PLACE OF ENGLISH IN HIGHER EDUCATION. 87 



the language as spoken by our forefathers in their old home on the 

 Elbe before they settled in England, we find a plural in ?, fot't. But 

 it is a known law, holding good in all the Teutonic dialects, except the 

 Gothic, that a or o is changed into e through the influence of i in the 

 following syllable ; hence foti became feti. After a time, this final ^, 

 the true sign of the plural, was dropped, and then the modified e was 

 considered the sign of the plural. This Umlaut is itself an ultimate 

 fact, like gravitation in physics, inexpUcable in the present state of 

 our knowledge. 



Whatever help to a right understanding of the constructions and 

 inflections of modern English may be obtained from comparing them 

 with the forms and laws of the Latin language, it is clear that vastly 

 greater help may be obtained from studying them in the light of their 

 own history. 



The second instrument of fruitful study is comparison. This opens 

 a vast field for investigation ; for we must compare our English tongue 

 with all the cognate Aryan languages ; but especially with German, 

 Dutch, Danish, Icelandic, Gothic — all the Teutonic tongues, old and 

 new — and with those languages with which it has come into contact 

 dm-ing its long and wide-reaching history. English, the grandest lan- 

 guage in the history of humanity, has the most extended affinities and 

 historical connections. 



As an example of an English form that can be explained only by 

 comparison with a cognate dialect, take ed, the sign of the past tense. 

 No clew to the origin of this termination can be found in the English 

 of any period. Our knowledge of Latin and Greek is again useless. 

 In this case the Gothic will help us to the true explanation ; for it is 

 simply a reduplicated perfect of the verb do, did. Hence the old 

 English lufode is merely, I love did, that is, 1 did love. 



Thus studying English in its historical development, and comparing 

 it at every point with the languages with which it is connected by 

 kinship or by contact, the student sees language in every form in which 

 an Aryan tongue can appear, and may learn every important truth of 

 linguistic science. Having learned English in this way and gotten a 

 knowledge of French and German as collateral helps, the student will 

 enjoy the best fruits of learning languages — a liberal culture, a critical 

 knowledge of his mother-tongue, an intelligent insight into the laws of 

 language, and a key to what is best, usefulest, and most inspiring in 

 literature. 



But, to learn the language in its living power, it is necessary to 

 study it in its literature. The language is the body, the literature is 

 its soul ; they can be rightly understood only by studying them to- 

 gether. In a course of higher instruction in English, grammars, rhet- 

 orics, and histories of literature, are useful only for reference. It 

 would be hard to invent a course of study more useless than that 

 which fills the mind of the student with barren dates and facts in the 



