Mental Discipline in Education. 405 



them to a foreign language through this gateway, is a still 

 more flagrant outrage. The natural method of acquiring 

 speech is the way we all acquire it ; the knowledge of 

 words first, then their combination into sentences, to be 

 followed by the practical use of the language ; rules and 

 precepts may then be intelligently applied. But to begin 

 with these is to put the complex before the simple, the ab- 

 stract before the concrete, generals before particulars, and, 

 in short, to invert the natural order of mental processes, 

 and to work the mind backward, under the plea of disciplin- 

 ing it. An eminent living authority in philology, Prof. 

 Latham, in a lecture before the Royal Institution of Great 

 Britain, observed : 



In the ordinary teaching of what is called the grammar of the 

 English language, there are two elements. There is something pro- 

 fessed to be taught which is not ; and there is something which, from 

 being already learned better than any man can teach it, requires no 

 lessons. The latter is the use and practice of the English tongue. 

 The former is the principles of grammar. The facts, that language 

 is more or less regular ; that there is such a thing as grammar ; that 

 certain expressions should be avoided, are all matters worth know- 

 ing. And they are all taught even by the worst method of teaching. 

 But are these the proper objects of systematic teaching } Is the 

 importance of their acquisition equivalent to the time, the trouble, 

 and the displacement of more valuable subjects, which are involved 

 in their explanation ? I think not. Gross vulgarity of language is a 

 fault to be prevented ; but the proper prevention is to be got from 

 habit — not rules. The proprieties of the English language are to be 

 learned, like the proprieties of English manners, by conversa *on and 

 intercourse ; and a proper school for both is the best society in which 

 the learner is placed. If this be good, systematic teaching is super- 

 fluous ; if bad, insufficient. There are unquestionably points where 

 a young person may doubt as to the grammatical propriety of a cer- 

 tain expression. In this case let him ask some one older, and more 

 instructed. Grammar, as an art, is undoubtedly the art of speaking 

 and writing correctly — but then, as an art, it is only required for foreign 

 languages. For our own we have the necessary practice and familiarity. 



