REASON IN THE STUDY OF LANGUAGE. 473 



rules of grammar. They give some exceptions, but few in compari- 

 son to the whole number. The verb faire, to make, for example, is 

 translated into English in more than a thousand different ways, in as 

 many idiomatic forms of expression. Frequent intercourse with for- 

 eigners, or else assiduous reading of good writers, can alone make 

 these expressions familiar. Besides, it is contrary to reason to oblige 

 children to compose in a language they will never, perhaps, have oc- 

 casion to write, when comparatively so little effort is made to acquire 

 the talent in their own language where it is so useful in every moment 

 of life. 



Sources of error and ennui as are these sterile tasks, they seem cal- 

 culated to mislead, rather than to form, the judgment. Like most 

 routine processes, they appear to have been invented to give masters 

 business in correcting errors that would have been impossible by pro- 

 cesses conformed to reason. 



Themes are condemned by all writers upon linguistic study. Rol- 

 lin, timid as he was in reforms of teaching, said : " To compose well 

 in Latin, one must know the turn, the phrases, the rules of that lan- 

 guage, and have accumulated a considerable number of words, the 

 force of which he feels, and of which he can make a proper applica- 

 tion. All this can be done only in translating authors who are living 

 dictionaries and speaking grammars ; by which he learns the force 

 and true use of words, of phrases, and of rules of syntax. To do this, 

 themes must be absolutely discarded, as they only torment children 

 by painful and useless labor, and give them disgust for a study which 

 brings them only reprimands and punishments." The intimate rela- 

 tion between thought and style, in composition, exercises the highest 

 reason only when the language is the direct and spontaneous expres- 

 sion of ideas, as it is in the mother-tongue ; but, in writing a theme, 

 the student is not occupied by the thought ; his attention is only 

 directed to the words their orthography, their concordance, and their 

 arrangement, conformably to the rules he has under his eyes, or that 

 he has previously studied. However, the university makes the knowl- 

 edge of a language consist in the art of writing it, the least useful 

 part, the least interesting, and the least calculated to exercise the in- 

 telligence under the conditions in which it is done. The translation 

 of a native author into a foreign language, which is frequently imposed 

 upon beginners, surpasses in absurdity the method of syntactic themes. 

 It demands of the inventive faculties that which depends solely on imi- 

 tation. How, without having heard a language, or read it much, with- 

 out knowing the true value of its words, without knowing what ap- 

 proved usage allows or condemns, and in complete ignorance of its 

 idiomatic forms of expression how, I say, can a pupil form correct 

 phrases ? Knowing neither the different acceptation of words, nor 

 the shades of meaning which distinguish synonymous words, nor the 

 constructions peculiar to the genius of the language, the student never 



