842 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION 1. 



rules about words and constructions that hardly ever occur ; 

 but it will actually be a year, or perhaps two years, before he 

 learns the order of words in the simplest sentences of every- 

 day life ! The natural result is that the learner loses all sense 

 of proportion, and in trying to remember all remembers 

 next to nothing. 



Before proceeding to consider whether there is not another 

 method at once more natural and more effective, let us ask 

 ourselves how does the child learn its mother-tongue ? Does 

 the mother begin her lessons in English by teaching her child 

 the declensions and irregular plurals, then going on to the 

 regular and irregular verbs, and giving suitable exercises on 

 each rule ? Nothing of the sort. The child hears words and 

 sentences frequently repeated, and made more or less 

 intelligible by gesticulation and the tone of voice, and thus 

 gradually comes to understand them. Its knowledge of 

 grammar comes gradually and unconsciously. This is the 

 natural method. It is of course impossible to reproduce this 

 method entirely in learning a foreign language, but it is well 

 to bear it in mind. 



The system I wish to advocate is an inductive method. 

 The chief fault of the prevailing system is that in the initial 

 stages there is too little teaching. Instead of being taught 

 something as a basis, the unfortunate learner is expected to 

 manufacture knowledge for himself. The initial stages of 

 the method I would advocate may be put very briefly. The 

 student need not yet buy a grammar or a dictionary. Let the 

 teacher in Latin, for example, at the outset choose some easy 

 and interesting anecdote fi-om Cicero or Livy and write it on 

 the blackboard, first telling his class the general meaning, and 

 then translating it word for word, telling them the exact mean- 

 ing of each word, and pointing out the hkeness to any cognate 

 English or French word that they may happen to know. 

 When the piece is thoroughly understood, let the scholars 

 themselves write down an exact translation of it. After 

 correction, and after some interval, let the reverse process take 

 place ; let the English be given them, and let them learn the 

 original Latin off by heart, which, as it is now thoroughly 

 known, will be a very easy matter. The next lessons would 

 be similar. Meanwhile, the learner's curiosity will gradually 

 have been awakened. In the pieces he has learned by heart 

 he will have noticed several parts of the same word in slightly 

 different forms — e.g., Filius patrem amat, but Pater jilium 

 amat. Already, by an unconscious induction, he has a 



