AN ADDRESS TO STUDENTS. 41 1 
through the education of the present time. The object of 
that education is, or ought to be, to provide wise exercise 
for his capacities, wise direction for his tendencies, and 
through this exercise and this direction to furnish his 
mind with such knowledge as may contribute to the use- 
fulness, the beauty, and the nobleness of his life. 
How is this discipline to be secured, this knowledge 
imparted? Two rival methods now solicit attention the 
one organized and equipped, the labor of centuries having 
been expended in bringing it to its present state of per- 
fection; the other, more or less chaotic, but becoming daily 
less so, and giving signs of enormous power, both as a 
source of knowledge and as a means of discipline. These 
two methods are the classical and the scientific method. I 
Avish they were not rivals; it is only bigotry and short- 
sightedness that make them so; for assuredly it is possible 
to give both of them fair play. Though hardly authorized 
to express an opinion upon the subject, I nevertheless hold 
the opinion -that the proper study of a language is an 
intellectual discipline of the highest kind. If I except 
discussions on the comparative merits of Popery and 
Protestantism, English grammar was the most important 
discipline of my boyhood. The piercing through tke 
involved and inverted sentences of "Paradise Lost;" the 
linking of the verb to its often distant nominative, of the 
relative to its distant antecedent, of the agent to the object 
of the transitive verb, of the preposition to the noun or 
pronoun which it governed, the study of variations in mood 
and tense, the transpositions often necessary to bring out 
the true grammatical structure of a sentence all this was 
to rny young mind a discipline of the highest value, and a 
source of unflagging delight. How I rejoiced when I found 
a great author tripping, and was fairly able to pin him to 
a corner from which there was no escape! As I speak, 
some of the sentences which exercised me when a boy rise 
to my recollection. For instance, " He that hath ears to 
hear, let him hear;" where the " He" is left, as it were, 
floating in mid air without any verb to support it. I 
speak thus of English because it was of real value to me. 
I do not speak of other languages because their educational 
value for me was almost insensible. But knowing the 
value of English so well, I should be the last to deny, or 
even to doubt, the high discipline involved in the proper 
study of Latin and Greek. 
