714 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION J. 



the old fashion first acquainted themselves — supposedly — with certain 

 definitions, grammatical rules, laws of syntax, armed with which they 

 Avere to discover the thoughts embodied in the writings of English 

 authors, and further to depict their own thoughts for other readers. 

 But will not everyone admit that a knowledge of English literature 

 and composition is properly attained by the experimental method of 

 trial and error through reading and writing. A child learns to read 

 and gradually to understand the full meaning of what he reads. 

 Gradually also he learns to appreciate the definitions of the parts of 

 speech, the full meaning of inflections and laws of syntax. This is 

 the final and not the initial stage of his acquirement of a knowledge 

 of the structure of the English language. If a long experience is neces- 

 sary for the attainment of a real knowledge of English literature and 

 composition, in the course of which that knowledge is gradually 

 systematised by means of definitions, laws, and rules, is not a much 

 longer experience requisite to draw out the thoughts of ancient writers 

 clothed in the garb of a dead language ? To learn a foreign language, 

 and more particularly a dead language, and also at the same time to 

 clearly appreciate the thoughts expressed in terms of it, constitute a 

 double object whose attainment requires for the average youth the 

 expenditure of a considerable amount of time. With an overburdened 

 curriculum the matter of compulsory classical training resolves itself 

 thus — is it worth the time ? To my mind it is not. Many of us have 

 in post-student days undertaken the labor of acquiring a foreign 

 language in order to be conversant with the results of scientific research. 

 How relatively easily we are able to make out the sense of the author 

 when we are familar with the subject matter. The schoolboy has no 

 glimmering of the story until he has construed the passage. Matthew 

 Arnold, an ardent classicist, considered that Cicero and Homer would 

 always be caviare to the average schoolboy. So far as concerned the 

 requirements of the average youth, he recommended the stud}' of the 

 Latin Vulgate. Provided with a knowledge of the English language, 

 a boy may rationally acquire a knowledge of a foreign language by 

 comparing the expression of known subject matter in that language 

 with its expression in the mother tongue. 



The average boy parts with Latin ana Ureek forever when he 

 leaves school. The sum total of his classical knowledge is negligibly 

 small. For this reason I think his time would be more profitably em- 

 ployed in studying the mother tongue. Tangible results may here 

 be attained. The boy should leave school with a good knowledge 

 of English literature, which he may increase in after-life. He is also 

 provided in this way with a mental recreation of inestimable value. 

 If further language study is desirable to give greater mental breadth, 

 a modern language would be preferable, to be taught in the early stages 

 by word of mouth. 



I anticipate that one result of the extension of our knowledge of 

 psychological science will be to justify the application of scientific 

 method to all branches of knowledge, whether literary or those 

 commonlv denominated scientific. Didactic teaching does not reckon 



