GERMAN TESTIMONY ON CLASSICS QUESTION. 27 



Englisli words should be studied to the extent that they aid in re- 

 membering distinctions in meanings. The pupil should obtain also 

 some adequate knowledge of the history of English literature, and of 

 its extent, its beauties, grandeur, and wisdom. At present students 

 are admitted to the best American colleges, whose ignorance of their 

 native language and its literature is positively shameful. The study 

 of grammar should not begin until the boy is sixteen years old. At 

 twelve or fourteen years old he may begin to learn to talk in another 

 modern language, and may continue the study of this language to the 

 end of his school course. These are enough subjects in language ; 

 the other modern languages and Latin and Greek should be left to the 

 college course, as German, Spanish, Italian, and Hebrew commonly 

 are. In direct opposition to this method of procedure is the practice 

 of putting boys into the grammatical study of languages at ten or 

 eleven years of age, and its pernicious effect is well stated by Herder : 



" The first color which our mode of thinking takes on never fades ; 

 alas for us if it is a disagreeable or an actually disfiguring one ! The 

 friend of humanity must sigh when he sees how, in the schools which 

 parade the name ' Latin school,' the first young desire is wearied, the 

 first fresh strength is restrained, talent is buried in the dust, and genius 

 is held back until, like a spring too long bent, it loses its power. Who 

 would ever get into the notion that the system of linguistic education 

 is suitable for youth, if he only set himself outside of our habit of 

 thought ? — but how difficult it is to set one's self outside of it ! " 



The opinions of our pamphleteer on the study of languages are well 

 worth quoting : 



*' The chief place in the German school of the future should be 

 held by a course of instruction in the German language and literature 

 which aims at so training youth that at the end of their school-years 

 they shall be adepts in speaking, reading, and writing their mother- 

 tongue, and shall, besides being familiar with the copious vocabulary 

 of the language, have become acquainted also with its literary monu- 

 ments and imbued with the intellectual spirit of their nation. It is 

 obvious that, in order to turn out such pupils, teachers are needed who 

 know more than some Gothic and Middle High German, and it is also 

 obvious that in order to obtain such teachers, those learned men should 

 not act at the university who have lost the spirit in turning over 

 the words, and who, moreover, pass off this spiritlessness for scholar- 

 liness. 



" French and English also have large claims : first, because an 

 acquaintance with these languages is absolutely necessary in many 

 callings, and is always very useful to the educated ; second, because the 

 civilizations of the French and English peoples stand in the most inti- 

 mate relations with ours ; and, third, because he who has mastered these 

 two languages no longer has the trammeled feeling that his path of life 

 is confined to his native sod, but he can turn his steps to any part of 



