328 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



difficult to speak a foreign language, that in most cases recourse to 

 this art materially hinders international exchange of ideas. 



The order of studies in our lyceums inverts the order I have rec- 

 ommended. The university imposes written exercises in composition 

 for the living languages, from the lowest classes to the highest. Im- 

 agine a French officer, strohg in this department, in the country of an 

 enemy, whose language when spoken he cannot understand. In his 

 impotence to gather useful intelligence, what can he do but deplore 

 the false direction given to his studies, and curse the incomplete teach- 

 ing of the college ? The attention of the young should be particularly 

 directed to the arts of reading and hearing, which, if universally dif- 

 fused, would alone suffice for the international exchange of thought. 

 People of different nations, each speaking or writing his own tongue, 

 would understand each other. Their conversation or correspondence 

 would be every way much more intimate and satisfactory, when each 

 used his mother-tongue, with the native freedom and clearness that he 

 could not attain in a foreign language. In this way would be secured 

 the great desideratum of modern society the means of international 

 communication. 



By endowing youth with the ability to understand a foreign lan- 

 guage when spoken, those who travel could, on reaching a country, 

 enjoy the society of the inhabitants, mix in the movements of science, 

 listen to the lessons of celebrated masters, and, in completing their 

 scientific education, establish useful relations for life. 



If the art of listening, a necessity of modern times, should take 

 root in the schools of all civilized countries, it would second wonder- 

 fully the high aspirations of humanity. Never, more than now, have 

 people felt the need of solidarity and fraternity ; the mind of the cen- 

 tury presses toward union in congresses, and associations for the dis- 

 cussion of important social, scientific, and political questions. 



Mental Culture. It is known that ancient literature offers 

 models of composition, which aid, when studied, in forming and puri- 

 fying the taste ; while at the same time it cultivates observation and 

 reflection by the analysis of thoughts and facts relative to an order 

 of things above the realities of sense. But I shall not cease to repeat 

 that, to obtain these results, the authors must be read directly. This 

 acquisition should be the object of the first period of study. In the 

 second period, critical teaching of the literature of these languages, 

 if combined with profound study of the national idiom, will aid pow- 

 erfully in the development of the intelligence. 



As a means of cultivating the higher faculties of the mind, direct 

 reading of the solid works of great writers, ancient and modern, is of 

 indisputable efficacy. It is. in fact, a true logique practique. But the 

 art of reading by free translation presents inestimable advantages, 

 which cannot be obtained from any other branch of instruction, nor 

 from a language of which only the first elements are known. Being 



