PEESIDENTIAL ADDEESS — SECTION I. 417 



which have drifted away from their original force. It is cer- 

 tainly desirable to know the historical development of the 

 present meaning of the words we use. 



If Latin and Greek were taken from us we could still use a 

 majority of the beautiful lessons in etymology contained iu a 

 book like Trench's " Study of Words ;" but, after all, the main 

 point for us is to have a precise conception of the present force 

 of our words, and I fancy this would be obtained by constant 

 practice in comparison of each word with its nearest synonyms 

 quite as fully and much less laboriously than by the present 

 system of classical derivation. Many of our greatest masters 

 in prose and verse, whose use of our tongue is unrivalled for 

 richness and purity of vocabulary, have had, like Shakespeare, 

 but little acquaintance with the classics ; and certainly the 

 diction of many whom we venerate — Milton, Dryden, Johnson, 

 Gray— has been (I say it with all humility) marred and 

 encumbered by the overloading burden of obscure mytbological 

 allusions and classic conceits. We want precision in our use 

 of words, but freedom from all conventionality and from 

 slavish imitation. 



Next, considering the classics as the key to other languages, 

 we must acknowledge the utility of Latin more especially for 

 this purpose ; but how very few ever use this key to eiifect an 

 entrance into any language but French, and how many neglect, 

 even when learning French, to find out the commonest truths 

 that Latin teaches them about that language ! I certainly 

 should not advocate the addition of Spanish and Italian to the 

 burdens of the modern schoolboy — there is no literature in 

 either that would justify the labour ; and to insist on Latin for 

 the sake of understanding French is about as reasonable as to 

 begin with Sanskrit in order to understand Latin. Latin no 

 doubt gives a fuller knowledge both of French and English, 

 but it is by no means necessary for either, and the labour in- 

 volved in the acquisition of Latin could be more profitablj^ 

 expended elsewhere. 



That one language besides our own is desirable will, I 

 think, be generally acknowledged. A foreign language opens 

 the eye of the mind, suggests comparisons, and shakes off pre- 

 judices very much after the manner that foreign travel affects 

 us for our good. German has certainly the richest literature, 

 and German, as the parent of our own tongue, would probably 

 be considered by most to have the greater claim, though many 

 would still stand by French because of its importance in Euro- 

 pean intercourse. To us in the colonies both French and 

 German have inainly a literary value. The number of those 

 who would use either of them for the purposes of travel or 

 trade correspondence is so small that it would not be justifiable 

 to introduce the study of either of them into our schools on 

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