436 Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 
art and science (without passing through the Latin) would be no doubt 
useful. ; 
I confess I do not see any valid reason for deferring the study of Latin 
till an advanced period. All languages are easiest learnt early, nor am I 
aware (when artificial difficulties, such as committing to memory the Eton 
Grammar, &c. are discarded,) that the Latin is more difficult to acquire 
than any modern language. The known fact of the readiness with which 
children acquire languages, as well as the degree in which the knowledge 
of words, both in children and in grown up persons, is often in advance of 
their acquaintance with their import, may, I should hope, induce you, my 
dear Sir, to reconsider your position, that the acquisition of general in- 
formation is so far a necessary or advantageous preparation for that of 
languages as to render it desirable to postpone the latter in point of time 
till the former is attained. 
Of the purely abstract departments of study, I shall say little, as I do 
not see how the mathematical course actually established in the college 
can well be amended, except in so far as the introduction of new branches 
of physical science into the course of instruction, would naturally lead to 
a greater development and detail of its applications, to those subjects 
which admit them in a form not too difficult—at the expense, perhaps, of 
some sacrifice of more abstruse and technical points. 
In what is said I would not be understood as advocating a merely uti- 
litarian course of instruction. Something must be conceded to ornament 
and elegance. The influence of a tincture of elegant literature, early im- 
bibed, on the tastes and habits of after life is far too important to be lost 
sight of. The charms of well-chosen poetry, for instance, learnt in youth, 
take so strong a hold on the imagination, and connect so many pleasing 
associations with the memory of youthful studies, that it would be a very 
erroneous system which would banish them as superfluous. Still the se- 
lection should be cautiously made, with reference to the matter as well as 
to the language. It is not easy to say on what defensible grounds the 
feeble Pastoralsof Virgil, or the whining love-letters and wild extravagancies 
of Ovid, are generally selected as the avenues by which the temple of the 
Latin Muse is to be approached, when there is quite easy Latin for the 
beginner, joined with pleasing narrative and far loftier and more poetical 
diction to be found in the Aineid, or made the vehicle for the soundest 
good sense, the noblest sentiments, and the most sterling wit in Horace. 
But the consideration of these subjects would lead to a dissertation on clas- 
sical literature. I will only observe that neither in the study of the Ger- 
man nor the Latin languages would I begin with poetical works. 
In advocating so considerable a range of instruction as I have done, it 
may be reasonably asked—how is it to be accomplished ? 
Without descending into a detail of each year’s work, or of the propor- 
tion in which the several items are to be distributed among the limited 
number of professors whom the funds of the Institution will support, I 
would observe, that in many of the subjects proposed, a very limited and 
extremely elementary course only is contemplated, and in some a true 
statement of their scope and fundamental principles in the form of an oc- 
casional lecture, might suffice. For example, the course of political ceco- 
nomy might be confined to the reading of a single elementary volume of 
moderate extent, such as, for example, the admirable ‘ Conversations,’ by 
Mrs. Marcet. In Ethics, a subject of chief importance, some standard 
work (such as Paley’s Moral Philosophy,) might be distributed over time 
so as to pervade the whole duration of each pupil’s frequenting the insti- 
tution. For the study of natural history, the proximity of the Museum 
offers great advantages. An occasional visit to that collection would form 
an excellent comment on whatever outline of animated nature might be 
