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The results of such a scholar's experience and erudition could not 

 fail to be a valuable guide to ihose who are engaged in " the 

 arduous but honorable office of instructing our youth in classical 

 learning." We think, too, that his noble example as a self- 

 teacher is worth almost every thing else. His own account of the 

 exertions and progress he made in studying the Greek authors is 

 exceedingly interesting; to which he adds, — "Now, my intelli- 

 gent pupils, why should not you be able, with the assistance of an 

 instructer, to accomplish as much as I did without one, and by my 

 own industry alone ? " We cannot forbear to repeat here, as 

 strikingly applicable to Mr. Pickering's own style and writings, 

 what Professor Wyttenbach observes of the " perfection of Xeno- 

 phon's style, — which," he says, " has a healthy soundness, an ease, 

 simplicity, and grace, which give it the preference above all others 

 for the introductory studies of boys; whose fresh and youthful 

 minds will there imbibe nothing but the wholesome aliment of the 

 purest of fountains." 



In the course of his classical reading in England, Mr. Pickering 

 paid a thorough attention to the pronunciation of Greek, and went 

 over the whole controversy about the reform introduced by Eras- 

 mus, as contained in Havercamp's Sylloge, and came to the conclu- 

 sion that Erasmus was right. But a personal acquaintance with 

 several natives of Greece, who arrived here in 1814, led him to a 

 revision and change of his opinion. The result of his investiga- 

 tions on the subject is given in the memoir which he communi- 

 cated to the American Academy in 1818, and which attracted 

 the marked attention of scholars in Europe ; and though it was 

 at first opposed by a distinguished professor of this country, it 

 afterwards received his sanction. It, indeed, bears full evidence 

 of Mr. Pickering's candor and patient research, and is a beautiful 



