504 Advantages of Studying Latin and Greek. [November, 



witness the daily operation. It is thus. Before the student lies a 

 good Lexicon, and his author, Cicero, Virgil, etc., or Demos- 

 thenes, Howard, Herodotus — one at a time of course. Every 

 •word of his author is first to be carried, by the hands of memory, to 

 his vocabulary, the quick eye of the mind must discover the resem- 

 blance between the word in question and the word to give the in- 

 formation. Memory now, like the bee with its honey, must carry 

 back the information, or meaning of the word, and fit it to its right 

 place in the sentence to be unfolded. This operation of memory is 

 to be repeated perhaps twenty times on a single sentence. Each 

 sentence is a problem. Suppose the daily labor be equivalent to 

 fifty sentences, averaging twenty words each. Here is a task for the 

 memory alone upon one thousand distinct operations. Now if prac- 

 tice according to the laws of GrOD gives facility and strength, I ask 

 you to balance the account for two years, of such discipline to 

 memory. 



Again look at the training o? i^erception. By perception I mean 

 that faculty of the mind that says I see it. That which made 

 Archimedes cry out Eureka. Perception, when strong and clear, pro- 

 duces conception. The former sees things tangible to the eye, the 

 latter sees the corresponding things tangible to the mind alone. — 

 They are the same faculty working now on the outward, and again 

 on the inward truth. For example ; perception sees into the whole 

 machinery of a steam engine. Conception goes into the dark, or 

 anywhere, and reproduces the steam engine in the mind. Now ob- 

 serve how this faculty is harnessed to the work of improvement in 

 studying the classics. 



First it is set to tracing likenesses. The classics have this pecu- 

 liarity above all other languages, a boundless field of likenesses, all 

 of which are unlike in some small particular, which keeps the per- 

 ception on a sharp look out like the sentry on the watch tower. 



Every noun has about ten or twelve small, yet clear and well de- 

 fined, different terminations on one general likeness. Every verb 

 has some fifty varieties of terminations on one general form. These 

 are the nice little '' hide and seek" places so well fitted to keep per- 

 ception wide awake and on the " Quie vive.'" Then again perception 

 must watch the shape of the now meaning, and see its fitness to the 

 place to be filled. Thus, as in the case of memory, it has a thou- 

 sand operations to perform in its daily task. 



But a";ain, look at the hi<rh demand on the cultivation of good 



