fee, how the ftudies of the Grammar-school can be dispensed with. Indeed, if we were, like the favages, continually employed in searching after the neceffaries of life; or if, like the first Romans, our fituation or temper involved us in perpetual war, I should perhaps allow literary improvement of every kind to be little better than a coftly fuperfluity; and if any one were disposed to affirm, that in fuch a state men may enjoy a greater share of animal pleasure, than all the ornaments of art and luxury can furnish, I fhould not be eager to controvert his opinion. But I take for granted, that man is destined for fomething nobler than mere animal enjoyment; that a ftate of continual war or unpolished barbariry is unfavourable to our best interests, as rational, moral, and immortal beings; that competence is preferable to want, leifure to tumult, and benevolence to fury and I speak of the arts, not of fupporting, but of adorning human life; not of rendering men infenfible to cold and famine; but of enabling them to bear, without being enervated, and enjoy without being corrupted, the bleflings of a more profperous condition. 4. Much has been faid, by fome writers, on the impropriety of teaching the ancient languages by book, when the modern tongues are most easily acquired, without the help of grammars or dictionaries, by fpeaking only. Hence it has been propofed, that chilVOL. II. 3 S dren dren (to whom the study of grammar is conceived to be a grievous hardship) should learn Latin by being obliged to speak it; for that, however barbarous their ftyle may be at first, it will gradually improve; till at length, though with little knowledge of rules, merely by the force of habit, they attain to fuch a command of that tongue, as an Englishman may of the French, by refiding a few years at Paris. Upon this principle, fome projectors have thought of establishing a Latin city, whither children fhould be fent to learn the language; Montaigne's father made Latin the common dialect of his household *; and many *Effais de Montaigne, liv. 2. chap. 17. On the subject of obliging children to fpeak Latin before they have acquired a tafte in it, I beg leave to quote the following paffage from an author, whofe judgement in thefe matters muft be allowed to be of the very higheft authority. "With this way of good understanding the matter, plain conftruing, diligent parfing, daily tranflating, "chearful admonithing, and heedful amending of faults, "never leaving behind juft praife for well-doing, I "would have the fcholar brought up withal, till he had "read and tranflated over the first book of (Cicero's) "Epiftles chofen out by Sturmius, with a good piece of a Comedy of Terence alfo. All this while, by "mine advice, the child fhall use to speak no Latin, "For, as Cicero faith in like matter, with like words, Loquendo, male loqui difcunt. And that excellent learn"ed man G. Budeus, in his Greek commentaries, fore "complaineth, that when he began to learn the Latin "tongue, ufe of speaking Latin at the table, and elfe"where, unadvifedly, did bring him to fuch an evil "choice of words, to fuch a crooked framing of fen tences, that no one thing did hurt or hinder him more " all many philofophers and teachers have laid it down as a rule, that in the grammar-school nothing but Latin or Greek fhould ever be spoken. All this, or at least part of it, is very well, if we suppose the fole defign of teaching -- "all the days of his life afterward, both for readiness "in fpeaking, and alfo good judgement in writing. "In very deed, if children were brought up in fuch a houfe, or fuch a fchool, where the Latin tongue. were properly and perfectly fpoken, as Tiberius and "Caius Gracchii were brought up in their mother Cor"nelia's houfe; furely then the daily ufe of fpeaking were the beft and readieft way to learn the Latin tongue. But now, commonly in the best schools in England, for words, right choice is fmally regarded, "true propriety wholly neglected, confufion is brought "in, barbaroufnefs is bred up fo in young wits, as after"wards they be not only marred for fpeaking, but also "corrupted in judgement, as with much ado, or never "at all, they be brought to the right frame again. "Yet all men covet to have their children speak Latin, "and fo do I very earnestly too. We both have one "purpofe, we agree in defire, we wifh one end; but " we differ fomewhat in order and way that leadeth "rightly to that end. Other would have them speak "at all adventures: and fo they be fpeaking, to speak, "the mafter careth not, the fcholar knoweth not, what. "This is to feem, and not to be; except it be, to be "bold without fhame, rafh without fkill, full of words "without wit. I wifh to have them fpeak fo, as it may "well appear, that the brain doth govern the tongue, "and that reafon leadeth forth the talk. Good under"ftanding muft first be bred in the children; which be"ing nourished with kill, and ufe of writing, is the "only way to bring them to judgement and readiness in "fpeaking." Afcham's Scholemafter, book 1. See alfo Cicero de Orat. lib. 1. § 150. edit. Proust. 3 S 2 thefe thefe languages to be, that children may fpeak and write them as easily and incorrectly, as perfons unacquainted with grammar, and with the rules and models of good compofition, do commonly speak and write their mother-tongue. But fuch a talent, though on fome rare occafions in life it might be ufeful, would not be attended with thofe certain and more immediate advantages, that one has reason to expect from a regular courfe of claffical study. For, first, one use of claffic learning is, to fill up the leisure hours of life with liberal amufement. Now those readers alone can be adequately charmed with beauty of language, who have attended to the rules of good writing, and even to the niceties of grammar. For the mere knowledge of words gives but little pleasure; and they who have gone no deeper in language cannot even conceive the delight wherewith a man of learning perufes an elegant performance. Secondly, I apprehend, that, in this way of converfation, unless you add to it the study of grammar, and of the best authors, the practice of many years will not make you a competent mafter in the language. One must always be fomething of a grammarian to be able thoroughly to underftand any well-written book; but before one can enter into the delicacies of expreffion that are to be met with in every page of a good Latin or Greek author, one must be an accurate grammarian; the complicated inflexions inflexions and fyntax of these elegant tongues giving rife to innumerable fubtleties of connection, and minute varieties of meaning, whereof the fuperficial reader, who thinks grammar below his notice, can have no idea. Befides, the words and phrases that belong to conversation, are, comparatively speaking, not very numerous : unless you read poets, orators, hiftorians, and philofophers too, you can never understand a language in its full extent. In English, Latin, Greek, and Italian, and, I believe, in moft other cultivated tongues, the poetical and rhetorical styles differ greatly from that of common difcourfe; and one may be a tolerable proficient in the one, who is very ignorant of the other. But, thirdly, I would obferve, that the study of a system of grammar, fo complex and fo perfect as the Greek or Latin, may, with peculiar propriety, be recommended to children; being fuited to their understanding, and having a tendency to promote the improvement of all their mental faculties. In this science, abftrufe as it is commonly imagined to be, there are few or no difficulties which a master may not render intelligible to any boy of good parts, before he is twelve years old. Words, the matter of this fcience, are within the reach of every child; and of thefe the human mind, in the beginning of life, is known to be fufceptible to an aftonishing degree and yet in this science there is a fubtlety, and a variety, fufficient to call forth |