Liberal Education. 261 



correct, instead of being many of them inaccurate, 

 and nearly all of them antiquated, they would 

 still be worse than useless to the young student. 

 Thrust into his mind as they are, before he has 

 had concrete examples of them, they are utterly 

 meaningless. He knows not how or where to ap 

 ply them. They serve only to confuse and dis 

 courage him. Nor are matters mended much 

 when we begin to do what we should all along 

 have been doing, when we begin to read. We 

 read a few sentences each day, parsing as we go 

 along, according to the inexplicable rules just re 

 ferred to, and paying little or no attention to the 

 meaning of our author. Seldom do we read a 

 sufficient mass of matter consecutively to have 

 the language take any hold upon us. Thus we 

 read Aristophanes, and hardly suspect his con 

 summate and irresistible humour. We read De 

 mosthenes, and remain ignorant of Athenian poli 

 tics. And a few years after leaving college we 

 are able, by dint of much thumbing of the dic 

 tionary, and with occasional reference to the 

 grammar, to pick out the meaning of Latin and 

 Greek sentences. This is too often the sorry re 

 sult which is dignified by the name of a classical 

 education. 



Yet perhaps our scientific education, as at pres 



