enactment. 
 
 There are still persons who object to this interference with pa- 
 rental authority and private speculation, as an infringement upon 
 the liberties of the people; but they forget three things — first, that 
 the child belongs to the state as well as to the family ; secondly, that 
 the great majority of parents are much in need of direction for 
 the proper training of their children ; thirdly, that the unavoidable 
 influence for good or evil of the teachers over youth, makes it impe- 
 rative on the part of society to examine their qualifications, and 
 superintend the discharge of their office, in order to secure the com- 
 munity from the dreadful consequences of ignorance, imbecility, or 
 immorality on their part. 
 
 It may be inconsistent with liberty to force a special instruction 
 upon the people, because the kind of instruction best for individuals 
 being a matter of opinion, it is neither just nor proper to impose 
 any in particular ; but moral education^ exclusive of religious dis- 
 tinctions, does not differ in kind with the social position and the 
 future avocation of children. Morality is one and the same for all, 
 and is imperative upon all ; the tranquillity, the prosperity, the veiy 
 existence of society depend upon it. We do not see how its being 
 
16 
 
 made obligatory, or how the right, on the part of the state, to in- 
 stitute, superintend, and inspect educational establishments, could 
 interfere with the liberty of the people, any more than the obliga- 
 tion to pay taxes, refrain from dishonesty, or submit to the intrusion 
 and inquisitiveness of custom-house officers. The compulsory moral- 
 ization of the depraved is far more justifiable and more consistent 
 with liberty, than the compulsory detention of mendicants, or the 
 prohibition of the sale of intoxicating liquors. 
 
 That legislative interference with national education is consistent 
 with the respect due to parental authority and to private industry, 
 is so manifest, that the principle is carried out with general satisfac- 
 tion, and almost without opposition in this country, ^vhere the rights 
 of individuals and the liberty of conscience are more largely recog- 
 nized than any where else. Plato and Aristotle, Washington and 
 Jefferson, all stanch republicans, are among its warmest advocates. 
 The legislature of a free and civilized country is not only entitled, 
 but is bound to provide the most efficient means of preventing immo- 
 rality from entailing degradation and barbarism on the nation. A 
 government which does not give moral education to the people, has 
 no right to expect from them order and support ; nor can the law, 
 consistently with justice, punish faults which have been committed 
 in the absence of the moral consciousness which it is the object of 
 good education to impart. In fact, the nearer to perfection and the 
 more general education is, the less will the laws need to punish. 
 
 The venerable Von Tiick, the present Head of the Orphan 
 House in Potsdam, acting under the influence of this truth, has set 
 to the world an illustrious example of self-denial and Christian 
 charity. A nobleman by birth, and for fourteen years a judge in 
 one of the courts of Pru'^sia, he had, during his practice in this high 
 office, to try so many criminal cases arising solely from the early 
 neglect of the education of the culprits, that he at last felt reluctant 
 to pronounce sentence of condemnation upon them ; and, impressed 
 with the subHme truth that the teacher who saves his fellow-citizens 
 from committing crimes, does more good than the magistrate who 
 waits for their perpetration to inffict punishment, he resigned his 
 office, with all its honors and emoluments, to become an educator. 
 It is especially among that numerous portion of the people, the la- 
 borers and operatives, that moral principles should be early imbibed 
 and virtuous habits formed. The interest of society and their own 
 happiness require, above all, that they should be impressed with the 
 conviction that, if knowledge opens the road to success, virtue is in- 
 finitely superior to knowledge, and that piety, justice ^ goodness, and 
 wisdom, are the greatest blessings of education, and the acquirements 
 most worthy of their ambition. 
 
Intellectual Education consists in two dislinct oojects — the 
 cultivation of the intellectual faculties properly defined as Education^ 
 and the consequent acquiring of knowledge, called Instruction. 
 
 Hence we see that instruction is only one of the subdivisions of 
 education. The latter has for its object the perfecting of the whole man, 
 considered physically, morally, and intellectually ; instruction pro- • 
 poses solely to store his mind with information. Education is a generic^ 
 instruction a sj)€cific term. These words, education and instruction^ 
 educator and instructor^ must not be confounded one with the other. 
 
 The intellectual, like the physical and moral faculties, should be 
 cultivated by exercises calculated to produce their greatest devel- 
 opment, and tending to secure intellectual acquirements. It is 
 on the external world, and through the medium of his senses, that 
 the child can most profitably exercise his opening intellect. His 
 sensations and curiosity constantly call his intellectual powers into 
 play, while conscience and will direct their action. On the other 
 hand, physical and moral life require, to be guided by the light of in- 
 tellect. Thus are the operations of the mind intimately connected 
 with those of the body and of the soul. The diff'erent orders of fa- 
 culties assist each other through the whole course of education ; but, 
 although the physical and moral development during infancy and 
 childhood subserves intellectual education, this education is in full ac- 
 tivity only from the tenth or twelfth year. It is, therefore, from that 
 age only that exclusively mental studies should be commenced. 
 
 The universal admission that success in life and personal consid- 
 eration, depend on intellectual development and extensive knowledge, 
 have led many, in their ignorance of physiological principles, to 
 force mental labor on young children. But in most cases, both the 
 nnnds and bodies of th(?. 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, regard- 
 less of the manifest designs of nature, condemn young children to 
 sedentary occupations, and force intellectual acquirements upon their 
 tender minds, at the risk of unduly exciting the nervous system, in- 
 juring the brain, and undermining the constitution. So close is the 
 immediate connection between mind and body, that the former can- 
 not be over-exerted without the latter feeling the baneful effects of 
 the undue excitement. 
 
 The most eminent physicians of ancient and modern times pro- 
 claim the fatal influence which overstraining the mind of youth has 
 on the health and bodily frame. Of the numerous medical authori- 
 
18 
 
 ties which vie could bring forward on this point, we will confine our- 
 selves to one, that of the celebrated Tissot, who says : — " Long con- 
 tinued application in childhood destroys life. I have seen young 
 children of great mental activity, who manifested a passion for learn- 
 ing 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 veiy weak minds. No 
 custom is more improper or cruel than that of some parents, who 
 require of their children much intellectual labor and gi-eat 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 stu- 
 dies upon their children, abound in facts which prove the truth of 
 these observations. Intellectual precocity is but too frequently at- 
 tended 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 labor. 
 
 " 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 enjo}" 
 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 education ought to precede that of the in- 
 tellect, and then simultaneously with it, without cultivating one fa- 
 culty to the neglect of others ; for health is the base, and instruction 
 the ornament of education." ^ 
 
 The mental faculties which education proposes to cultivate are : 
 Attention, Perception. Conception, Memorij, Imagination and Judg- 
 ment. These faculties have for their common object the acquisition 
 of knowledge, or instruction, constituting intellectual acquirements ; 
 each performs a particular oflSce in the complicated mental process 
 by which that acquisition is made. The possession in the various 
 qualities of which they are susceptible would constitute an active and 
 
 ^ De la Sante des Gens de Lcttrea. 
 
 ' View of the Elementary Principles of Education. 
 
19 
 
 well-regulated mind ; the greatest advantage which intellectual edu- 
 cation can bestow. 
 
 The intellectual faculties exist oriorinally in all raen ; but they, 
 no less than the physical and moral, vary in every individual in 
 quality and degree of activity, each giving rise to a variety in con- 
 sciousness, aptitude, and capacity. Some persons are endowed with 
 greater powers of perception, and others of conception. In some, 
 memory predominates ; in others, imagination ; and in others, judg- 
 ment ; in many, sensation prevails over reason. One individual re- 
 ceives clearer ideas from sensations of sight, another from those of 
 hearing, and so forth, as the eye, the ear, or the other organs are 
 naturally more active or correct. Some memories retain facts better ; 
 othei-s, places ; others words ; others, tunes, &c., according to the pe- 
 culiar energy of the perceptive powers which take fognizance of 
 these different classes of objects. Imagination is in one person more 
 inventive, in another more imitative; some are prone to deductive, 
 others to inductive reasoning. These differences among men are again 
 indefinitely multiplied by the reciprocal influence which the different 
 orders of faculties have over each other. The predominance of cer- 
 tain moral faculties modifies the course of ideas, as the predominance 
 of certain intellectual faculties modifies the affections and inclina- 
 tions. Hence, the diversity of taste, or genius, as it is called, which 
 is early manifested for difi'erent pursuits. The infinite variety of 
 nature, in physical complexion and outward form, is but the symbol ' 
 of that which marks the spirit within. 
 
 Every intellectual pursuit in early life ought to have for its prin- 
 cipal object to invigorate the faculties, and to produce, by means of 
 appropriate exercises, the highest degree of activity of which the 
 mind is capable. All persons have not equal need of the different 
 branches of instniction taught in schools, and they may difl'er in 
 opinion as to their degree of utility; but all will agree that habits of 
 reflection, investigation, and reasoning, are useful to every individual, *• 
 and at every period in life. The literary and scientific information 
 collected in youth is not unfrequently laid aside in maturity to make 
 room for the practical business of active life, with which it has often no 
 connection ; but high mental capacity is never lost, and is always 
 productive of real benefit. 
 
 A method of instruction which would exclusively rest on the ac- 
 tion of a single faculty, whatever might be its apparent success, would 
 be most prejudicial to the intellect. Even imagination, which is often 
 checked in young people, ought to have its due share of exercise : it 
 performs an active part in learning and applying language. All the p 
 fine arts, among which maybe placed the art of expressing thought, \ 
 owe their best productions to the richness and vigor of that faculty. S 
 
20 
 
 However, if any be entitled to more exercise than others, these are 
 attention and judgment — attention above all, that manifester of the 
 will, that eye of the mind, without which the other faculties would 
 remain dormant. The powerful influence which attention and judg- 
 ment have in all the affairs of life, demand that they should act a 
 prominent part in the process of education. They are the guides 
 which direct us in the use of the other faculties and render their ac- 
 tion efficient. 
 
 Memory, although holding also an important place relatively to 
 the acquisition of knowledge, demands less specific exercise than the 
 other intellectual powers, because the use of it is necessarily involved 
 in their action. Besides, it has abundant employment during the fiist 
 periods of y#uth, in storing up the facts impressed through the 
 senses upon the mind, and retaining the corresponding native words. 
 As it predominates in childhood, we are apt to resort to it as a gene- 
 ral instrument of instruction ; but its exclusive cultivation only tends 
 to make learned fools. 
 
 This faculty, it is true, early manifests itself, but it never exists 
 alone : the others begin their action much sooner than persons ge- 
 nerally imagine. Children are capable of attention and reflection ; 
 they have imagination and judgment ; they observe, they invent, 
 they reason, as actively as adults, with this difference, that their 
 sphere of mental activity is confined to matters of comparatively 
 little importance. Their intellectual constitution differs from ours 
 only in degree. If we wish to exercise and improve it, we must 
 offer to their consideration objects suited to the weakness of their 
 minds, and the use and purport of which they can understand, and 
 which may be congenial to their tastes and feelings. 
 
 The second part of intellectual "education — the acquisition of 
 knowledge — embraces all nature. There exists nothing, from the 
 imperceptible atom to the most sublime object in creation — from the 
 simplest phenomena of our existence to the impenetrable mysteries 
 in which the Divinity is veiled — that man does not desire to know, 
 or does not make an object of serious study. 
 
 Such are the wise provisions of the Maker of all things, that not 
 only are the external world and its relations to our constitution so 
 arranged as to hold forth to us every inducement to cultivate our fa- 
 culties, but the very acquiring of knowledge is the most efficient 
 means by which those faculties can be cultivated and improved. In- 
 struction is the natural nourishment of the mind, and it is as necessary 
 for its growth as food is for that of the body. 
 
 Intellectual acquirements had been for a long 1:ime the sole ob- 
 ject of education, when all at a sudden the cultivation of the facul- 
 ties was, on account of its great importance in childhood, exclusively 
 
21 
 
 recommended by some educationist. Those, however, who have 
 meditated most on the subject, think the right course to He between 
 these extremes, and that the two departments of intellectual training 
 should always be combined. 
 
 The acquisition of knowledge and the development of the men- 
 tal faculties lend to each other reciprocal assistance; for, if the mental 
 activify which is employed in the study of any branch of instruction 
 invigorates the faculties, a high intellectual development must, on the 
 other hand, considerably facilitate the acquisition of knowledge. It 
 is by devoting an equal attention to these two points that the end of 
 intellectual education will be gained, and that we shall secure to our 
 children inexhaustible sources of enjoyment, means of success in their 
 respective professions, the power of being useful to others, and an 
 honorable place in society. 
 
 In order to facilitate the acquisition of knowledge, it has been 
 classified according to the faculties on which its different branches 
 more particularly depend. 
 
 The branches of information which chiefly call for the exercise of 
 memory, consist in the simple record of the things and facts which 
 attention and perception bring under the cognizance of the mind. 
 The study of them is only an act of the memory which collects truths ; 
 hence they may be classed under the name of Histories. 
 
 Those which depend on reasoning, are acquired by starting from 
 known things and facts with a view to arrive, by a series of inductive 
 or deductive arguments at such as are unknown : the object of any 
 train of reasoning is the elucidation of known truths, or the discovery 
 of those which are unknown. When the truths which we investi- 
 gate are universal, immutable, and linked in a chain of ratiocination, 
 they constitute what is called a Science. It is the purport of science 
 to lay down general principles. 
 
 The application of the truths retained by memory or discovered 
 by reasoning, to the practical uses of life, whether for gratification 
 or well being, constitutes a third series of information, which takes 
 the name of Art. An art is therefore the practical realization of 
 thought — the application of general principles to particular facts. 
 This n:^me is also given to a collection of fixed and general rules, 
 which serve to guide us in that application. 
 
 This third class of acquirements demands the action of the phy- 
 sical organs for their execution, whilst the principles on which they rest 
 are within the sphere of the intellectual powers. The knowledge of 
 these principles is of great assistance to carry the arts to their highest 
 degree of perfection. He who practises an art without the knowledge 
 of the principles on which it is founded, will never be any thing but 
 
22 
 
 a simple mechanic ; be cannot pass the narrow limits of routine, or 
 surmount difficulties as they present themselves. 
 
 The arts which imagination creates by imitation and analogy con- 
 tribute to the luxury and enjoyment of intellectual life ; they exalt 
 the mind by extending its sphere of action above common nature : 
 such is the object of the fine arts. * 
 
 The arts are said to be liberal when the action of the moral and 
 mental faculties predominates in their execution, and mechanical 
 when they chiefly depend on the physical faculties, or when the 
 habit of execution in them dispenses with the action of the reasoning 
 power. 
 
 Memory, reasoning, and imagination are then respectively exer- 
 cised on three classes of knowledge, History^ Sciences and the Arts ; 
 for, although all the mental powei-s take a share in the study of 
 every branch of knowledge, yet each of these three faculties predomi- 
 nates in the class which we have assigned to it. 
 
 History, Science, and Art again are classified each into their de- 
 partments, according as they relate to nature^ to man^ or to language. 
 These three departments embrace all the information which may 
 become an object of human consideration. 
 
 The various branches of knowledge included in the above classi- 
 fication are very numerous, and have latterly been so multiplied that 
 it is impossible for a single individual to embrace them all ; some 
 sciences have even been carried so far that it almost requires the ex- 
 clusive exertion of a long life to reach their utmost extent. The pe- 
 riod of education being, moreover, for the great majority of young 
 persons, restricted within narrow limits, it becomes indispensable, in 
 a rational system of public instruction, to confine the objects of study 
 to such branches of knowledge as best discipline the intellect and at 
 the same time are of practical utility through life. The information 
 most required by individuals varies indefinitely with their diversified 
 pursuits in social life ; but that which offers the best prospect of 
 being useful in all situations, and which should have the precedence 
 over the others is, we think, an acquaintance with the laws of nature. 
 True knowledge is, in fact, nothing but the interpretation of nature. 
 In nature may be found all the elements of our ideas, all the princi- 
 ples of our senses, all the models of our arts, and endless sources of 
 moral and religious sentiments. 
 
 The physical sciences, which have for their object the investiga- 
 tion of the natural laws, are suitable to the different periods of youth, 
 and are useful to all classes of people ; they exercise the perceptive 
 powers, enrich the memory with facts and words, excite and gratify 
 imagination to the highest degree, prompt to investigation, and 
 inspire a taste for learning, Although they are not, perhaps, the 
 
23 
 
 best calculated for making profound reasoners, they do not material- 
 ize instruction, as affirmed by some persons ; they on they contrary 
 cultivate effectively the moral and the intellectual faculties. No lit- 
 erary composition engages the moral feelings and religious sense 
 more vividly than the grandeur and perfection of the material 
 world ; none exercises the judgment more usefully than the applica- 
 tion of analysis and induction to the phenomena of nature. 
 
 The lower animals, under the influence of instinct, blindly follow 
 the course which unerring wisdom has marked out for them ; man 
 alone has the discretionary power of conforming to the laws of na- 
 ture or transgressing them, according as he is, or is not acquainted 
 with them : in resisting them, he abuses his intelligence and liberty, 
 and these valuable gifts become fatal to him ; in obeying them, he, 
 on the contrary, is enabled to avoid almost all the ills of life. A know- 
 ledge of nature is, therefore, indispensable in order to enable him to 
 act consistently with his destination. 
 
 The intimate relations which exist between external nature and 
 the human constitution, render the latter an indispensable subject of 
 study in connection with the former. Man should know his own 
 organization, physical, moral, and intellectual, to be able to under- 
 stand what are his duties to God, to society, and himself, because he 
 is framed in perfect adaptation to these duties. This comprehensive 
 study of man which, under the name of philosophy, embraces his 
 relations with the universe, and all investigations respecting primary 
 and final causes, would make us better acquainted with the Author 
 of nature, with His laws, His commands, and all the great moral 
 and intellectual truths. Should it not lead to this knowledge, it 
 would be unworthy of our meditation, and ought not to enter into 
 the circle of academic studies. 
 
 If we now consider knowledge as an instrument for unfolding 
 the powers of the mind, it must be admitted that, although no parti- 
 cular department of study possesses the privilege of exercising them 
 all, some are more than others conducive to this object. In this 
 respect, literary and philosophical studies seem to claim preference, 
 as the fittest for effecting an harmonious development of the intel- 
 lectual energies most required in active life. 
 
 Mathematics, far from being, as commonly believed, the best logi- 
 cal discipline, would, if studied exclusivelt/, rather tend to disqualify 
 the mind for general reasoning. They confine the student to a nar- 
 rower circle of mental exercises than languages and philosophy : they 
 habituate him to a routine of demonstration which presents little va- . 
 riety ; they awaken his judgment to a relation of quantity, neglect- 
 ing quality and all other important relations. They do not call 
 fc»rth the intellectual powers most useful under all circumstances, 
 
24 
 
 such as observation, comparison, generalization, classification, induc- 
 tion, analogy, which may all be brought into activity, and invigo- 
 rated by the study of languages and philosophy. 
 
 In every step in mathematical demonstrations, there is a constant 
 perspicuity, a straight and limited path marked out, from which it is 
 almost impossible to wander. But, in attending to philosophical, 
 ethical, or literary investigations, the learner has to feel his way, re- 
 flect, compare, judge, apply his own experience, weigh probabilities, 
 disentangle net-works of inconsistencies, and lay bare sophistical 
 plausibilities. In this necessity for a diversified and complicated ac- 
 tion of the reasoning powers consists the chief value of. literary and 
 philosophical studies. 
 
 The precision of mathematical expression affords no example of 
 those fallacies which so frequently arise from the ambiguities 
 of ordinary language ; nor does mathematical demonstration allow 
 room for sophistry of thought, or for the consideration of improbabi- 
 lities ; because its matter always enforces the correctness of its form, 
 and the certainty of its conclusions ; the exact sciences do not conse- 
 quently provide means of detecting and avoiding logical errors. 
 Hence it is that mathematicians are not unfrequently led to one or 
 other of two opposite extremes — credulity or scepticism. 
 
 These observations are corroborated by the testimony of the most 
 competent judges — Locke, Condiilac, d'Alembert, Descartes, Pascal, 
 Destutt-Tracy, Warburton, Goethe, Franklin, Gibbon, Dugald Stewart, 
 and many others, whose opinions have been recorded by a late writer 
 in an able dissertation on the subject. ^ 
 
 Those who have been exclusively engaged in the exact sciences, 
 accustomed to follow a train of deductive reasoning, and to draw 
 conclusions from fixed principles and from data passively received, 
 are liable to err from limited observation and disregard of undemon- 
 strated truth ; they require mathematical proofs in every thing, and 
 are apt to reject moral or probable evidence, although propriety of 
 conduct and justness of opinion, in most of the affairs of life, chiefly 
 rest on such evidence. " Nothing," says Madame de Stael, '* is less 
 applicable to the business of life than a mathematical argument." ^ 
 But, in the study of languages, the understanding is engaged as in the 
 world ; we find in both the same deahng with words and ideas, the 
 same caution and discrimination between rules and exceptions, the 
 same mixed relations and contending principles, the same exercises 
 of conception, imitation, and invention : finally, the same methods of 
 induction, analogy, and analysis. 
 
 ' Edinburgh Review, No. CXXVI. 
 ' De VAUe-magne, t. i.» ch. 18. 
 
25 
 
 But, when we thus assign a greater value to literary studies than 
 to those of mathematics, it must be well observed that this is only 
 considering them exclusively as instruments of mental training ; for 
 no one can deny the usefulness of the exact sciences as elements of 
 professional instruction, or dispute the expediency of leaving them as 
 co-ordinate to find their level among the other branches of a liberal 
 education. Not only are they the groundwork of mechanics, as- 
 tronomy, optics, navigation, surveying, and other sciences, but, al- 
 though restricted in their mode of argumentation, they tend to com- 
 plete the cultivation of the reasoning powers, by the synthetical and 
 exact process through which conclusions are deducted fi*om their 
 principles. They add to man's power as a thinker, and, hence, as a 
 speaker and a writer. Besides, the more divei-sified the ideas which 
 the mind acquires, and concerning which it reasons, the more ex- 
 panded will be its capabilities. " No education," says Dr. Whewell, 
 can be considered as liberal which does not cultivate both the fa- 
 culty of reason and the faculty of language, one of which is culti- 
 vated by the study of mathematics, and the other by the study of 
 the classics. To allow the student to omit one of these is to leave 
 him half educated." ^ 
 
 Must, then, every one indiscriminately be instructed in all the 
 above branches and in so many others which form now part of a 
 liberal education, is a question which here naturally presents itself. 
 Leaving aside Utopian views, which have never yet been realized, 
 and taking the world as it is, we are obliged to answer in the ne- 
 gative; for although all physical, moral, and intellectual qualities 
 which constitute the perfection of human nature are desirable in 
 every individual, whatever be his position in life, it must neverthe- 
 less be granted that certain oflSces, professions and pursuits require 
 for their successful fulfilment the predominance of particular qualities 
 and special branches of knowledge. Now if we take a survey of the 
 difierent classes of persons claiming education from the State, we 
 shall find that there are three classes whose positions in society and 
 vocations in life, are so distinct that they cannot possibly reach perfec- 
 tion by the same kind of training. There are, in the first place, 
 those who are destined with material means to work on matter — 
 laborers and artisans. Then there is a large class of men whose 
 destiny it is to work on the same external world, but by intellectual 
 means ; thus a mason works on stone and lime with his hands, an 
 architect with his mind. Lastly, there is a class of persons in society 
 whose high privilege it is to work by mind upon mind^to this class 
 statesmen, clergymen, teachers of youth, hterary and scientific men 
 
 * The Principles of English University Education. 
 
26 
 
 of all kinds belong. This classification, however, it must be well ob- 
 served, is not in all countries equally distinct : in some it is syste- 
 matic, in others accidental^ arising from political principles so to- 
 tally different, that a system of national education which is the 
 height of perfection for one, may be utterly unfit for another. In 
 Russia, for instance, where the population is divided into several 
 castes, distinctly separated, and intended to be so, each class is 
 educated by itself, and instructed in such branches as are most 
 likely to make them realize their expectations in life, without 
 allowing them to pass the limit by which their place has been 
 marked out on the scale of social categories. This system may 
 perfectly suit the existing state of things in a country where 
 rank and distinction are» the fundamental principles of the social 
 body, but it can never find its application amongst us, where no re- 
 cognized superiority exists but that of virtue, knowledge, abilities, and 
 industry. The same reasons will aways prevent our following the 
 course adopted in most German States, where education is given in 
 separate schools (Volksschulen, Mittel or Biirgerschulen, and Gymna- 
 sia or Gelehrte Schulen) to correspond to the three classes of so- 
 ciety referred to above. ^ Much less can we take model on England 
 where no system of education exists, save that of buying instruc- 
 tion, hke other commodities, for money, or receiving it from charity. ' 
 Wherever education is controlled by the State we will find it 
 organized on the same plan as society itself; and if schools are, as 
 we think they ought to be, an introduction to the world, they should, 
 in every particular, be framed on the same principle, to be at all a 
 preparation for practical life. Thus in a country where no social 
 distinction is intended, but only accidentally exists, there is not only 
 no need of separate education, but even it seems contrary to Free 
 Institutions not to have all educated in common. Kot that the 
 same kind of knowledge is the most suited to all conditions in 
 life, nor does common education imply that all should be con' 
 fined to that kind of learning which is appropriate to clergymen, 
 to qualify them for ploughmen, mechanics, engineers, merchants, 
 lawyers or physicians ; it only requires its course to be so regulated 
 that, while leading directly to the highest branches of learning, their 
 
 * Dr. F. E. Beneke, Erziehungs und Unterrichts-lehre. 
 
 ' " England," says Horace Mann, " is the only one among the nations 
 of Europe, conspicuous for its civilization and resources, which has not 
 and never has had any system for the education of its people. And it is 
 the] country where incomparably beyond any other the greatest and most 
 appalling social contrast exists. There is no country in which so little is 
 eflfected, compared with the expenditure of means ; and what is done only 
 tends to separate the diflferent classes of society more and more widely 
 from each other." {Report of an Educational Tour.) 
 
27 
 
 successive acquirement be made in an order which will afford the 
 greatest amount of available knowledge and mental improvement, 
 at whatever period the learner may be called away from school to 
 enter upon the active duties of life. Let us now see in what way 
 this result may be attained. 
 
 Youth, as we have said, is the season of life designed by Provi- 
 dence for giving a proper direction to the faculties, for training the 
 habits, and laying the foundation of the physical, moral, and mental 
 character. It may be divided into four periods, through which are 
 distributed the various exercises indispensable to a complete educa- 
 tion. These four periods are : 
 
 1° From birth to the age of 6 (Infarwy) 
 
 2° '* 6 to 12 years old I Childhood) 
 
 3° " 12 "16 " " {Adolescence) 
 
 4° " 16 " 20 " " {Puberty) ' 
 
 Reflection and judgment are not, in the first period, sufficiently 
 developed to take an active part in the instruction of the child. It 
 is through the perceptive and imitative faculties that he can, dur- 
 ing that period, be given elementary notions of things and of lan- 
 guage, these being inseparable. However, at his entrance into life 
 he should not so much be taught lessons, as be formed to those 
 moral and religious habits which are the best preparation for future 
 intellectual education. This preparatory training, or first degree of 
 instruction, is the work of good domestic government, or of infant 
 schools. 
 
 In the second period, by means of moderate and progressive 
 exercise of all the intellectual powers, the child must be familiarized 
 with the external world and the phenomena of nature ; he must be 
 accustomed to examine every thing, and be made to observe the 
 order, wisdom, and infinite goodness which have presided over all 
 the details of creation : thus he will, by appropriate conversations on 
 these subjects, gain an extensive practical knowledge of the native 
 tongue. Reading, writing, arithmetic, and linear drawing will then 
 claim their share of attention as auxiliaries in intellectual education, 
 A wide range of elementary instruction may thus be attained which 
 will serve as a foundation for future studies. Nature, the considera- 
 tion of which is the chief object during this period, is, in fact, the 
 source of all progress in every department of knowledge. 
 
 * It must be well understood that this classification is only approximate ; 
 for the natural activity of the faculties is found to vary considerably 
 throughout the different periods of youth. It is not unusual to see, for 
 example, a child of eight years more advanced in physical and mental 
 growth, than one of ten or even twelve. 
 
28 
 
 The objects of instruction which constitute the second degree, 
 must be divei-sified in such a way that they may bring into action all 
 the rising powers of the child : in fact, his complete intellectual de- 
 velopment can be effected only by the variety of objects in which he 
 may be engaged, because different departments of instruction exer- 
 cise different faculties and quaHties of the mind. " General instruc- 
 tion, to whatever degree it is carried, should precede special instruc- 
 tion." ^ The diversity of information which has been early acquired 
 gives correctness to the judgment, and renders every species of 
 knowledge more clear and precise. He who has been exclusively 
 engaged upon one particular class of ideas, however skilful he may 
 be in his command of them, has generally an obtuse mind about 
 other matters. The diversity of objects to tvhich the attention of 
 young people is directed, also furnishes the means of disco- 
 vering the pursuits for which they have most inclination or ap- 
 titude. This varied instruction ought to be universally diffused 
 throughout all classes of society, because in a civilized community, it 
 is required by all people indiscriminately. It constitutes what is 
 called primary or elementary instruction. 
 
 Arrived at this period, the great bulk of mankind are obliged, 
 from circumstances, already to think of the means of earning a liveli- 
 hood. Learning, it is true, which is elsewhere the privilege of a 
 chosen few, is here the birthright of all; still not all* have equal 
 chances of availing themselves of this right. " Pursuit of know- 
 ledge under difficulties " is not yet done away with, and to the 
 great majority of young people these difficulties present them- 
 selves under such fearful aspects, that they either have not the 
 courage to face them, or give out at the tirst attempt. Sometimes, 
 also, it is by imitation, or tradition, that they follow their father's 
 trade ; most generally it is an opportunity offering itself which 
 necessity compels them to accept. But whatever be the mo- 
 tives which prompt them to believe that it is from their hands they 
 will derive the readiest support, it is now time to commence 
 their apprenticeship, and to direct more exclusively their physical 
 powers towards such arts or manual occupations as may best suit 
 their inclinations, or offer the greatest chances for success, at the 
 same time devoting their leisure hours to intellectual pursuits, that 
 they may also in this way improve, — perhaps one day rise to emi- 
 nence. '■' 
 
 In the third period, the objects of instruction will be gradually 
 
 * St. Marc-Girardin. De V Instruction Intermediaire et de ses Rapports. 
 
 ' The institution of a fund providing young people, leaving school 
 tinder those circumstances, with a copy of " Channing's Self- Culture,'* 
 would perhaps be one of the greatest acts of philanthropy. 
 
29 
 
 raised in cbaracter and limited in number, with a view to prepare 
 the pupils for the highest intellectual pursuits and for the respective 
 careers which, according to their talents, offer to each the surest 
 means of being happy and useful. This third degree of instruction 
 should comprise a critical knowledge of the national language and 
 literature, grammar, rhetoric and logic, ancient and modern langua- 
 ges, ancient and modern history, physical, astronomical, and politi- 
 cal geography, drawing, natural history, the mathematical and 
 physical sciences, and the theory of morals. Some of these depart-| 
 ments of knowledge constituting a literary, and the others a scien- 
 tific course, should be respectively studied more seriously, according 
 as children are preparing for literary or scientific pursuits ; but, as 
 these two objects are ancillary to each other, they should be prose- 
 cuted simultaneouslyj each becoming accessory when the other is 
 considered as principal. 
 
 In the fourth period, that of professional education, young per- 
 sons should complete the instruction already commenced, which 
 bears on their future vocations. It is towards the close of this period 
 that they may direct their attention to the study of legislation, poli- 
 tical economy, physiology, moral and mental philosophy, and the 
 science of education, which is useful to all. They should, however, 
 dwell more particularly on the special branches of knowledge which 
 will enable them to fulfil honorably and successfully the duties at- 
 tached to the liberal professions which they propose to embrace, or 
 to the high offices which may be confided to them by their country 
 or their fellow-citizens. 
 
 The subdivision of studies should, in a comprehensive system of 
 national education, correspond to'the diversity of social pursuits; for 
 it is not to be expected that individuals %an learn every thing. Even 
 those who have leisure and wealth sufficient to pursue the most ex- 
 tensive course of instruction cannot completely master its various 
 branches ; and the depth of information attained by individuals in any 
 one department of knowledge is more profitable to them and to the 
 community than superficiality in many. The range of studies, at 
 first unlimited, must therefore be gradually restricted to a narrow 
 compass, and, when once young men have taken their place in so- 
 ciety, they must confine their attention chiefly to the subjects imme- 
 diately connected with theic avocations. People can obtain supe- 
 riority in any pursuit only insomuch as they are exclusively engaged 
 in it. It is a chimera to aim at perfection in several things at the 
 same time. 
 
 The information and accomplishments which have been ac- 
 quired in youth, and which do not bear directly on professional pur- 
 suits, should be kept up as a relaxation and as a preventive against 
 
30 
 
 the narrowness of mind which arises from exclusive studies. A mere 
 adept in his art is universally, admitted to contribute but little to the 
 intellectuality and enjoyment of social intercourse. It must not be 
 forgotten that, if the subdivision of studies among the different mem- 
 bei*s of the community, like the subdivision of labor in the arts, 
 benefits the mass and serves the wordly interests of the individual, it 
 does so to the prejudice of his general intellectuality. In proportion as 
 the sphere of action of each individual is narrowed, his mental powers 
 become contracted, and his activity is rendered purely habitual and 
 instinctive ; he is lowered as a rational being, and resembles the sub- 
 ordinate part of some powerful machinery — useful in its place, out 
 of it insignificant. 
 
 In closing this rapid sketch, we cannot forbear regretting that 
 we have been compelled by its limits to confine our observations to 
 generalities of the briefest kind. We hope, however, that the little 
 which we have said may suffice to show what are the instruments 
 and what ought to be the objects of education. These two points 
 were closely connected with our subject, because, on the one hand, 
 an acquaintance with the instruments or faculties, is subservient to 
 the study of languages, and, on the other, we must know what are 
 the objects which enter into a complete course of education, in order 
 to give to each its due share of attention, and, whatever be the im- 
 portance of languages, to guard against defrauding young people, by 
 exclusive attention to them, of information more useful in after life. 
 It is thus prepared that we approach with confidence the subject of 
 our present inquiry, — the relative importance of Ancient and Modern 
 Languages, considered as branches of Education. 
 
The history of languages has established this remartable fact, 
 that, in the course of time, as civilization advances among nations, 
 their original idioms are gradually abandoned for others less inflected, 
 more simple, and more elliptical, which serve as vehicles of commu- 
 nication in ordinary life ; whilst these original idioms, as tlie deposi-7 
 tories of national and religious traditions, become classical and sacred j 
 symbols for the exclusive use of the learned, and especially theV 
 clergy. The mental culture which is promoted by the act of learn- / 
 ing to understand these dead languages, and to use them for the ex- 
 pression of thought, tends also to make them the basis of intellectual 
 education. This happens to be the case with the ancient idioms of 
 the Jews, Copts, Chinese, Mongolese, Hindoos, Pei-sians, and other ' 
 Asiatic nations, as well as with some of the ancient European Ian-/' 
 guages, and more particularly with the Greek and Latin, which have ^ 
 assumed a very extensive field of action in the education of 
 youth. 
 
 Ethnography, the classification of nations founded on a corres- 
 ponding classification of languages, has disclosed the existence of 
 nearly two thousand languages, and five thousand dialects, the 
 greater number of which do not become objects of study, except in 
 rare cases. Of this prodigious number of idioms a few extend over 
 the surface of the globe, and divide, with Latin and Greek, the at- 
 tention of students. Of these few, ten belong to Europe, namely, the 
 English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swe- 
 dish, Danish, and Russian ; and nine to Asia, namely, the Hebrew, 
 Syriac, Arabic, Turkish, Armenian, Persian, Chinese, Sanskrit, 
 the ancient language of India, and Hindoostanee, one of its modem 
 dialects. 
 
 The mode of acquiring language varies with the peculiar cir- 
 cumstances of the learners, and according as it is a native or a 
 foreign language. Nature provides abundant means of initiating us 
 into the former ; art must supply the method by which the latter is 
 to be attained. In the ordinary circumstances of life the native 
 tongue is acquired by practice alone ; the foreign through the native, 
 and by comparison with it. * 
 
 The acquisition of a foreign language through the native, pre- I ' 
 sents many advantages, besides the habits of attention, application, j 
 and patient toil; which it forms, in common with other intellectual \ 
 
 * The term foreign, as employed here, in contradistinction to native, 
 applies to any other language, whether it be anciefU or modem. 
 
J 
 
 82 . 
 
 pursuits. We have already adverted to the superiority of this de- 
 partment of instruction over mathematics, considered as a means of 
 mental training ; of its heneficial results we will here briefly sum up 
 the most prominent. 
 
 y 1. The Study of a second language inures to mental exertion, 
 'i^'produces distinctness and accuracy in thinking, and elevates the 
   youthful mind by bringing it into habitual communion with the 
 i minds of great writers ; it evolves a quick apprehension, an acute 
 ( discrimination, a patient process of comparison and analogy. It en- 
 ( riches the memory, expands the imagination, invigorates the judg- 
 ment, and refines the taste in literary matters, by critical analysis of 
 highly finished compositions, {he force and beauty of which cannot 
 be adequately conveyed by translation. But it not only cultivates 
 the mental powers by means of the various exercises requisite for the 
 complete attainment of language, it also exercises them in a manner 
 perfectly analogous to their actions in the ordinary course of life. 
 
 2. This study enriches the native vocabulary of the learner, and ; 
 i improves his power of composition in the national tongue, by prac- ^ 
 I tice in searching for native words and expressions to translate those 
 
 of the foreign authors ; while the peculiar excellences of these authors 
 illustrate the principles which render language clear, forcible, and 
 beautiful. 
 
 3. It turns our attention to the formation and connection of ideas, 
 to the nature and mechanism of language ; and, bj- constant compa- 
 rison of two idioms, teaches general and particular grammar. Thus 
 the acquisition of one foreign language facilitates the learning of 
 others, both from similarity of grammatical principles, and from the 
 habits of study to which the mind is trained by that first acqui- 
 sition. 
 
 4. It tends to engrave on the mind the subjects of which foreign 
 authors treat, by the close attention required in translating them, 
 and by the repetitions necessary to impress their language on the 
 memory. Hence, without losing sight of the main object, it brings 
 under the consideration of the learners many useful branches of in- 
 struction, and lessons of morality. It is the groundwork of every 
 species of human knowledge : the study of a science may, to a 
 great extent, be said to consist in learning the true and full import of 
 its nomenclature. 
 
 1. The Knowledge of foreign languages multiplies the sources of 
 information and intellectual enjoyments, by opening to its possessor 
 new fields of science and literature; and, as it extends oral and 
 written communications between men of different countries, it pro- 
 motes the advancement of learning and the progress of the arts. 
 K it were generally spread among nations, it would considerably 
 
83 
 
 facilitate their social, commercial, and political intercourse; and 
 would thereby tend to unite them by the strong ties of mutual ser- 
 vices and common advantage. 
 
 2. It extends our acquaintance with human nature by exhibiting, 
 as elicited in their idioms, the peculiarities of character, customs and 
 civilization of men in different latitudes. It brings under our notice 
 many ideas and sentiments conveyed by expressions for which there 
 are no equivalents in the vernacular tongue. 
 
 3. From the affinity which exists between different dialects, an 
 acquaintance with foreign idioms, ancient and modern, opens the 
 rich fields of comparative philology, and leads to the solution of 
 historical questions concerning the origin and filiation of nations, 
 a philosophical investigation in which we have no other guide but 
 the evidence of language. 
 
 4. Familiarity with foreign literature tends to destroy national 
 prejudice, by unfolding, as sanctioned by enlightened communities, 
 principles of conduct, morality, and politics, differing from those we 
 have been accustomed to regard as exclusively correct ; it guards us 
 from attributing universally to human nature tastes, feelings, opin- 
 ions, and n^otives of action which belong only to our age and coun- 
 try ; it brings us nearer to truth by the examination, in different 
 lights, of the various departments of knowledge ; it enlarges our 
 
 \ sympathies as it expands our minds, and does away with that Chi- 
 nese-like contempt for other nations which is usually entertained by 
 those whose sphere of thought does not extend beyond the narrow 
 limits of their own experience. 
 
 All languages are not equally favorable for effecting these various 
 objects. The ancient idioms, for example, being now seldom used 
 as vehicles of intellectual communication, do not present so exten- 
 sive a field of usefulness as the modern, which are both spoken and 
 written. Among the modern languages, also, many belong to na- 
 tions whose backwardness in civilization, and poverty in literature, [ 
 render them but feeble auxiliaries in the acquisition of useful know-( 
 ledge, the formation of taste, or the discipline of the mental facul- ' 
 ties. 
 
 Youth, as we have already remarked, is the season designed by 
 Providence for commencing education ; but, as ancient and modern 
 languages cannot, consistently with reason and propriety, be taught. .. 
 before our native tongue, our first step must be to make ourselves M i^ 
 masters of the language of the country we live in- ^ 
 
 Curiosity, sympathy, perception, and association, imitation, 
 analogy, and memory, are the instruments which, with the aid of 
 the language of action, nature employs in enabling a young child to • 
 enter into communion with hift fellow-creatures. These instruments 
 3* 
 
84 
 
 may also be applied to the learning of a foreign language in circum- 
 stances similar to those in which the native tongue is acquired, but 
 when the learner is differently circumstanced, the natural process not 
 being strictly practicable, the comparative must be had recourse to ; 
 and the study of that language is, thereby, placed beyond the reach 
 of childhood. The powers of imitation, analogy and memory, although 
 very active during the whole period of youth, are, nevertheless, in- 
 adequate for acquiring all the departments of our language through 
 the written form of another. It is only when the learner can turn 
 his serious attention to particular objects of study, when he can com- 
 mand his powers of comparison, reflection, abstraction, and judgment ; 
 when he is able to perform the various exercises required by the 
 method or imposed by his teacher, when the maturity of his mind 
 enables him to understand the authors which may be put into his 
 hands; and when he comprehends the native expressions so com- 
 pletely that they interpret to him their equivalents in the foreign 
 language; it is, we say, only then he can learn that language c 
 through his own, or derive any benefit from the periodical lessons of 
 a professor. 
 
 The learner, in entering upon his scholastic studies, is, with regard 
 to a second language, in a position widely diff'erent from that of the 
 infant who acquires the native idiom instinctively and even uncon- 
 sciously. One language having already assumed in his mind the 
 exclusive right of representing ideas, its words and idioms come un- 
 bidden, and stand in the way of foreign expressions ; he has need of -7 
 firm determination, and of well-directed mental effort to carry him ) 
 successfully through the study. It is erroneous to imagine, as many | 
 persons do, that because children acquire their own language with ) 
 perfect ease, or because they are endowed with ^reat retentive pow- 
 ers, they have an aptitude for leaf^ing languages, and that, conse- 
 quently, such a study is the fittest for them. Such an error can 
 only arise from a confusion of the natural or practical method with 
 the artificial and comparative process. The first, by which the 
 young child acquires the vernacular tongue, demands scarcely any 
 mental exertion beyond that of perception, analogy, association, and 
 memory ; the comparative, on the contrary, calls for the co-opera- 
 tion of intellectual energies far above the power of childhood. 
 
 The incomplete knowledge which a young child possesses of his 
 own language is, as well as the immaturity of his intellect, an im- 
 pediment to his understanding, foreign authors, and, consequently, 
 a cause of delay and vexation in the prosecution of his study. This^ 
 is especially the case in the study of the " classics," in which it i» 
 very diflScult to make him render the profound thoughts and masterly 
 style of the ancient writers, when he has, as yet, conceived only the { 
 
S5 
 
 simplest ideas, and has at his command only the most familiar ex- 
 pressions. If left to himself, he cannot discriminate between correct 
 and incorrect forms of expression in his own language, and he ac- 
 quires, by his barbarous translations from the Latin, the most defec- 
 tive habits of speaking. An extensive knowledge of the native words 
 and their various import is required to explain the foreign authors ; 
 and this knowledge is gained, not from the nursery prattle, but from 
 a long intercourse with the well-educated, and from a diligent read- 
 ing of the national standard writers. The young learner may, it is 
 true, with the help of his dictionary, translate every word of his 
 author, but he will not be the less ignorant of his meaning, because 
 a dictionary in two languages only gives the corresponding words 
 without defining them, or illustrating their signification; so that 
 he only substitutes one unknown word for another. Thus, at an 
 early age, many native words come, in translation, under his notice 
 before he has a just conception of their precise meaning ; so that 
 they precede in his mind the ideas which they represent — a practice 
 which ought to be carefully avoided, as it accustoms him to take 
 sound for sense, and, as often happens, is calculated to make him, 
 for the rest of his life, an empty talker and a false reasoner. But, 
 should he even understand every word he uses, this exercise is not the 
 end proposed by "classical" instruction ; it is to desecrate and degrade 
 the ancient writers, to subject them to literal translation, and make , 
 their noblest passages mere parsing lessons. They claim a higher oflSce : 
 the scope of their works, the wisdom of their views, and the beauties 
 of their diction, should be not only investigated and appreciated, but 
 imitated in our modern idiom. Such tasks are far beyond the ca- 
 pacity of chtldhood. Adults alone can study with profit those master- 
 pieces of poetry, oratory, history, philosophy, and politics. 
 
 Children who commence Latin early, are not unfrequently put 
 into Sallust or Virgil at twelve or thirteen, and into Horace or Livy 
 at thirteen or fourteen : how can they, at those ages, comprehend 
 and relish works which, to be properly understood, demand all the 
 mental vigor of manhood and a previous acquaintance with ancient 
 history, geography, and mythology ? How can they render thoughts 
 which, to be adequately interpreted, demand a highly improved lan- 
 guage and powers of expression which very few persons possess ? It 
 is impossible that they could conceive, even with the assistance of 
 their teachers, the elevation of sentiment, the gi*andeur of thoughts, - 
 the boldness of imagery, and the grace of expression with which 
 they are replete. How can they derive profit or pleasure from the 
 readings of Horace or Virgil, or even from modern compositions, 
 such as those of Racine or Voltaire, Dante or Petrarch, Goethe or 
 Schiller, when their ears are not yet attuned to the harmony and 
 
S6 
 
 rhythm of verse, when they have neither felt in themselves, nor 
 witnessed in others the passions of the human heart, which these 
 authoi-s delineate ? What interest can young children take in highly 
 imaginative compositions in foreign languages, when they are quite 
 incapable of comprehending works of the same standing in their 
 own ? Are the works of Milton and Shakspeare fit for American 
 children ? To impose such reading upon them is, indeed, to give 
 them the habit of being satisfied with words without ideas ! 
 
 The important lessons to be learned and the intellectual enjoy- 
 ments to be derived from ancient literature, are lost to the mature 
 man by the childish conceptions which he associated with the " clas- 
 sics" at school, and by the unpleasant recollection of all the misery 
 attendant on the study. " The flowers of classic genius with which 
 the teacher's solitary fancy is most gratified," says Walter Scott, 
 "have been rendered degraded in his imagination by their connec- 
 tion with tears, with errors, and with punishments ; so the Eclogues 
 of Virgil and Odes of Horace are each inseparably allied in associa- 
 tion with the sullen figure and monotonous recitation of some blubber- 
 ing schoolboy/" Such are the pernicious consequences of a pre- / 
 mature study of the " classics," that Byron, whose mind was so well / 
 fitted to enjoy the beauties of Horace, had he read it at the proper j 
 time, complains in poetical and bitter strains of the unconquerable | 
 dislike with which the scholastic system inspired him for this poet." j 
 Similar observations we find in Lamartine's Pilgrimage to the Holy 1 
 Land. " Each wave," he says, "brings me nearer to Greece. I 
 touch its soil; its appearance affects me profoundly, — much less, 
 however, than it could have done, if all these recollections were not 
 accompanied by the consciousness that instruction wa^ forced on 
 me to satiety and disgust before I could comprehend it. Greece is 
 to me like a book of which the beauties are tarnished, because I 
 
 was compelled to read it before I could understand it. 1 prefer 
 
 a tree, a spring under the rock, an oleander on the banks of a river, 
 or the fallen arch of a bridge covered with convolvulus, to the mo- 
 numents of one of these classic kingdoms, which recall nothing to 
 my mind but the ennui they gave me in my childhood." Certainly, 
 if men of poetic genius, like Scott, Byron, and Lamartine, have re- 
 corded their inability in after life to divest the ancient classics of 
 the associations of ennui, satiety, and disgust, caused by their pre- 
 mature study, it cannot reasonably be hoped that boys of mere or- 
 dinary capacity will be more successful. This is one reason why 
 the study of the " classics" should be deferred to an age when it is; . 
 possible for students to read them with intelligence and sympathy/ i 
 
 » OldMortalUy. Pref. • Childe Harold. 
 
37 
 
 and when a greater maturity of mind has enabled them to appre- 
 ciate their excellence/ 
 
 Now if we consider the resources of modern languages, we will 
 perceive that their study can be commenced at a much earlier age;1 
 for their acquisitions, greatly depending on practice and familiar in- j 
 tercourse with those who speak them, suits childhood much better;> 
 than the exclusive apphcation to books indispensable in the study of> 
 the ancient languages. But, were even the study pursued alto- 
 gether through the medium of books, modern languages could still 
 be acquired at an earlier period than the ancient ; for they abound 
 in juvenile works, which, in point of style and information, may be 
 adapted to every stage of early life, and thus afford young people the 
 means of pursuing their studies with pleasure and benefit in vari- 
 ous branches of instruction. Ancient literature, on the contrary, is 
 destitute of such compositions. The works commonly called the 
 "Latin Classics" were all composed by men, and mainly intended 
 for adults of their own sex. In the literature of ancient Rome, that ) 
 is now extant, there is nothing which was written expressly for the 
 young: its volumes are far above the comprehension and tastes 
 of children, and seldom contain information suitable to them ; 
 they treat of events so remote, and allude to customs so different 
 from those with which we are acquainted, that they cannot be fully 
 understood, nor can they afford much to interest young minds. 
 
 Again, much more thorough proficiency is both attainable and de- 
 sirable in the modern than in the ancient languages, though many 
 people act as if the reverse was the fact. While the test of know- 
 ledge of the modern languages is much more frequent and severe 
 than it can possibly be in Greek or Latin, we have often far too low 
 an estimate of what constitutes a real acquaintance with them. It 
 is not enough to be able to read ordinary books with tolerable 
 facility and a vague notion of their meaning, or to carry on 
 fragmentary conversations about the weather or the dishes at a 
 dinner-table. Fluency both in writing and speaking on subjects ^ 
 grave and various; a full appreciation of the genius and idio- 
 syncrasy of the language, as well as accuracy in its details ; an 
 extensive knowledge of its literature ; a feeling of being at home in 
 it, if we may so speak — are acquirements which, while they richly 
 
 * " If the dead have any co^izance of posthumous fame, one would 
 think it must abate somewhat of the pleasure with which Virgil and Ovid 
 regard their earthly immortality, when they see to what base purposes 
 their productions are applied. That their verses should be administered to 
 boys m regular doses, as lessons or impositions, and some dim conception 
 of their meaning whipped into the tail when it has failed to penetrate the 
 head, cannot be just the sort of homage to their geniua which they anti- 
 cipated, or degired." Southky,— TA« Doctor. 
 
88 
 
 repay the labor that they cost, are unattainable except by long years 
 of study and continuous practice. The spasmodic efforts of a few 
 months, under strong pressure, may do much; but it is by steady, 
 moderate exertion, year after year, that we best become familiar 
 with a living language. In this way only, without any painful sense 
 of drudgery, it grows gradually upon us, and becomes part of our 
 mental being.^ 
 
 Languages, learned for the purpose of social intercourse and the 
 practical business of life must evidently be more thoroughly and ex- 
 tensively known than those which are only to be read. With know- 
 ledge of a modern language equivalent to that which constitutes an 
 accomplished Latinist of the present age, one would be considered as 
 knowing it but very imperfectly. The good Latinity of the classical 
 scholar passes current only because the true standards of excellence — 
 the orators and writers of Rome — cannot come forward to show the 
 fallacy ; whereas the literary men of modern nations place in a ma- 
 nifest inferiority their foreign contemporaries who speak and write 
 their languages. A well-educated person, knowing his native idiom 
 considerably better than the best classical scholar could know a dead 
 language, has it in his power to convey more extensive and more 
 certain information in it, than could be obtained in Latin from any 
 modern Latinist. He may, if allowed sufficient time, carry his pu- 
 pils to the higher departments of oral and written composition in his 
 native tongue — objects utterly unattainable, at the present day, in 
 the ancient languages. 
 
 "I do not think," says Dr. Jerrard, "that general literature 
 would sensibly suffer, if every Greek and Latin composition that has 
 ever issued from the public schools and universities were thrown into 
 the fire. What should we think of English poems written by 
 Frenchmen or Germans (particularly if their knowledge of English 
 were wholly derived from books), with half the sentiments and 
 
 ^ The modern languages which hold the first rank at the present day 
 embrace a larger collection of terms and idioms than are to be found in the 
 ancient. The Latin language, as transmitted to us in the " classics " con- 
 tains about 25,000 words ; French and Italian a little over 50,000. English 
 possesses a more copious vocabulary than either from the proneness of those 
 who speak it to boiTow words from other idioms, particularly from the 
 French, and from the facility which it affords of forming compound ex- 
 pressions. As regards this latter source of copiousness, the German lan- 
 guage even surpasses the English ; for its nomenclature may be almost 
 indelinitely increased by additions to its radical words. Webster's Dic- 
 tionary contains 70,000 ; the Imperial Lexicon, 80,000. In these numbers 
 are not included the different modifications of variable words, the de 
 signations of places, or other geographical denominations, nor the names 
 of all animals and plants. Of the latter alone, the French naturalist, De- 
 candolle, has reckoned above 80,000. 
 
39 
 
 phrases vilely borrowed from Milton and Shakespeare, and the re- 
 mainder consisting chiefly of palpable imitations of their turns of 
 thought or expresssion ? Surely we should have to reverse all our 
 ideas of literary excellence, before we could admire such tissues of 
 plagiarisms as these would be, not to mention how quaint, how ludi- 
 crous many of the turns on which the authors most piqued them- 
 selves, would appear to us. Such, I cannot help thinking, is the 
 general character of the compositions in question." * 
 
 But, even admitting that Latin could, at the present day, be 
 written with perfect case and purity, we do not see how it can be 
 rendered available to any of the various professions in modern so- 
 ciety. Certainly he who should now write in a dead language 
 would have little chance of being read and less of gaining celebrity 
 by his " classical " labors. The Latin compositions of Milton, Addi- 
 son, and Cowley have added little to their fame ; the Latin poems of 
 Petrarch are now scarcely known, although he esteemed them above 
 his Italian sonnets and canzones. If Dante had, as he at first in- 
 tended, written his " Divine Comedy " in Latin, Italy would not boast 
 of him at this day ; and his name would have been long buried in 
 oblivion. The same fate would have befallen Ariosto's poem, if, fol- 
 lowing Bembo's advice, he had written it in Latin. Who now reads 
 Sannazaro, Vida, Politian, Bembo, Muretus, Ruggles, the Scotch Bu- 
 chanan, and other modern Latin authors? The genius of the great 
 writers of a nation is a positive element of its power and greatness ; 
 but those who write in a dead language, whatever be the excellence|^ 
 of their performances, add nothing to the glory of their country. i 
 
 But, say the advocates of " classical " education, the object is no ' 
 longer writing Latin, no more than speaking it, the practice being 
 now generally abandoned. It is the arduous process of its acquisition 
 which is to show the results ; and it has been lately asserted that, 
 even if "classical" studies go no further, and. the whole be forgotten 
 of what has so laboriously been acquired, this alone would be an 
 adequate preparation — not for the duties of life, but for the train- 
 ing of mind and heart which is to form the future man, and to fit 
 for those various duties. But to argue thus is to endanger even a 
 good cause by provoking hostility to its more legitimate claims. Re- 
 serving ourselves, therefore, the expression of a more exalted opinion 
 of the rich uses to which a knowledge of the ancient languages may 
 be turned, we will here first examine into the arguments generally 
 brought forward in favor of subjecting all, indiscriminately, to a coui*se 
 of " classical " discipline, and see whether the results be really of a 
 nature to compensate the great body of our youth for the immense 
 
 * Evidence before a Committee of the House of Commons. 
 
40 
 
 amount of time and labor spent in the acquisition of what so few care 
 to retain. 
 
 In the first place it is advanced that our modern intellectual cul- 
 ture is historically so intimately connected with antiquity, that 
 beyond the claims of mere necessity, at least one of the ancient lan- 
 guages ought to be admitted. But the answer to this is evident ; our 
 intellectual culture in modern times has made itself gradually more 
 and more free from the influence of ancient literature, in such a man- 
 ner that it is now able to stand on its own merits and in a posi- 
 tion altogether independent. Those, indeed, whose position in the 
 social system calls upon them to know and to teach not only what 
 the world now is and ought to be, but also how it came to be, what 
 it is, and through what strange mutations and metamorphoses it has 
 passed, may, nay must, go back to the original germs and far-off 
 drawn beginnings of things : but for such as mean only to work on 
 the prepared foundations of modern society, and whose activity is prin- 
 cipally directed to the external relations of Hfe, such laborious pilgri- 
 mages into the remote past are neither necessary nor expedient. It 
 is to be particularly observed, also, that the ancients, however high 
 they stand in literature and philosophy, are in those branches of 
 science which are most useful at the present day particularly defec- 
 tive ; in mathematics and natural history and physics we can learn 
 little from the ancients that will repay the trouble of studying them ; 
 and the Httle that may be learned, is to be learned by him only 
 who can give his whole time to the study of antiquity, — not cer- 
 tainly by a merchant, an agriculturist, or an engineer. 
 
 As for what is commonly said that the Latin is the root of most mo- 
 dern languages, and must, therefore, be studied, if not for its own sake, 
 at least for the sake of these, there is a practical fallacy in this too 
 obvious to demand any labored refutation. The time spent in the 
 Latin preparation for learning the modern languages, might have 
 been as well spent in learning the languages themselves. How few, 
 indeed, of those who commencing with Latin, bring it ever so far 
 as to obtain a tolerable mastery of a modern language. And what 
 should we say of the man who, when building a house, first throws 
 away all his money on a magnificent threshold, and then finds that 
 he has been laboriously constructing an entry to nothing ? Such, 
 however, is the wisdom of many of those who learn Latin that they 
 may with the greater ease learn French, Spanish, and Italian. But 
 to look into the matter more closely. A large portion of the English 
 is derived to us from Latin, while a larger portion comes from the 
 Teutonic, principally the Anglo-Saxon, as it is called. Leaving out 
 of view this latter portion, with which Latin is not concerned, by far 
 the greater part of the former comes to us through the French. Now 
 
41 
 
 it seems even more natural, as we must of necessity begin with the 
 English, to trace back our words through French to Latin, than to 
 leap over French, returning to it only after wo have learned Latin. 
 It is true that Latin well prepares the way for the study of French, 
 which is, in common with the Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, the 
 more immediate descendant of the Latin ; but it is equally true that 
 a knowledge of French, or of any of the cognate tongues, greatly 
 facilitates the acquisition of Latin ; and we cannot think that the his- 
 torical order of precedence is sufficient to outweigh the many solid 
 reasons for placing the modern languages before the ancient in the 
 order of study. 
 
 Benjamin Franklin, who had only one year's instruction in Latin, 
 when very young, acknowledges that he afterward neglected that 
 language entirely ; but having, in manhood, gained an acquaintance 
 with French, Italian, and Spanish, he was surprised, he says, to find, 
 on looking over a Latin Testament, that he understood it better than 
 he had imagined. H'^ adds, " I would offer to the consideration of 
 those who superintend the education of our youth, whether, since many 
 of those who begin with the Latin quit the same after spending 
 some years without having made any great proficiency, and what 
 they have learned becomes almost useless, so that their time has 
 been lost, it would not have been better to have begun with the 
 French, ' proceeding to the Italian and Latin. For though, after 
 spending the same time, they should quit the study of languages, 
 and never arrive at the Latin, thoy would, however, have acquired 
 another tongue or two, that, being in modem use, might be service- 
 able to them in common life." ^ 
 
 That a knowledge of the Latin is necessary for the acquisition of 
 English is an argument that can scarcely be advanced seriously ; for 
 not only is the difierence of construction an obstacle to the one being 
 made the standard of the other, but the Latin derivatives which the 
 English language contains, are in comparison with those of Saxon 
 origin, in a decided minority, and even these come, as we have seen, 
 for the greater part through the French. The absence of analogy 
 between the Latin and the English is particularly remarkable in the 
 fundamental principles of their grammars. The predominating char- 
 acter of the English language, both in its grammatical and idioma- 
 tical structure, is essentially of Saxon origin. Its inflexions have 
 generally the same source ; the English genitive, the mode of form- 
 ing the plural nouns, the terminations by which are expressed the 
 comparative and superlative of adjectives ; the inflexions of pronouns, 
 of the second and third persons, of the preterites and participles of 
 
 * Autobiography. Edited by Sparks. Ch. vn. 
 
42 
 
 verbs ; and the most frequent terminations of the adverbs, are all 
 Anglo-Saxon. The manner of expressing the mood and tenses of 
 verbs, the auxiliary words used for that purpose, and the words which 
 most frequently occur, articles, pronouns, adverbs, prepositions, and 
 conjunctions^ are almost entirely Saxon. It is in this ancient dialect 
 of the great Teutonic family, and not in the Latin, that the history 
 and genius of the English language are to be studied. 
 
 We must equally object to the assertion that the learning of the 
 Latin grammar ensures to the " classical " student a knowledge of 
 his national grammar. When two languages differ much in their 
 genius, the grammar of the one cannot teach the grammar of the / i 
 
 other. " Those who say that the Latin grammar teaches English, 1 C 
 
 knowing both grammars, know that they are saying what is not ] 
 true." ^ It could not, for example, inform us what article to use in I 
 English and when to use it, what preposition is required after the ^ 
 verb, and what mood after a conjunction. The definitions alone of 
 grammatical technicalities bear a general resemblance in all langua- 
 ges, and may, then, be tested by reference to Latin or any other 
 grammar; but it is obvious that these definitions can be more 
 clearly illustrated and better understood in the language of the 
 learners than in one of which they are ignorant. Hence it is that the 
 study of the national grammar is a greater assistance to the acquisi- 
 tion of Latin, that that of the Latin grammar is to the improvement 
 of the national tongue. 
 
 In favor of the contrary opinion, it is frequently said, that Latin 
 is more strictly grammatical than modern languages, and conse- 
 quently well calculated to initiate a young person into their princi- 
 ples. This hackneyed assertion, which might have passed current 
 before the existence of modern grammar, is far from being satisfac- 
 tory, as one of very doubtful meaning, if it have any at all. If it 
 signifies that Latin adheres more closely to grammatical rules, it is 
 unfounded ; for, in this respect, all languages are on a par with it, 
 which have a recognized system based on fixed usage. With regard 
 to exceptions from general rules and to idiomatic forms of expres- 
 sion, they are to be found in Latin as well as in modern languages : 
 Terence and Plautus afford many examples of such irregularities, 
 but, were Latin perfectly regular in its grammatical construction, we 
 do not see how its regularity could facilitate the acquisition of irre- 
 gular idioms. If, by that assertion, it is meant that Latin is more 
 in accordance with the logical principles of general grammar than 
 other languages — that is to say, that the relations which its words 
 bear to each other are more analogous to the relations between their 
 
 * Westminster Review, Vol. IV. Present Systernof Education. 
 
43 
 
 corresponding ideas, we deny the proposition ; for the system of 
 adjuncts or auxiliary words and of juxtaposition, which prevails in 
 many modern idioms, seems more conformable to reason and to the 
 nature of the things represented than the system of inflection and 
 transposition which characterizes the ancient languages. The transpo- 
 sitive collocation of Latin is the order, or rather the disorder sug- 
 gested by sensation and imagination ; the synthetical structure which," 
 in English, and more particularly in French, proceeds from subject 
 to predicate, is the order of judgment and logic. 
 
 Knowledge of any native tongue may be carried to a high de- 
 gree of excellence independently of Latin and Greek. Byron was a 
 mediocre " classical " scholar ; he attended the course of studies at 
 Harrow school with dislike and carelessness. He acquired his aston- 
 ishing copiousness, flexibility, and beauty of expression, by extensive 
 miscellaneous English reading. * Madame de Stael and many other 
 celebrated female writers reached the highest walks of literature 
 without previous study of Latin. Eichardson and Robert Burns, 
 Rousseau, and Vauvenargues, Bernardin de St. Pierre, and B^ranger, 
 learned neither Latin nor Greek. Shakespeare is generally supposed 
 to have been ignorant of a foreign idiom, although some persons 
 believe he understood a little Latin ; but to that little, if it be so, 
 it is obvious he owed not his mastery of English. No -one will 
 deny that the Greek writers and orators were skilled in their own 
 language, and yet they learned no other in their youth. 
 
 It is often said, however, that the thorough grammatical " drill- 
 ing " in Latin and Greek to which a boy is subjected in the early 
 yeara of his school-course — the parsing of words, the analysis of the 
 construction of sentences, the comparison of idioms and methods of 
 expression — form an unequalled mental training, and that not merely 
 as a preparation for the more advanced study of the " classic " authors, 
 but wholly apart from any subsequent practical application. Doubt- 
 less, a time comes when language must be looked at as an outward 
 thing, be made the subject of actual study, be examined and taken 
 to pieces, and its structure explained and traced to its principles. 
 We also admit that this study cannot be carried on eflSciently without 
 a second, or even a third language with which the mother- tongue, so 
 unconsciously learned, may be compared, and whereby it may be illus- 
 trated. But then we would ask. — 1st. Is not an equal thorough 
 " drilling" possible in French, German, Spanish, or Italian ? 2d. Iff 
 possible, would it not be productive of equally good results? To) 
 these questions we have never seen or heard any negative reply; 
 which was not opposed alike to reason and to fact, so far as expe- 
 
   Thomas Moore, Life of Byron. 
 
44 
 
 rience has been attainable in tbis matter. We do not hesitate to 
 affirm that, in so far as thorough " drilling " in all the departments 
 tend to sharpen the faculties, to fix the attention, to strengthen the 
 memory, or to produce any other intellectual advantage, the result 
 would follow equally, in equally able hands, whether the subject- 
 language be French or Latin, Greek or German : except, however, 
 where the ancient text is obscure, in which case the advantage is evi- 
 dently with the modern, — for the best scholars must confess that 
 there are many passages in ancient writers which they neither do, nor 
 ever can, comprehend ; and, in such passages the language fails as 
 an instrument of mental culture. And so it is with all other advan- 
 tages brought forward in evidence of the utility of " classic " studies : 
 "The allusions to manners, customs, laws ; institutions, civil, military 
 and religious; geographical allusions; the fitting of the several parts 
 into a whole, and connecting the several links in the chain of ideas, 
 whether the work under examination be that of an orator, a poet, or 
 a historian ; the comparison of parallel passages either from the same 
 writer or from other writers of the same or of different age, country, or 
 language; written exercises, abstracts, and translations ; excursions into 
 the field of general criticism," ' etc., etc. All this is within the means, 
 nay the duty, of every teacher, be the language of his text-book an- 
 cient or modern. A teacher who deserves the name must be able to 
 turn his knowledge many ways, throw it on the instant into very 
 various shapes, continue and illustrate and enforce it with all but 
 endless diversity of association. Such a teacher will not confine 
 himself to the language which is his main subject, ancient or mo- 
 dern ; but suiting his lessons to the stage of his pupil's progress, and 
 to the time at his disposal, will point attention to the facts of other 
 languages, and by these illustrate his teaching in the way whether of 
 difference or of resemblance. It is natural that men who have de- 
 voted their lives to the study and the teaching of one subject, and 
 who have long been accustomed to view all things in relation to it, 
 should have acquired great facility and dexterity in associating with 
 it all sorts of knowledge. But they err — and the error is honorable 
 to their modesty — in ascribing to the subject much that is really due 
 to themselves. Given an Arnold or a Pestalozzi (the magnitude of the 
 postulate does not affect the conditions of the question), it is of 
 quite secondary importance what language they make the basis of 
 their teaching. Whether it be Greek or German, French or Latin, 
 Spanish or Italian, such men will not fail to edify and delight their pu- 
 pils with the same clearness in explaining, the same skill in combin- 
 ing and grouping, the same felicity in illustration. 
 
 * J. PiLLANS. The Rationale of School Discipline. 
 
45^ 
 
 But, " modern languages," it has been said, are too like our own 
 in their characteristic features to call forth and exercise the faculties in 
 the same way ; while the fact that the classical languages are now 
 unchangeable, that they contain enough for the purpose, and not 
 too much, point them out as most suitable for thus disciplining and 
 strengthening the mind of our youth." ^ We readily admit that, in 
 the comparative study of languages, the more unlike (within Hmite) 
 those other languages are to the mother-tongue, the greater is the 
 advantage. But this single consideration of unlikeness is clearly not 
 sufficient to determine the choice of a language for comparison or 
 contrast. No one has yet suggested the study of Chinese, as an ad- 
 mirable means of mental discipline for the young. Other consi- 
 derations then, come into view in deciding the selection; some 
 already have been spoken of, others will be mentioned as we proceed ; 
 and without arguing as to the exact comparative degree of likeness 
 or unlikeness, we content ourselves with affirming that French and 
 German are so far unlike English and each other as to furnish abundant 
 matter of comparative illustration,while they possess innumerable points 
 of difference on which to fasten useful and miscellaneous philological 
 disquisitions. The assertion that " the classical languages contain 
 enough for the purpose, and not too much," is one with which we con- 
 fess our inability to grapple. What is the precise limit between enough 
 and too much ? How is it proved or proveable that " the classical 
 languages " contain just enough, while the modern languages con- 
 tain, too much ? And if it be not meant that the modern languages 
 contain too much, what is it to the question between them and the 
 ancient, that the latter contain just enough ? But the argument of 
 unchangeableness is so common a fallacy that it merits a brief no- 
 tice. It is a mere truism to affirm that the " classic " tongues are 
 now, that is, henceforward, unchangeable, while the modern tongues 
 are liable to future change ; but changes which have not yet occurred 
 are clearly no more to us than changes which never can occur. A 
 language at any given point of its history is just as much fixed as 
 the "classic" tongues are now, that is, as they were when they 
 ceased to be spoken. Our own language, for example, is to us at 
 this moment something equally fixed, whether it shall be exactly the 
 same, or widely dift'erent a century hence. On the other hand, the 
 * classic " tongues no more than any modern language, are free from 
 
 * Rev. Joseph Angus. '• Four Lectures on the Advantages of a Classical 
 Education, as an Auxiliary to a Commercial Education." Unhappily he has 
 failed to convince the very practical Mr. Gilbart, who, in his book on 
 Banking, says : " Do not choose a clerk because he has studied for one of 
 the learned professions, for that is no advantage." 
 
46 
 
 the changes which time has wrought in every thing hnman. Is 
 there no change in the Latin tongue perceptible in Tacitus or Juve- 
 nal as compared with Ennius and Plautus ? Is the difference much 
 less than that between Chaucer and Cowper ? If there be still a 
 classic standard of good Latinity among scholars, so that they can at 
 once distinguish an archaism or a neologism, is there not a similar 
 standard of good "classic" English, or French, or German, at any 
 point of those nations' progress, for example, at this day ? If it be 
 said that the travels of at least the young pupil are confined within 
 the middle-zone of " classic " or Augustan Latin, and that he has little 
 concern with the barbarisms of an earlier, or the corruptions of a 
 later, age ; so it is precisely with every modern tongue, especially at 
 school. We read Goldsmith, not Gower ; Fenelon, not even Mon- 
 taigne; Schiller's "Lay of the Bell," not the "Lay of the Neibelun- 
 gen." Besides, there are other changes than those which time in- 
 troduces. Place, also, has its influence, combined with time, or 
 apart ; and when we think of Greek with its JEolic, Doric, Ionic, and 
 Attic dialects, all of which, and especially the latter two, require the 
 careful attention of even the youthful scholar, we can scarcely escape 
 the conclusion that unchangeableness, in any practical sense, is not 
 one of the recommendations of the "classic" tongues. 
 
 Nor can we allow any weight to the argument, founded on the 
 number of men eminent in every walk of public life, who have been 
 subjected to the " classical" system of instruction. If the great body 
 of the youth of a country be subjected to any system whatever, not 
 thoroughly mischievous, it is inevitable that a portion of the youth 
 will distinguish themselves ; but, surely, it is neither fair nor logical 
 to attribute to the system the splendid success of the rare exceptions, 
 and to pass over in silence the dull obscurity of the mass. Under 
 every system, in spite of every system, without any system, have 
 great men asserted their greatness ; and it would be easy, especially 
 in this country, to get up against all schools a case founded on the 
 number of highly eminent men who have received no — what is 
 called — teaching at all. But, even if the habits of attention and 
 application now displayed were fostered by devotion to " classical" 
 studies, it may be still inquired whether those same habits might 
 not have been as well or better fostered under some other system, — 
 better fitted, at the same time to convey knowledge available in the 
 actual business of life. Let us look at West Point, for instance ; 
 there no Latin is taught; still its graduates are marked men, 
 wherever they go. The question, then, is not, is the old system 
 productive of, or rather perhaps, compatible with, a certain amount 
 of good ; but is it the best system that can be adopted in this nine- 
 teenth century for the mental development of the community at 
 
large ? Is it in liarmony with the wants and with the lights of the 
 age ? The fact of its having taken rise at a time when the state of 
 knowledge was so widely different ; before the creation of our mo- 
 dern literature — home or foreign ; before the vast discoveries of 
 modern science ; before the extensive division of human pursuit to 
 which these have led ; before men had our better insight into the 
 nature and operations of the mind itself;^ all this \b prima facie a 
 strong argument against it, — an argument too strong to be rebutted 
 by the enumeration of a few hundred names whose greatness the 
 system has cherished, or, it may be, failed to crush. 
 
 But, it is said, " education consists of two parts — instruction 
 and training ; it being the office of the former to impart knowledge, 
 and of the latter to impart mental discipline. It is only the 
 latter that in strictness deserves the name of education ; and while 
 all other subjects — a slight exception'being made in favor of mathe- 
 matics — belong to the instructional division, it is the classical course 
 alone which ranks as educational. Both may, doubtless, be car- 
 ried on side by side ; but still, a decided predominance must 
 be awarded to the latter." It seems to us that this is a mischievous 
 perversion of a distinction which, in itself, has been long and uni- 
 versally admitted to be just. In ihe first place, as we have seen on 
 
 * "The present universities of Europe were orig-inally, the greater part 
 of them, ecclesiastical corporations instituted for the education of church- 
 men What was taught in those universities was suitable to the 
 
 end of their institution, either theology or something that was merely pre- 
 paratory ta»theology. 
 
 '* When Christianity was first established by law, a corrupted Latin 
 had become the common language of all the western parts of Europe. The 
 service of the church, accordingly, and the translation of the Bible, which 
 was read in churches, were both in that corrupted Latin ; that is, in the 
 common language of the country. After the irruption of the barbarous 
 nations who overturned the Roman Empire, Latin gradually ceased to be 
 the language of any part of Europe. But the reverence of the people na- 
 turally preserves the established forms and ceremonies of religion, long 
 after the circumstances which first introduced them, and rendered them 
 reasonable, are no more. Though Latin, therefore, was no longer under- 
 stood anywhere by the great body of the people, the whole service of the 
 church still continued to be performed in that language. Two different 
 languages were thus established in Europe, in the same manner as in an- 
 cient Egypt ; a language of the priests, and a language of the people ; a 
 sacred and a profane ; a learned and an unlearned language. But it was 
 necessary that the priests should understand something of that sacred and 
 learned language in which they were to officiate ; and the study of the 
 Latin language, therefore, made from the beginning an essential part of 
 
 university education Universities are the sanctuaries in which 
 
 exploded systems and absolute prejudices found shelter and protection, 
 after they had been hunted out of every comer of the globe." 
 
 Adam Smith, " Wealth of Nations:' 
 
48 
 
 a former page, it is a theoretical distinction, and one which regards 
 the ends and the method much more than the means of education. 
 A subject may be studied either for its practical uses, or as a disci- 
 pline ; but every subject or set of subjects brings, in one or other 
 direction, in greater or less degree, its advantage as an exercise of 
 mind. Is the study of arithmetic, for example, when properly taught, 
 less a mental exercise in its peculiar way, because its lessons are of 
 practical service in daily life ? Is utility sufficient to exclude a sub- 
 ject from the category of educational influences? This were an 
 error akin to that of ancient political and economic writers who 
 made productive industry the doom of the slave, idleness the honor- 
 able badge of a freeman. But in the second place, — granting that 
 subjects differ greatly in the degree, as well as in the kind of their 
 educational influence, that that subject is entitled to the highest 
 place which exercises in the best way the greatest number of our 
 mental powers, and that neither physical science nor mathematics 
 can claim to take the lead, from want of power, equally to develope 
 and harmoniously to combine the majority of our faculties of mind, 
 while yet some one subject must predominate, — we most strenuously 
 contend that it is not to the "t;lassics," that is to the language of Greece 
 and Rome, but to language and literature at large that this predom- 
 inance is justly due. A part has been too long allowed to usurp 
 the rank and the honor due only to the whole. In the infancy of 
 modern literature, all literature was represented, and nobly too, by 
 the ancient classics ; the one was co-extensive, nay identical with the 
 other ; but now the position is widely changed ; the relative pro- 
 portions of the ancient and the modern literature are precisely re- 
 versed ; still the ancient asserts its old prerogative ; it would " lay 
 its ineffectual finger on the spoke of time ;" it refuses to believe that 
 the child has grown into a man. In the mean time the native tongue * 
 is neglected, the fellow-tongues of Europe are but superficially taught, ^^ 
 and at odds and ends of time. Far be it from us to divorce the new 
 from the old ; we would give to each a place, gladly acknowledging 
 that each is beautiful in its season. To exclude either, is to condemn 
 the higher study of literature to partiality and incompleteness; still, 
 each must take place according to its relative importance, that being 
 determined by the widest comparison of things, not as they were 
 three, four, or even one hundred years ago, but as they are now. If 
 comparison must be instituted, we maintain that there is no advan- 
 tage, intellectual^ moral or cesthetic, that the study of the ancient lan- 
 guages can confer, which may not to an almost, if not strictly equal 
 degree, be derived from the study of the modern, while the modern 
 yield peculiar advantages to which the ancient can make no 
 claim. 
 
49 
 
 It is true, the Greeks and Romans were our first masters ; they 
 opened to us the road to knowledge ; but the progress which we 
 have since made has left them far behind us in almost every thing 
 which can contribute to the improvement of society and the com- 
 forts of life. The works which they have transmitted to us have no 
 direct bearing on the studies and duties of our generation. Their 
 languages contain but little of practical application and general in- 
 terest at the present day : whereas those of modern nations are the 
 depositories of a large amount of information, and of such informa- 
 tion as is suitable to modern society and indispensable for its various 
 pursuits. The usefulness of living languages will daily increase 
 with the advance of science and the progress of discovery : the 
 exchange of thought, of which they are the international me- 
 dium for social, industrial, and scientific purposes, will henceforth 
 be an inexhaustible source of public prosperity and advancement in 
 civilization. 
 
 The facts which the ancient historians record are less useful to 
 us than those of modern history, because the truths deducible from 
 them are less applicable in our times. The information communi- 
 cated by the classics is also often inconsistent with our notions of 
 civilization, morality, or religion. By devoting the first period of 
 life exclusively to them, young people are led astray in forming their 
 standard of propriety on these points, — so different from ours were 
 the private and public life of the ancients, their manufactures and 
 commerce, their arts and sciences, their social state, political institu- 
 tions, and rehgious worship. At the same time that the study of 
 the poets, orators, and philosophei-s of Greece and Rome is generally 
 admitted to possess a principle of intellectual development, it is un- 
 deniable that the Pagan sentiments and immoral tendencies of some 
 of their writings render them often most dangerous to inexperienced 
 youth. The selfishness of the Romans, and their unqualified hatred 
 for other nations, may be mistaken for love of countiy ; their aggres- 
 sive wars and rapine, for true glory ; and thereby tend to elicit in 
 favor of injustice and cruelty the praise and admiration due to pa- 
 triotism and virtue. 
 
 " The custom of teaching children to regard with the highest 
 admiration the literature and history of the Greeks and Romans, 
 stained with outrages on all the superior faculties of man, and of 
 diverting their minds away from the study of the Creator and his 
 works, has had a most pernicious efiect on the views entertained of 
 this world by many excellent and intellectual individuals. This is 
 truly preferring the achievements of barbarous men to the glorioui 
 designs of God ; and we need not be surprised that no satisfaction 
 8 
 
60 
 
 to the moral sentiments is experienced while such a course of edu- 
 cation is proposed." ^ 
 
 From among the numerous wiitings showing the evil tendency 
 of an exclusive and incautious study of " classical " literature, we ex- 
 tract the following as deserving especial notice. 
 
 " The advocates of these languages always avoid the true view 
 of this question ; they urge the absolute merits of classical literature, — 
 which, though not to the extent, is cheerfully admitted, — but never 
 consider what it excludes. I have readily conceded its value as an 
 elegant accomplishment, excepting always where it is tainted with 
 a vicious grossness, and an absurd and most anti-christian mytho- 
 logy. I grant, for I have enjoyed, the taste, the polish, the genius, 
 the poetry, and the oratory of the classics ; but I cannot shut my 
 eyes to the gloomy fact that not above one in a hundred, whose 
 years are wasted in Latin and Greek, reap those advantages, or make 
 even an approximation to them ; that in after-life, ninety-nine in a 
 hundred, lose the languages, and all their taste, poetry, and oratory, 
 
 in one general oblivion Morality is placed upon a false 
 
 basis of selfishness by the ancient classics ; while religion is so utterly 
 opposed to their whole character, that to find them approved and 
 even taught by Christian ministers, can only be accounted for by 
 the habit of not inquiring into long established customs. The talent, 
 health and life wasted on classical studies at college, under the selfish 
 stimulus of college honors, has been often deplored ; but the moral 
 consequences are yet worse ; there is a familiarity with selfishness 
 and injustice, to v/hich is given the name of patriotism, a disposition 
 to think lightly of war, and an appetite for martial glory, arising 
 jfrom the lessons and intercourse of our public schools, which have 
 [a very injurious eftect upon society ; so much is not forgotten by the 
 otherwise oblivious pupil. A diflferent standard of morals and rule 
 /of right is, without inquiry by teachers, applied to the ancients and 
 to the moderns, so that sensuality, selfishness, injustice, rapacity, 
 cruelty, and crime, are not only excused to the former, but pressed 
 upon the opening faculties of youth as the constituents of moral 
 gi'andeur and practical virtue. All this recoils dreadfully upon so- 
 ciety. Christianity itself is overborne by a spurious morality, and 
 society continues selfish, sensual and belligerent. 
 
 " Eloquence is a wide term ; it contains a great deal more in it 
 than is generally supposed. For the application of language to the 
 purpose of strict logical reasoning, splendid imagery, and fine poetrj^ 
 as infused in eloquence, I should say you could not go to better 
 models than the orators of antiquity. But, when we examine what 
 
 * Geo. Combe, Constitution of Man. 
 
m 
 
 are the sentiments that are conveyed even by their most splendid 
 orations, we find that these are almost all of a selfish kind, that they 
 tend to flatter and encourage national pride, and the other feelings 
 of a mistaken patriotism, to exclude the bulk of mankind from equal 
 privileges with a privileged few, and to foster feelings of enmity 
 against all other nations but their own, with a very small sprinkHng 
 indeed of any thing that we should call high-toned sentiment. I 
 should, therefore, rather look to the orations of Chatham, of Burke, 
 of Wilberforce, of Canning, and of more recent living oratoi-s, who 
 deal with justice and mercy, which the ancients knew not, with 
 higher interests and juster views of human nature and human so- 
 ciety, and who look abroad upon their fellow-creatures with an eye 
 of benevolence. When I look to their orations, I find in them a 
 much more lofty, a much more genuine, a much more heart-im- 
 proving eloquence than I have ever met with in the more classical, 
 but less exaltedly moral efi'usions of Cicero and Demosthenes. This 
 is felt by those who have listened to such preachers as Chalmers of 
 Scotland and Channing of America, whose eloquence overpowers 
 the feehngs to a degree which the orations of ancient orators could 
 not possibly eflect." * 
 
 To what we have said of the intellectual advantages alleged to fol- 
 low from the usual course of " classical" instruction, we have nothing 
 to add. We also may limit ourselves to the above remarks concern- 
 ing the moral aspect of the question. Not that we deem it of light im- 
 portance, but the subject is too extensive for full discussion here, and 
 we have no wish to echo any louder the outcry which has been so 
 generally raised against " classics " on this ground. Suflice it to say, 
 that whatever lessons of virtue and of nobleness an earnest and dis- 
 cerning teacher may draw from the precepts of ancient literature, or 
 from the examples of ancient history, — and they are not few, — not 
 even equality to the modern in this respect can possibly be claimed. 
 Were it otherwise, Christianity would indeed have done little for the 
 world. On the other hand, while the moral harvest of antiquity is 
 scantier, and too often of a coarser grain, the tares are more abun- 
 dant. A stricter selection and a care more anxious are, therefore, 
 needful; for the mental torpor, which is a sevenfold shield against 
 good, is a poor protection against evil ; and what teacher who cares 
 for the heart and the soul, as well as the head of his pupils, has not 
 been dismayed to mark with how prompt avidity precocious vice 
 seizes on what is congenial to itself 1 
 
 Having thus partially cleared the ground, we ore prepared to 
 enter on the closer consideration of the question before us. The 
 gi'eat subject of inquiry, be it ever clearly remembered, is not how 
 
 'James Simpson. Evidence befort a Committee oftfu Hauee of Commons. 
 
52 
 
 far our modern literature and mental progress are indebted to the 
 ancient classics — a question of purely historical interest ; nor even 
 whether the system of " classical " instruction now prevailing do or 
 do not produce some good results by the mental discipline to which 
 it subjects the young, if not by the actual knowledge which it con- 
 veys — a question which needs not to be disputed ; but whether, 
 regarding the state of present knowledge and the character of the 
 times in which we live, it be necessary or desirable that " classical " 
 studies should absorb so large a portion of the school-years of all 
 our youth. On this subject, the conclusions to which our reflection 
 and expeiience have led us, are — 1st, that the " classics" are taught 
 at far too early a period of life, and that hence arise at once the ne- 
 cessity and the unproductiveness of so vast an expenditure of time and 
 toil — 2d, that they are taught too indiscriminately to all, without re- 
 ference to the future avocations of the learners. These convictions have 
 been forced upon us by our respect alike for the other branches of in- 
 struction which " classics " have hitherto much excluded, and for the 
 "classics" themselves, and by our consciousness of their educational 
 value. We cannot too carefully distinguish the ancient classics them- 
 selves and their uses, from any system of teaching which may now pre- 
 vail. We object to the present system that in the great majority of cases 
 neither the ancient languages nor hteratures, certainly not the latter, 
 are really learned ; that so little knowledge of the inner life of the 
 ancient nations, of their philosophies, their economics, of aught be- 
 yond their outward history is conveyed ; that the taste for know- 
 ledge is too often destroyed by the process of its acquisition ; that 
 so few after leaving school ever voluntarily open a Latin or Greek 
 book ; that so few have an acquaintance with any authors beyond 
 their class-books ; that even in these most have so much difficulty 
 in reading any passage not previously learned ; in, short, that their 
 study engrosses needlessly, if not uselessly, the largest portion of the 
 whole school-life of thousands ; excludes, or almost excludes, other 
 subjects of equal or greater importance ; while it does not produce 
 even within its own sphere the results that might be attained by a 
 wiser distribution of the school-course. 
 
 Two leading principles will probably not be questioned — 1st, 
 that there are certain subjects which all, whether rich or poor, male 
 or female, absolutely ought to learn ; while other subjects, however 
 useful or refining, being relatively less important, may not unreason- 
 ably be postponed in favor of those indispensable ; — 2d, that there 
 are certain subjects which the young mind is better fitted to appre- 
 ciate and acquire than others which may still have great attractive- 
 ness and fitness for a mind more mature. Now, we believe that by 
 a happy provision of our constitution, the same range of subjects 
 
08 
 
 precisely answers to both those preliminary conditions; that is, 
 that the subjects universally necessary are, in their elements, the 
 best adapted to the young mind. Thus the knowledge of external 
 nature, our body itself being to the mind external, is at once the 
 most practically necessary for all classes of society, and the most at- 
 tractive to the young. It is at a much Jater period that the mind 
 turns inward on itself, and reflects on its own consciousness. Nature 
 does not more surely direct the child's lips to its mother's breast, 
 than she directs the child's opening mind to observation and imita- 
 tion of surrounding objects, to experiment upon them, and to the 
 tracing of relations between them and its own being. But these 
 same studies, for such they really are, widening their range with 
 the child's widening faculties, are also the most necessary, nay 
 the most indispensable, for the future lawyer as for the future me- 
 chanic, for the future ploughman as for the future merchant, for 
 the youth and for the adult of either sex. Were we even wrong, 
 however, in our belief in this coincidence, it would still be wise to 
 adopt in the choice of subjects taught, the order which nature dic- 
 tates in the development of the child's faculties. Now the funda- 
 mental error of the prevailing system lies in its departing in this 
 respect from the order of nature, and in withdrawing prematurely 
 the attention of the young from sensible realities to abstractions, — 
 from objects animate or inanimate, of nature or of art, to nouns, pro- 
 nouns, and verbs, on the ground that, of all the faculties of the mind 
 memory is that which admits of being earliest exercised, and 
 trained to habits of susceptibility and retentiveness. But it is a great 
 mistake in psychology to suppose that there is any abstract faculty 
 of memory which can be improved by exercise : memory is im- 
 proved by exercise, not absolutely, but only in the particular direc- 
 tion of the exercise. It is wrong to regard this faculty as a vessel 
 which receives and retains impartially what may happen to be 
 poured into it: it is only what has awakened a child's interest that 
 it remembers tenaciously, and recollects quickly ; and only those 
 impressions awaken a child's interest which are adapted to the stage 
 and condition of its mind, which gratify and excite, while they gra- 
 tify its appetite for knowledge. Now, can it be doubted that it is 
 external objects which most attract and fix the attention of children, 
 and which are consequently most naturally, easily, and permanently 
 remembered ? The vast field which has been partitioned among 
 the many departments of modern science, affords most ample ma- 
 terials through the longest school-course for developing as well as 
 storing the youthful understanding, and for arousing the young 
 wonder and sense of beauty; — for we hold with the stanchest ad- 
 vociites of " classical " training, that the mind must be trained and 
 
54 
 
 cultivated as well as stored : only we believe that the subjects just 
 hinted at fulfil both conditions, and that the course of nature is the 
 wisest for the one end as well as for the other. 
 
 Besides, if we wish to educate young people, supply them with 
 means of success in future pursuits, and make them useful members 
 of society, we must direct their attention to branches of knowledge 
 which are required in the various avocations of social life. These 
 avocations are now so multiplied, and present so wide a field for 
 competition, that the preparatoiy studies which they demand, and 
 which are often very extensive, cannot be commenced too soon or 
 pursued too earnestly. On this subject an enlightened advocate of a 
 National education which shall commingle in due proportion the sci- 
 entific with the " classical " element, finely observes : — ^ 
 
 " Science existing in the present day, is vastly amplified in all its 
 parts from that which was taught in the days of our fathers. Indeed 
 it is so enlarged, so transformed, that those of us who left the college 
 walls for active life some thirty years ago, find ourselves in quite 
 another world — unable to comprehend its vocabulary, still less its 
 general outline and features. 
 
 " In these same thirty years, in which our young republic has 
 pushed out its boundaries till they embrace the whole continental 
 expanse from ocean to ocean, Science with equal ardor and equal 
 vigor has enlarged its territories, till it spreads its wide domain 
 throughout the Earth and the Heavens. Not to speak of the widely 
 extended researches of the analytical chemist — not to advert to the 
 sublime discoveries of the geologist, disentombing and bringing 
 bodily out to attest and record the chronology of the great globe 
 itself, the millions of long buried witnesses, slumbering in stony beds 
 and in more than Egyptian darkness during millions of centuries — 
 not to follow the microscope, descending deeper and ever deeper 
 into the minutest subdivisions of created things, and finding all, 
 from the depths of the deepest oceans to the peaks of the loftiest 
 mountains, filled not only with organized beings, instinct with pre- 
 sent fife, but innumerable multitudes of the microscopic tenants of 
 our earth in its most remote geological ages, — have we not seen 
 the telescope, with the vast augmentation of its power during these 
 thirty years, pushing far out beyond the solar system, ascending 
 into the countless systems and series of systems of the stellar worlds 
 — unfixing the fixed stars themselves, and tracing their wanderings 
 through the sublimest fields of time and space ? Nay more, is not 
 the upturned eye of the awe-struck astronomer even now, at this 
 very moment, with that same telescope of these modern days, pene- 
 
 * S. B. RUGGLES. Address in behalf of a National University, March, 1852. 
 
oo 
 
 irating throuorh the tangled wilderness of suns and stars, and piercing 
 deeper and deeper into the vast abysses of the universe, detect- 
 ing infant, new-born worlds, in the rery act of coming into being f 
 And yet all this science, disclosing truths thus auii^ust, achieving dis- 
 coveries thus sublime, comes down daily with its homely and prac- 
 tical application to the ever-varying wants and necessities of Man. 
 Never at any former period in human history have its useful appli- 
 cations been so constant, so valuable and so numerous. Not only 
 has it gladdened all earth and man by its applied results, but it has 
 extracted new powers from elemental nature, and delivered them 
 over to the service of our race. The ruder, the grosser, the more • 
 palpable mechanical powers which had sufficed since the earhest 
 antiquity for our use — even the great and all-pervading power of 
 gravitation itself, are, one and all, superseded by a band of laborers, 
 snatched from the Heavens, brought down and subjugated, and 
 made to toil as the slaves of man. For was it not reserved for our 
 day and generation to witness the crowning achievement of science 
 — its brilliant and matchless victory over the imponderable agents 
 of Nature 1 — agents so ethereal, so delicate, so evanescent, — and yet 
 so faithful, so efficient, so untiring ? 
 
 " And when did Man ever possess a better set of servants ? Is 
 there any office or any use, however exalted or however humble, to 
 ■which these heaven-born agents are not applied ? Are they, indeed, 
 the companions only of the learned philosopher, the curious student? 
 Does not that same vivid, electric fluid, which carries on its wings 
 Thought, Eloquence and Genius, condescend to enter the shop of 
 the plodding artisan, and actually plate the very tea-pot on his table? 
 And is not light, polarized light — so exquisitely analyzed as to detect 
 the occult laws of the far distant stellar worlds — placed by the phi- 
 losopher in the hands of the lowly sugar-boiler, that he may send it 
 in as one of his daily workmen to watch Nature herself in her most 
 secret process of crystallization ? Do we not discover at every step, 
 and in every direction, increasing proofs of the hidden harmonies of 
 the Sciences themselves — their indissoluble connection each with all, 
 and the necessity, the indispensable necessity, of all to the service of 
 their master, Man ? 
 
 " The question, then, for an intelligent community like ours, 
 willing, at least, to benefit its material condition is this — Shall science, 
 so exalting and yet so useful — so sublime, yet so humble, be mono- 
 polized by the learned few, or shall it belong to all the people, and 
 be distributed in the largest and most liberal measure among all 
 alike ? We think they can give but one answer. We think they 
 will claim, as they may lawfully claim, the same inherent, primary, 
 fundamental right to knowledge, which they claim to liberty itself; 
 
56 
 
 and will take due care that nothing shall stand in the way of their 
 acquiring this, their greatest treasure." 
 
 The advantages which may arise in active life from the various 
 branches of knowledge here alluded to, are obvious. Those which 
 may be derived from Latin and Greek are, if we except the mental 
 discipline effected by the study of a foreign idiom, very inconsiderable. 
 In adverting to " classical" instruction, Adam Smith observes : — " It 
 seldom happens that a man, in any part of his life, derives any con- 
 veniency or advantage from some of the most laborious and trouble- 
 some parts of his education." ' And yet those languages usurp the 
 • almost exclusive right of occupying, for several years, the rising gener- 
 ation, those on whom the country places her hopes of advancement in 
 the different pursuits which contribute to her wealth, prosperity and 
 glory. 
 
 Not only do the dead languages present but little chance ot 
 being applied to any useful purposes in after-life, but the mental 
 training which their acquisition may promote, although of a high 
 character, cannot supply all the intellectual wants of society. The 
 discipline which arises from the comparative study of ancient lan- 
 guages leads to particular attainments, which, valuable as they are, 
 ought not to be the only objects of ambition in intellectual educa- 
 tion. A different course of mental training is required to prepare 
 the mind for the scientific, military, and industrial professions, from 
 that which is calculated to produce great scholars. The habits of 
 the mind formed by the study of Latin and Greek, have contributed 
 but little in raising to eminence those who hold the highest rank 
 amongst legislators, warriors, navigators, engineers, agriculturists, 
 manufacturers, merchants or artists. It is not these languages which 
 have brought out the mental energy of the great benefactors of man- 
 kind, of those who, by their inventions and discoveries, have] in- 
 creased, and daily increase, the power and well-being of man. 
 
 The present tendency of society is to special and professional edu- 
 cation ; and such education cannot be obtained through the " clas- 
 sics." Our ancestors could not avoid confining their youth to the 
 narrow circle of what were, in their time, aptly called, " the learned 
 languages;" because, as already remarked, they had little else 
 to teach them, and that little was to be found in those langua- 
 ges. "Butthouojh wisdom in them, it does not follow that it is 
 such with us. With them it was knowledge, not for ornament, but 
 use. It was the instrument of action, as well as of thought. Law, 
 Diplomacy, Medicine, Religion, all was Latin : a man who was no 
 * Latiner,' was a mere villein in education : he was deemed unfit in 
 
 * Wealth of Nations 
 
67 
 
 civil lite for any situation destined for the * ingenuous' and free. But 
 to insist on it at present, but, above all, as the only thing necessary, and 
 to the sacrifice of many other things really so, is a folly of which our 
 ancestors could not have been guilty." ^ 
 
 It is wonderful how far our thoughts and acts are influenced un- 
 consciously by mere verbal fallacies. If the woi I learning^ means 
 obsolete vocabularies and antiquarian lore, it may indeed be applied 
 to ancient literature; but if, as we believe, it means science, history, 
 philosophy, literature in general, it seems hardly proper to apply the 
 terra to the acquisition of Greek and Latin, and to call these lan- 
 guages learned^ when scarcely any kind of available information can 
 be obtained through them. Those alone are truly the learned 
 languages which are depositories of useful knowledge. Almost all 
 the Greek and Latin works which contain information of any value, 
 have been translated, and are thus accessible to persons ignorant of 
 those languages ; but from the modern press there are issuing daily, 
 in various countries, works of merit in every branch of literature, and 
 in every department of knowledge, many of which ought to be read 
 as they appear. No physician, chemist, or engineer, — no scientific 
 man, in fact, can attain to eminence, or even keep pace with the 
 progress of science or art, who cannot avail himself of the discoveries 
 and improvements made by other nations on subjects relative to his 
 pursuit. Living languages are indispensable to travellers, merchants, 
 and statesmen, to diplomatic and consular agents, to naval and mili- 
 tary men, to the man oC fashion, as to the man of science ; whereas 
 the usefulness of the ancient languages, viewed either as stores of 
 knowledge, or as means of communication, is at the present day very 
 limited. 
 
 Utility is the test by which the value of instruction ought to be 
 estimated ; and the study of words is useful only so far as it leads 
 to the acquisition of things. " Language," says Milton, " is but the 
 instrument of conveying to us things useful to be known. And, 
 
 * Tn. Wyse. Education reform. 
 
 ' There is much obscurity and dispute comprised in these terms (litera- 
 ture and taste) — many fallacies dependent on them. But the fj^reat fallacy 
 of all is in the term learning. Learnin*^ ! a learned man ! a scholar ! these 
 are words that blind us, and maintain in folly what was laid in wisdom. 
 Once, Greek and Latin were the only learning", words the only sciences. 
 The unhappy term remains ; the country of England still considers syntax 
 and quantity as learninr^, and the consequences are obvious. When non- 
 sense verses shall have taken their appropriate place with charades and 
 logogryphs ; when politics, laws, economy, morals, mathematics, mecha- 
 nics, cnemistry, shall bo dignified with the term ''learning,^' then will Bri- 
 tain, and Europe with it, see that revolution in its education and its creeds, 
 to produce which we trust we are not writing on dead leaves, and to the 
 winds."— Westm. Rev., Vol. 4., " Present System of Education:' 
 
58 
 
 though a linguist should pride himself to have all the tongues that 
 Babel cleft the world into, yet if he have not studied the solid things 
 in them as well as the words and lexicons, he were nothing so much 
 to be esteemed a learned man as any yeoman or tradesman compe- 
 tently wise in his mother dialect only." ^ Those languages should 
 be preferred which afford the most abundant means of gaining know- 
 ledge. A second language is not of itself knowledge; it is only an 
 instrument for obtaining and conveying it. Having two words for 
 every thing, — two ways of expressing every idea, does not constitute 
 real information. He who knows ten names for a plant is less in- 
 formed than he who has only one name for it, but is acquainted with 
 ten properties of it. The time which is given to the study of words 
 is often taken from the study of things : hence it is not rare to find 
 persons masters of several languages, who, notwithstanding, are veiy 
 ignorant. 
 
 If schools and colleges were, as they ought to be, an introduc- 
 tion to the world ; if their method of training embraced the culti- 
 vation of all the mental powers ; if their course of study were a pre- 
 paration for the various avocations and active duties of life ; and if 
 the instruction received in them were available in manhood, they 
 would present some prospect of advantage to every class of society. 
 Unfortunately this is far from being always the case. The time 
 given in many of them to any thing beyond the ancient languages 
 and mathematics, is, indeed, very inconsiderable. The mnemonic 
 exercises on the national grammar, on geography and history, and 
 the instruction on the natural and experimental sciences, which are 
 occasionally introduced, may satisfy those who have not reflected 
 on what constitutes good education ; but they do not supply the 
 real wants of the generality of learners, nor do they enable them to 
 fulfil the expectation of society concerning its future members. 
 Every information, in fact, beyond the "classics" is secondary: it is 
 attended to with indifference, and often Avith ill-will; it is studied 
 merely as a matter of form, and to save appearances. This exclu- 
 sive attention to ancient literature, by indirectly contemning the na- 
 tive and foreign living idioms, leads young people to disregard their 
 national and other modern classics. It narrows their minds and 
 destroys their individuality by making them the servile imitators of 
 the ancients. 
 
 Under the influence of these antiquated notions, a young man, 
 after the period of scholastic education, is ushered into the world 
 with a smattering of one or two dead languages, and with but scanty 
 knowledge of his own ; with vague notions of bygone ages and utter 
 
 On Education, to Sam.' Hartlib. 
 
59 
 
 ignorance of passing events. He is apt to entertain an exalted 
 opinion of " classical learning," and a total disregard of modern 
 sciences and practical good sense.^ No wonder, then, that so many- 
 eminent men have raised their voices against the present scholastic 
 course. Dr. Arnold himself, who was so conversant with the details 
 of instruction in " classical " schools, condemns it as altogether in- 
 eflScient : " Our intellectual eminence in modern times," he says, 
 " by no means keeps pace with our advances in all the comforts and 
 eifectiveness of society. And I have no doubt that our miserable 
 system of education has a great deal to do with it." ' 
 
 Industrial pursuits are the foundation of our social and political 
 organization, the source of the prosperity of the state, and the means 
 of existence of the great majority of citizens : the arts and sciences, 
 on which they depend, ought to form an essential part of our educa- 
 tion. Let, then, the practical sciences be imparted in our schools 
 and colleges as they are in active life. Although of comparatively 
 modern origin, they rank high in the scale of knowledge, whether 
 we consider their usefulness, the comprehensiveness of their aim, or 
 the unerring certainty of their principles. No scientific pui-suit has 
 more largely than natural philosophy, and its handmaid, chemistry, 
 supplied the wants and luxuries of life, promoted the health and 
 comforts of the human race, and contributed to the improvement of 
 agriculture, manufactures, and the arts of modern civilization. The 
 sciences which reveal the laws and phenomena of nature possess 
 this inestimable advantage in the education of youth, that their study 
 presents striking and endless manifestations of the infinite power, 
 wisdom, and benevolence of God. 
 
 The external world of material objects displays the power of the 
 supreme Architect who created it, not less than the internal world of 
 thought. Matter and intelligence are the inseparable elements of 
 
 * It is to the great body of men of this description that Prof Faraday 
 alludes in the foUowinj^ pass.a^o from his letter on Table-turnintr : — •" By 
 the great body — I mean such as reject all consideration of the equality of 
 cause and effect — who refer the results to electricity and magnetism, yet 
 know nothing of the laws of these forces — or to attraction, yet show no 
 phenomena of pure attractive power — or to the rotation of the earth, as if 
 the earth revolved round the leg of a table — or to some unrecognized phy- 
 sical force, without inquiring whether the known forces are not sufficient 
 — or who even refer them to diaboHcal or supernatural agency, rather than 
 .suspend their judgment, or acknowledge to themselves that they are not 
 learned enough in these matters to decide on the nature of their action. 
 I think the system of education that could leave the mental condition of 
 the public body in the state in which this subject has found it, must have 
 been greatly' deficient in some very important principle." — Athenaum, July 
 2,1853. 
 
 ' Life and Correspondence, by A. P. Stanley. 
 
one grand whole. It is, in fact, by the contemplation of the former 
 that man can exercise and unfold his portion of the latter. Nothing 
 is better calculated to enrich the mind and to elevate the soul than 
 the attentive consideration of those admirable principles of nature, 
 which diflfuse every where an indelible character of order and beauty, 
 proclaiming unity of design, in variety infinite, and manifesting the 
 divine impress of the Creator. Nothing is so capable of exciting 
 human inquiry to continual activity as these sublime problems of 
 nature, the solution of which opens wider fields of thought with every 
 new discovery, and exhibits the relations which exist between the 
 physical and the moral world. 
 
 In truth, it is now beginning to be perceived that the scientific 
 element should enter more largely into our religious teaching, hith- 
 erto confined almost exclusively to "classics." It will be fortunate 
 for the Church not less than for Science, if the importance of their 
 more perfect union, so forcibly expressed by an eminent writer already 
 quoted,^ shall come to be universally admitted. 
 
 " In asserting," says he, " that the Church produces few great scien- 
 tific teachers, I only state a fact deeply to be deplored, for it is Her 
 peculiar office to watch the progress of human thought, to guide, 
 promote and consecrate the intellectual labors of man. Five hundred 
 years ago, when the intellect of Christendom was abandoning Scho- 
 lasticism for the newly opened field of classical learning, the Church 
 forgot her duty. Lagging behind the age, she by turns opposed and 
 feebly encouraged, what we now see was the great movement of the 
 time. She alienated its leaders, and allowed Thought and Letters 
 to get beyond her influence, and the Christian world still sufl*ers from 
 the disastrous mistake. . 
 
 " We are now in the midst of another intellectual revolution, no 
 less momentous. Man is hourly gaining mastery over Nature, de- 
 veloping her hidden laws, and subduing to his service her hostile 
 powers. Physical Science, the splendid instrument of modern pro- 
 gress, must become, if it be not already, the controlling study of the 
 arre. Should the Church be lono;er indifferent to such an element ? 
 Is she at liberty to disregard it ? 
 
 " Distrusting modern science, and avoiding contact or sympathy 
 with its leaders, she has thus far denied herself the power she was 
 entitled to exert over the nineteenth century. Bat recent indications 
 lead us to hope better things for the future. Signs of concord and 
 cooperation begin to appear, and the time has not yet passed, for 
 the Church to bring into her ranks, — where they belong, — the potent 
 energies of modern science. 
 
 *S. B. RuGGLES. 1854. The Duty oj Columbia College to the Community 
 considered by One of its Trustees. 
 
61 
 
 "For distrusting the study of tJie Classics, and omitting actively to 
 encourage the ' Revival of Letters,' the Church at the time had some 
 apology. Clearly as we now perceive the beauty and value of An- 
 cient Learning, and its fundamental importance as an element of 
 sound education, we cannot wonder that she hesitated, before admit- 
 ting heatlien philosophy and poetry into her religious teaching. 
 
 " But a reverent study of the Works of the Creator can only 
 strengthen the position of the Church, and furnish cumulative evi- 
 dence of the truths she teaches. The laws of Matter have been con- 
 secrated by her Divine Founder to the good of the human race. In 
 healing the sick, and multiplying food for the starving, He showed 
 the Church her duty to care for man's material wants, and use for 
 his material welfare all the powers of material nature. 
 
 " Is it not, then, matter of profound regret, that the Church should 
 deem it unimportant to enlarge to the uttermost our knowledge of 
 the wide-spread wonders of God's Material Creation ? — that it should 
 fail to perceive the immensity of the truth, embodied in the Univer- 
 sal Liturgy, which proclaims not only Heaven but Earth " full of 
 the Majesty of His Glory ? " ' 
 
 Blind respect for the monachal institutions of the old English 
 universities has strangely perpetuated the vices of a system of in- 
 struction which contrasts so obviously with the progress that science, 
 art, and philosophy are making on all sides. The instruction of youth 
 should, like the laws, change with the character and institutions of 
 a nation ; it should follow its moral and intellectual progress, and 
 should be extended with the increasing demands of the people. The 
 little progress which the ancients made in the physical sciences, did 
 not permit them to perceive the intimate union which exists between 
 
 ' It is well worthy of notice that, while the churchmen in America are 
 thus contending for the necessity of physical siencc as an element of reli- 
 gious culture, like efforts are made by their lay brethren in England. At 
 the last annual "Commemoration" at Oxford, the Earl of Derby, the 
 Chancellor of the University, in an ofticial address, strongly expressed his 
 opinion infavorofintroducinsjj the natural sciences into the course of study. 
 He especially warned the Clergy that *' tliey would incur loss of respect 
 unless they acquired knowledge so interesting to the bulk of their flocks." 
 In alluding to the two dangers which were apprehended from the intro- 
 duction of the study of the physical sciences into the Oxford curriculu/n, 
 first of displacing the old studies, and second, that the new would be studied 
 only superficially, he stated that he had no serious fears of either. He con- 
 cluded with an eloquent vindication of the uses of the study of the works 
 of God in the physical creation, introducing with great appropriateness and 
 eft'ect a part of the beautiful morning hymn of praise which Milton puts in 
 the mouth of our first parents. 
 
 It is quite evident thai Oxford, so long the stronghold of mediaeval tradi- 
 tions, must yield ere long to the higher civilization of modern times. 
 
62 
 
 the sciences and the arts. In their ignorance of political economy, 
 they despised agriculture and manufactures, unaware of their influ- 
 ence on civilization. Among them the mechanical and industrial 
 arts were abandoned to slaves. Xenophon affirms that such occupa- 
 tions corrupt man ; Aristotle denies to those who are engaged in them 
 the right of franchise ; Plato, who, in his Republic gives the first 
 place to musicians, proposes to punish the citizens who should carry 
 on commerce. In the Middle Ages the useful arts were the occu- 
 pation of bondmen exclusively ; they were neglected by the enlight- 
 ened portion of the community, and could therefore receive but little 
 improvement. But now that they are carried on by freemen, and 
 are ennobled by the sciences and arts to which they owe their birth 
 and perfection, their study must necessarily form part of a general 
 system of education. 
 
 We conclude our remarks with the following extract from one 
 of our public journals, in which it is very appropriately headed, — 
 " A noble Speech by Prince Albert^ * 
 
 "It has been a great pleasure to me to have been able 
 
 to participate, in however trifling a degree, in a work which I do 
 not look upon as a simple act of worldly wisdom on the part of this 
 great town and locality, but as one of the first public acknowledg- 
 ments of a principle which is daily forcing its way among us, and is 
 destined to play a great and important part in the future develop- 
 ment of this nation and of the world in general — I mean, the intro- 
 duction of science and art as the conscious regulators of productive 
 industry. The courage and spirit of enterprise with which an im- 
 mense amount of capital is embarked in industrial pursuits, and the 
 skill and indefatigable perseverance with which these are carried on 
 in this country, cannot but excite universal admiration ; but in all 
 our operations, whether agricultural or manufacturing, it is not we 
 who operate, but the laws of nature, which we have set in operation. 
 It is, then, of the highest importance that we should know these 
 laws, in order to know what we are about, and the reason why cer- 
 tain things are, which occur daily under our hands, and what course 
 we are to pursue in regard to them. Without such knowledge we 
 are condemned to one of three states : — Either we merely go on to 
 do things just as our fathers did, and for no better reason than be- 
 cause they did them so — or, trusting to some personal authority, we 
 adopt at random the recommendation of some specific, in a specu- 
 lative hope that it may answer — or, lastly, and this is the most 
 favorable case, we ourselves improve upon certain processes ; but 
 this can only be the result of an experience hardly earned and dearly 
 
 * Delivered on occasion of laying the comer stone of the Birmingham 
 and Midland Institute, Nov. 22d, 1855. 
 
63 
 
 bought, and which, after all, can only embrace a comparatively- 
 short space of time, and a small number of experiments. From 
 none of these causes can we hope for much progress ; for the mind, 
 however ingenious, has no materials to work with, and remains in 
 presence of phenomena the cause of which are hidden from it. But 
 these Laws of Nature — these Divine Laws — are capable of being 
 discovered and understood, and of being taught and made our own. 
 This is the task of science — and while science discovers and teaches 
 these laws, art teaches their application. No pursuit is, therefore, 
 too insignificant not to be capable of becoming the subject both of 
 a science and an art. The fine arts, as far as they relate to paint- 
 ing and sculpture, which are sometimes confounded with art in gen- 
 eral, rest on the application of the laws of form and labor, and what 
 may be called the science of the beautiful. They do not rest on any 
 arbitrary theory on the modes of producing pleasurable emotions, 
 but follow fixed laws, more difficult, perhaps, to seize than those 
 regulating the material world, because belonging partly to the 
 sphere of the ideal and our spiritual essence, yet perfectly appreciable 
 and teachable, both abstractedly and historically, from the works of 
 different ages and nations. No human pursuits make any material 
 progress until science be brought to bear upon them. We have 
 seen, accordingly, many of them slumber for centuries ; but from 
 the moment that science has touched them with her magic wand, 
 they have sprung forward and taken strides which amaze and almost 
 awe the beholder. Look at the transformation which has gone on 
 around us since the laws of gravitation, electricity, magnetism, and 
 the expansive power of heat have become known to us ! It has 
 altered our whole state of existence — one might say the whole face 
 of the globe ! We owe this to science, and science alone ; and she 
 has other treasures in store for us, if we will but call her to our as- 
 sistance. It is sometimes objected by the ignorant that science is 
 uncertain and changeable; and they point to the many exploded 
 theories which have been superseded by others, as a proof that the 
 present knowledge may be also unsound, and after all not worth 
 having. But they are not aware that while they think to cast blame 
 upon science, they bestow, in fact, the highest praise upon her. For 
 that is precisely the difference between science and prejudice: that 
 the latter keeps stubbornly to its position, whether disproved or not, 
 while the former is an unarrestable movement toward the fountain 
 of truth — caring little for cherished authorities or sentiments, but 
 continually progressing — feeling no false shame at her shortcomings, 
 but, on the contrary, the highest pleasure when freed from an error, 
 at having advanced another step toward the attainment of Divine 
 truth, a pleasure not even intelligible to the pride of ignorance. We 
 
64 
 
 also hear, not unfrequently, science and practice, scientific knowledge 
 and common sense, contrasted as antagonistic. A strange error 1 
 For science is eminently practical, and must be so, as she sees and 
 knows what she is doing ; while mere common practice is con- 
 demned to work in the dark, applying natural ingenuity to unknown 
 powers to obtain a known result. Far be it from me to undervalue 
 the creative power of genius, or to treat shrewd common sense as 
 worthless without knowledge. But nobody will tell me that the 
 same genius would not take an incomparably higher flight if supplied 
 with all the means which knowledge can impart, or that common 
 sense does not become, in fact, only truly powerful when in posses- 
 sion of the materials upon which judgment is to be exercised. The 
 study of the laws by which the Almighty governs the universe is 
 therefore our bounden duty. Of these laws our great academies 
 and seats of education have, rather arbitrarily, selected only two 
 spheres or groups (as I may call them) as essential parts of our na- 
 tional education — the laws which regulate quantities and propor- 
 tions, which form the subject of mathematics, and the laws regu- 
 lating the expression of our thoughts through the medium of lan- 
 guage, that is to say, grammar, which finds its purest expression in 
 the classical languages. These laws are important branches of know- 
 ledge ; their study trains and elevates the mind. But they are not 
 the only ones, there are others which we cannot disregard — which 
 we cannot do without. There are, for instance, the laws governing 
 the human mind and its relation to the Divine Spirit — the subject of 
 logic and metaphysics. There are those which govern our bodily 
 nature and its connection with the soul — the subject of physiology 
 and psychology. More which govern human society and the rela- 
 tions between man and man — the subjects of politics, jurisprudence, 
 and political economy, and many others. While of the laws just 
 mentioned, some have been recognized as essentials of education in 
 different institutions, and some will, by the course of time, more 
 fully assert their right to recognition, the laws regulating matter and 
 form are those which will constitute the chief object of your pursuits ; 
 and as the principle of subdivision of labor is the one most congenial 
 to our age, I would advise you to keep to this specialty, and to fol- 
 low with undivided attention chiefly the sciences of mechanics, phy- 
 sics, and chemistry, and the fine arts in painting, sculpture, and ar- 
 chitecture. You will thus have conferred an inestimable boon upon 
 your country, and in a short time have the satisfaction of witnessing 
 the beneficial results upon our national powers of production. Other 
 parts of the country will, I doubt not, emulate your example, and I 
 live in hopes that all these institutions will some day find a central 
 point of unio;j, and thus complete their national organization." 
 
65 
 
 This admirable speech which so well sums up the views above 
 expressed, deserves the more our attention, as, from the eminent 
 character of the speaker, as well as from the occasion on which it 
 was delivered, it expresses the state of public sentiment in a country 
 which we have too long copied in its errors,^ not to follow it now in 
 the way of reform. This reform, indeed, has already commenced 
 among us, and is more likely to be carried out in those schools 
 and academies which emanate directly from the people. Convinced 
 that the old Grammar-schools in which Latin and Greek are exclu- 
 sive or preponderant, however useful as preparatory palaestrae to 
 philosophizing clergymen and leisurely gentlemen with large libraries, 
 are not the schools for them, they have established their own insti- 
 tutions, with a view to the greatest advantage for the student and 
 the greatest public utility.'' In these schools the sciences and mo- 
 dem languages are seen to flourish side by side with the "classics," 
 and in many of them such an amount and such a variety of know- 
 ledge are now communicated, with such an admirable discipline of 
 the understanding of the powers whether of observing or of reason- 
 ing, as well as of the taste for what is beautiful in literature and art, 
 that the elder colleges must take serious heed lest their sons be 
 sadly beaten in the educational and social race. 
 
 * In mentioning how in the origin we were obliged to content our- 
 selves, in matters relating to science and literature, with imitating the 
 mother-country, Mr. Siljestrom remarks : — " This imitation is also evinced 
 in the constitution of their learned institutions, particularly of their colleges 
 ■which have been organized after English models. As in England, so in 
 America, these institutions are little more than seminaries for teaching 
 classical languages and mathematics : all other subjects are considered as 
 subordinate and treated with more or less negligence. ... - Idolatry of 
 the classical languages is as common in the new world as in the old ; only 
 it appears even more preposterous in America in the midst of the fresh life 
 of a new community. . . . , I entertain the conviction, that as long as 
 classical pedantry, which still prevails in the higher educational institutions, 
 be not got rid of, and a more popular system of government be introduced, 
 these institutions will never exercise that influence on the scientific culture 
 of the nation as under other circumstances they might and would exercise. 
 I have no doubt, however, that gradually, as the public school system ex- 
 tends its action to higher spheres, the system of instruction will adopt a 
 new and more effective form." — The Educational Institutions of the United 
 States. 
 
 ' See Report of N. Y. Board of Education. May 3d, 1848. " The Ee- 
 port recommended the establishment of a Free College or Academy, and 
 presenting its design, nature and objects in this language: "Your Com- 
 mittee will not at present enter into the details of the proposed institution, 
 but will briefly remark that their design is to offer the idea of a college, 
 which, while it shall be in no way inferior to any of our colleges in the 
 character, amount, or value of the information given to the pupils, the 
 course of studies to bo pursued will have more especial reference to the 
 active duties of operative life, rather than to those more particularly re 
 garded as necessary for the pulpit, bar, or the medical profession." 
 
66 
 
 Sharing tlie conviction that the classes for whom a few years* 
 schooling is the utmost they can attain, ought not to be deluded 
 and mocked with the nidiments of " classical " instruction, which 
 they can never carry onward to utility and enjoyment, but are en- 
 titled to a solid groundwork of practical, useful knowledge, — a 
 w^ork quite compatible with the development of refined taste and ^ 
 feehng — we have sought to show the inexpediency of introduce 5 
 ing the ancient languages at an early stage of instruction. But, ^ 
 as much as we are opposed to a too eady or exclusive study of 
 " classical " literature, we should equally regret to see our reasons 
 ])erverted into arguments against "classicjfl" studies in general. 
 Let us well distinguish the use from the abuse. If Latin and 
 Greek be unprofitable to the great majority of students, it does 
 not, therefore, follow, as some eager innovators will have it, that 
 Homer and Virgil are to be banished from our public schools alto- 
 gether, and steam engines and calculating machines substituted in 
 their place. — Let it not be ! — Let us not snap cruelly the golden 
 chain that has so long and so pleasantly bound us to the past ! — 
 Let us not unbridge the mystic gulf of centuries profanely ! — 
 Let Virgil and Homer live, as good things, and among the best, for 
 those who have time and capacity to " drink deep of the Pierian 
 spring," — but let them not be wasted in mere rudiments and disci- 
 plinarian externals. Let the study of ancient literature be reserved 
 for the higher clasess in school, for those whose mind has grown 
 mature, and become capable of comprehending the objects which 
 it contemplates, and the " classics " will again assume their rank 
 and dignity, now so seriously compromised by their indiscriminate 
 application.^ 
 
 The Greeks and the Romans amply made up for their extreme 
 deficiency in the sciences by their taste in the fine arts, and the ex- 
 quisite finish of their literary productions : hence their languages 
 afibrd advantages which cannot be denied. The noble specimens 
 of history, oratory and poetry embodied in them, present the 
 fairest models of composition ; the excellences with which they 
 are replete eff'ectually cultivate and polish the taste of students in 
 all literary subjects ; whilst the habit of explaining and analyzing 
 thoughts relative to a state of society so different from the present, 
 inures to intellectual research, and calls into action reflection, ima- 
 gination, and judgment. The peculiar system which characterizes 
 
 * " Nothing has more contributed to disparag-e the cause of " classical" 
 education than the rendering it the education of all. The ancient lan- 
 guages are taught at once too extensively and not intensively enough." 
 Edinburgh Revuie. 
 
6T 
 
 the grammatical structure of those languages, the distinctive termi- 
 nations of the same species of words, and the changes of those ter- 
 minations, incident to the various circumstances in which they are 
 used, as well as the indefinite collocation arising from these changes, 
 aftbrd to the more advanced learners favorable opportunities for 
 prosecuting their study of the native tongue, for acquiring a 
 thorough knowledge of general grammar, and exercising the mind 
 in philological investigations. Being also the source from which 
 several modern languages are derived, and from which the techno- 
 logy of science is formed, they show the affiliation of those languages, 
 explain scientific nomenclatures, and open a wide field for ety- 
 mology. 
 
 But the main advantage of " classical " studies results from the 
 essential character of ancient literature in thought, and emotion, and 
 expression. As in addition to the simplicity and tangibility of their 
 contents, and their less complex character generally, the works of 
 the ancients stand unrivalled as models of purity in style and truth 
 in art, their careful perusal will serve as a most salutary check 
 against that looseness, ill-regulated luxuriance and extravagance, by 
 which the compositions of modern literature have too frequently 
 been characterized. It should also be remembered, in estimating 
 the influence which the pattern specimens of ancient literature exert 
 on the modern mind, that we are placed in very different situations 
 and surrounded by very different circumstances, and that, for this 
 reason, there is much less danger of a slavish and passive imitation 
 of antiquity, than of a modern model. An ancient model will be 
 admired, and exercise a beneficial influence on the taste of those 
 who admire it ; but as it does not excite, and is not meant to excite 
 to any imitation of exactly the same kind, it seems to stimulate ex- 
 ertion without inciting a discouraging comparison. The classic 
 models of our own literature, on the other hand, stand so near to 
 us, and so obviously incite comparison with our own performances, 
 that a servile imitation, or a despairing abandonment of self-devel- 
 opment, is too apt to be the result of the early admiration which is 
 fixed on them. 
 
 And let it not be said that the benefits expected from classical 
 literature could be equally obtained from good translations. The 
 substance of the historical, oratorical, or other didactic works of the 
 ancients may, it is true, be conveyed in faithful translation ; but the 
 pith of their expression can never be conveyed. In imaginative 
 composition, especially, the very form in which the classical writers 
 moulded their creations is nearly as essential as the substance, and 
 that form cannot be transferred into another language. No inter- 
 pretation of the standard classics can give an idea of their energy, 
 
68 
 
 or of their peculiar grace. A translation may be full of beauties ; 
 but they will be of a different character from those of the original. 
 By translation, the harmonious arrangement of words, the excel- 
 lences of style, are lost, especially in poetical productions, which be- 
 come sometimes unintelligible and nonsensical. The impossibility of 
 transfusing into one language the beauties of another, makes a trans- 
 lation unfit as a model : original works should always be preferred. 
 Seldom have the most celebrated and the most admired works of 
 any nation obtained, in the translation, popularity equal to that 
 which they enjoy in the original. This is particularly the case with 
 the literary master-pieces of antiquity. 
 
 Ancient languages must continue to occupy a large share of at- 
 tention in the intellectual education of young men destined for pur- 
 suits which depend on literary acquirements. It is a narrow view to 
 consider them as useful only to the learned professions. If an ac- 
 quaintance with them is beneficial to the clergyman, the physician ' 
 and the lawyer, it is not less so to the archaeologist, antiquarian, 
 statesman, philosopher, and man of letters ; for they are the inter- 
 preters of ancient monuments and coins, the original receptacles of 
 our laws and of ancient doctrines, the inexhaustible sources of our 
 modern dialects, and the bonds which mentally connect modern na- 
 tions with one another and with antiquity. 
 
 "Classical" Hterature must be studied in proportion to the in- 
 fluence it has had over modern civilization. This study ennobles the t- 
 mind by elevating it above the trivial pursuits of ordinary life, and \ 
 affording means of intellectual culture. Let us never forget that, 
 through the writings of antiquity, the ideas of freedom entertained 
 by the repubhcs of Rome, Athens, and Sparta, have cast deep roots 
 among the enslaved nations of modern times ; and liberty has left 
 her ancient temples to place herself at the head of civilization. The 
 judicious study of the ancient languages will preserve these feelings 
 in the hearts of men, and will associate liberty with education. 
 " Classical studies maintain the sacred tradition of the intellectual and 
 moral life of humanity." ^ 
 
 We may therefore assume that for him who wishes to reach the 
 highest point of intellectual cultivation, an initiation into ancient 
 literature is absolutely indispensable. Only when so initiated is he 
 in a condition to survey comprehensively, to contemplate clearly, 
 and to see profoundly into what human nature under its various 
 aspects can achieve; by the aid of ancient learning alone is the 
 educator enabled to extend his view beyond the narrow horizon of the 
 NOW which encompasses him, and to distinguish between that which 
 
 * V. Cousin. '* Rapport sur V Instruction publique en Allemagne." 
 
69 
 
 is merely local or temporarj', and that which is of universal and 
 human significancy. And it is only this extent of vision which 
 entitles a man to say that he is educated in the highest and complete 
 sense of the word. 
 
 But here a question of great practical interest arises. Can the 
 " classics " be taught efficiently, if delayed to a later period of the 
 school course, precedence being given to the modern languages ? 
 "VVe do not hesitate to reply, that the efficiency would be increased, 
 not diminished, by the delay. It is, doubtless, a paradox to contend 
 that the time may be abridged, and yet the result not lessened, but 
 augmented ; but every one knows how much more can be effected by 
 the well-directed energy of a day, especially when the mind is 
 somewhat mature, than by the half-hearted dawdling of a week, 
 especially in earher and more careless life. If this seem to any in- 
 consistent with what we have before said about the length of time being 
 required for attaining perfect familiarity with a modern language, 
 let them remember what we have also said, first about the greater 
 fitness of modern languages for early study, and secondly, about the 
 quite different manner and kind of proficiency which, in a modern 
 language, is both to be desired and to be obtained. Besides, it is 
 not the higher " classic " teaching that ought to be curtailed ; it is 
 the rudimental drudgery that ought to be abridged and condensed 
 by better methods,^ and above all, by waiting nature's time. It is 
 the early age at which " classical " studies are begun, that — render- 
 ing the work at once tedious and unprofitable — necessitates so waste- 
 ful an expenditure of time, and prevents their successful prosecu- 
 tion. Difficulties which are now surmounted, if at all, with infinite 
 labor and many tears ; details which are now mastered, if at all, by 
 children who can have so little comprehension of their meaning and 
 purpose, and so little motive to mental effort ; would aftbrd only an 
 easy and a pleasant exercise to minds more mature and better pre- 
 pared. 
 
 At all events, since the physical sciences on one side, and the 
 modern languages on the other, have inserted their various wedges 
 into the " old classical system," it has become obvious that it cannot, 
 in its integrity, much longer be upheld ; and various modifications 
 have been suggested to meet the wants of the age. Generally, two 
 divisions — one embracing the ancient, the other the modern lan- 
 guages — have been instituted from the first stage, and maintained 
 throughout ; one school being thus, in fact, made into two, coincid- 
 ing in all other points. It is not necessary that we should dwell on 
 
 * " We do amiss to spend seven or eight years in scraping together so 
 much miserable Latin and Greek as may be learned otherwise easily and 
 delightfully in one year."— Milton, On Education^ to Sara. Hartlib. 
 
70 
 
 the defects of this plan, wliicli is, indeed, a virtual abandonment of 
 the whole " classical " ground in the case of all but those who have 
 some special reason for " classical " study. It leaves the " classical " 
 student where he was ; it cuts off tbe other from the " classics " alto- 
 gether ; it deprives both of the advantage of a joint training, and is 
 apt to create invidious distinctions. Still it was the first step made. 
 An improvement on this has been the introduction of a modern lan- 
 guage, during the last year of the school-course, with all who have 
 followed the " classical " routine ; and that this previous training 
 gives them peculiar facilities in the acquisition of the former — espe- 
 cially if it be one of the more immediate descendants of the Latin — 
 cannot be denied, though a few months, even under those circum- 
 stances, can hardly do more than laying a good foundation. But, 
 as this is done to the detriment of the " classics " themselves, which 
 are thus neglected at the very time they ouglit to engage more par- 
 ticularly the student's attention, it inflicts the serious loss of much 
 of his early training, the seed having been sown, though the liarvest 
 is never to be reaped. If " classics " were delayed entirely to the 
 more advanced school-stage, the pupils would be taught together, 
 in their earlier years, all those subjects which are of common im- 
 portance to all, whatever be their distination in life : the structure 
 and literature of their own language, its sources and history, with 
 coBimual 2^rcictice in English composition ; two or three modern lan- 
 guages, with abundant exercise in writing, speaking and hearing^ as 
 well as reading ; the various branches of mathematics,; the elements 
 of physical science — in short, all the subjects which are now taught 
 in any — or which ought to be taught in every respectable school. 
 Every pupil would thus, even in the earlier portion of the school- 
 course, receive a valuable mental training, and make substantial ac- 
 quisitions, which he could turn to account alike in the further pro- 
 secution of his studies in any direction, or in the business of the 
 world, should necessity unfortunately require his premature removal 
 from school. In their knowledge of modern tongues, especially, all 
 would have acquired an instrument of ever fresh attainment, from 
 literature current as well as past, and from associations with hving 
 men. The interesting and truly valuable, but less useful and im- 
 portant study of the ancient languages and literatures, would be re- 
 served for those who should have the blessed privilege of a prolon- 
 gation of their school-course. The great complaint now raised 
 against the " classics" is, that they are taught too early and to in- 
 discriminately. By the same simple means both objections are 
 removed. The postponement of "classical " studies would virtually 
 settle the question — who ought to learn " classics ? " The answer is : 
 those who can remain at school during the later years of the coui-se. 
 
71 
 
 If fewer persons were taught the elements of " classics," more would S 
 learn their use ; if fewer learned the letter, more would imbibe the ; 
 spirit. In this way, those who should still learn " classics," would 
 have the immense advantage of not having sacrificed for their sake 
 things much more important, while those who should not, might 
 well congratulate themselves on having acquired much valuable 
 knowledge, and excellent mental training to boot, in exchange for a 
 pittance of Latin and Greek, soon forgotten, and, to them, almost use- 
 less while remembered. Nor is this plan the less worthy of consid- 
 eration, because it would powerfully tend to renew the prestige of 
 " classical " learning, at the same time that it would systematize the 
 current opinion of a great class of intelligent citizens, who, with 
 Dr. Latham, feel " the necessity for a limitation." ^ 
 
 * Lectures on Education, delivered before the Royal Society, March, 1855. 
 
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