Sir John F. W. Herschel’s Views on Public Education. 435 
So soon as any of the pupils, in the opinion of the masters, shall have 
acquired such a degree of proficiency in a foreign or dead language that it 
can be done with advantage, I should be disposed to recommend, in pur- 
suance of the principle above laid down, that its study as a mere language 
should be abandoned, and that such proficients as a distinction and a re- 
ward, should be drafted into a separate class, and commence the study of 
some subject competent to their age, in that language. This would secure 
one material advantage, viz. that, in pursuance of asubject, amuch greater 
quantity of the half-acquired tongue can be made to pass through the 
channels of the mind than in the mere conning over of stated passages as 
exercises, and that a familiarity is thereby acquired with its forms and 
idioms which can never be attained by the study of rules, or by any assi- 
duity in construing and parsing. Historical works, as exciting the atten- 
tion, following out a connected story, and requiring the perusal of many 
pages at a sitting, seem particularly adapted to this purpose. Those of 
Livy, Cesar, and even Tacitus, in the Latin; of Schiller in German ; and 
the spirited biographies of Charles and Peter, by Voltaire, in French, may 
be taken as exemplifying the proposed method. 
In this colony, and more especially in Cape Town, two languages are 
habitually spoken among those classes who may be expected to send their 
sons to college, and a question may arise which of those should be taught 
in the vernacular language of the country, and made the vehicle of in- 
struction in the college. As to the latter point, convenience, of course, 
must be consulted. It would cripple the institution of half its power te 
carry on two distinct courses of tuition, under masters exclusively English 
and exclusively Dutch, besides being otherwise mischievous. Probably no 
parent would be found so culpably negligent of his child’s future comfort 
and advancement, as to allow him to attain the age of admission entirely 
ignorant of English. Such entire ignorance ought, I think, to operate as 
a bar to admission. Considering also that this is, and will in all human 
probability remain for centuries to come, a British possession ; that com- 
munications with Britain are constant and increasing; British settlers ar- 
riving yearly, and British habits gaining ground, I should conceive that, 
ceteris paribus, so far as can be done without sacrificing what is more im- 
portant, a preference should be given to the English language as the me- 
dium of oral communication, and in the choice of elementary books. 
But whether the acquisition of a critical knowledge of either of these 
languages should be made a feature in the course of instruction, is another 
question. For my own part I think not, being of opinion that youths 
should occupy their time at school or in college in learning that which 
they have not opportunity or means of learning elsewhere, and that pro- 
vided bad grammar and vulgar expressions are corrected and reprobated 
whenever they occur—in speech or in writing—no other express provision 
for learning any language in ordinary use in the country is needed. In 
fact, however, neither the English nor the Dutch languages can be criti- 
cally studied without an acquaintance, in the latter case with the German, 
in the former with both that language and the Latin. A knowledge of the 
original meaning and mode of derivation of words is of far more import- 
ance than that of mere idiom and grammatical nicety, and in this view, 
as well as by reason of the vast intrinsic utility of the languages themselves, 
I would strongly urge the propriety of making both the last-mentioned lan- 
guages essential parts of the regular College course, and as such, to be taught 
indiscriminately to all the pupils, superadding French as highly desirable ; 
but leaving it optional with parents, and loading it with an extra payment. 
I should hardly think it worth while to have a Greek class, though a 
small vocabulary of Greek words (in the Greek character) consisting of 
those whose derivatives have been ee directly into our terms of 
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