498 



• KNOWLEDGE 



[Dec. 29, 1882. 



obeUde to tLeir progress. They prefer to be llogged, or to 

 be «fut to s«a. It is useless to say of any luedicine that it 

 is v»lual>le, if it is so nauseous that the patient tlings it 

 away. You must give me, not the best medicine you 

 have ill your shop, but the Wst you can get me to take. " 



Our autlior thiii illustrutts tlie dictionary method ; but 

 he wrote at a time whin as yet even the idiocy of sup- 

 plying liojs with only Cireek-Latin lexicons liad not been 

 correcttd. ^^'e omit the passage, thouj;h instructively 

 showing to what lengths educational absurdities may go ; 

 and also that they are not quite hopelessly long-lived. 

 Sydney Smith speaks of this particular case as an "alliict- 

 ing piece of absurdity." 



" llie recurrence to a translation is treated in our schools 

 as a sptvics of imbecility and meanness ;. just as if there 

 wiis any otJier dignity here than utility, any other object 

 in learning languages than to turn something you do not 

 understand into something you do understand, and as if 

 that was not the Wst metliod which etlectcd this object in 

 the shortest and simplest manner. 



•• If a boy were in Paris, would he learn the language 

 Ijetter by shutting himself up to read French books with a 

 dictioniir}', or by conversing freely with all whom he met ? 

 And what is conversation but an Hauiiltonian school ? 

 Every man you meet is a living le.vicon and grammar — 

 who is perpetually changing your English into French, and 

 |*rpetually instructing you, in spite of youi-self, in the 

 tenninations of French substantives and verbs. The 

 analogy is still closer, if you con\erse with persons of 

 whom you can ask tjuestions, and who will lie at the 

 trouble of correcting you. AVhat madness would it be to 

 run away from tliese pleasing facilities, as too dangerously 

 easy — to stop your ears, to double-lock the door, and to 

 look out chickenn ; takiiKj a vulk ; and fine vrdllitr, in 

 ' Beyer's Dictionary ' — and then, by the help of Cham- 

 baud's Grammar,' to construct a sentence which should 

 signify, ' Come to my Iwuae and val some chickens, ij' it in 

 fin- : ' 



" But what b to become of a boy who has no dilliculties 

 to grapple with 1 How enervated will that understanding 

 be to which everything is made so clear, plain, and easy ! — 

 no hills to walk up, no chasms to step over ; everything 

 graduated, soft, and smooth. All tlii.s, however, is an 

 objection to the multiplication table, to Napier's bones, and 

 to ever}' invention for the abridgment of human labour. 

 There is no dread of any lack of ditliculties. Abridge 

 int4-llectual la1>our by any process you jileasc — multiply 

 UK-chanical fjowers to any extent — there will be sulli- 

 cient, and inliniu,ly more than sudicient, of laborious 

 occupation for the mind and body of man. Why 

 is the lK)y to \te idle 1 By-andby comes the book 

 without a key ; by-andby comes the lexicon. They 

 do come at last — though at a better period. But 

 if they did not come — if they were uteless, if language 

 could I* attained without them — would any human being 

 wiAh to retain difliculties for their own sake, wiiich led to 

 nothing useful, and by the annihilation of which our facul- 

 ti'-« wire left to be exercised by ditliculties which <lo lead 

 to Kometliing uwful— by mathematics, natural philosophy, 

 and <ver)- branch of us<^ful knowledge] Can any be so 

 aiU4rous as to sup[>ose that the faculties of young men 

 cannot U; exercisiMl, and their industry and activity called 

 into projxr action, l«.cause Mr. Hamilton t<fache8, in three 

 or four y'*r», wliat has (in a more vicious system) de- 

 niandi-d K;v.n or eight? Ii««ideH, even in the ]lamil- 

 Umian UK-thod it is ver)- easy for one Ijoy to outstrip 

 »fi'Ah< r. Why may not a clever and ambitious boy <;m- 

 T 'oy three hours upon his key by hims<rlf, while another 

 V has only employed one 1 There is plenty of 



corn to thrash, and of chad' to be winnowed away, in Mr. 

 Han\ilton's system ; the ilillerence is, that every blow tells, 

 because it is properly directed. In the old way half 

 their force was lost in air. There is a mighty foolish 

 apophthegm of Dr. Bell's, tliat it is not what is done for 

 a boy tliat is of importance, but what a boy does for him- 

 self. This is just as wise as to say that it is not the 

 breeches which are made for a boy that can cover his 

 nakedness, but the breeches he makes for himself. All 

 tliis entirely depends upon a cuuiparison of the time saved, 

 by showing the boy how to do a thing, rather than by 

 leaving him to do it for himself. Let the object be, for 

 example, to make a pair of shoes. The boy will effect this 

 object much better if you show him how to make the shoes, 

 than if you merely gi\e him wax, tliroad, and leather, and 

 leave him to find out all the ingenious abridgments of labour 

 which have been discovered by experience. The object is 

 to turn Latin into English. The scholar will do it much 

 better and sooner if the word is found for him, than if he 

 finds it — much better and sooner if you point out the effect 

 of the terminations, and the nature of the Syntax, than if 

 you leave him to detect them for himself. The thing is at 

 last done bi/ t/ieju/pil /liinsef/^tor he reads the language — 

 which was the thing to be done. All the help he has 

 received has onlj- enabled him to make a more economical 

 use of his time, and to gain his end sooner. Never bo 

 afraid of wanting ditliculties for your jiupils; if means are 

 rendered more easy, more will Vic expected. The animal 

 will bo compelled or induced to do all that he can do. 

 Macadam has made the roads better. Dr. Bell would 

 have predicted that the horses would get too fat ; but the 

 actual result is, that they are compelled to go ten miles an 

 hour instead of eight." 



Tnii Edison electric light has been exhibited in Australia, 

 under the auspices of Major Flood Page, late manager of 

 the Sydenham Crystal Palace. The light is exceedingly 

 well spoken of. 



Puoi'Kssou ISlAUsn has unearthed some extraordinary 

 fossil remains in America, but his discoveries only whet 

 the appetite for more. Here is one reported from Paris, 

 Kentucky, w'hich gives an account of the discovery of the 

 bones of a mastodon which must have been a veritable 

 monster. The backbone, measuring from the head to the 

 bones of the tail, was 40 ft in length, and the hind 

 (juarters stood over 2:i ft. in height. The head must have 

 been ."J ft. in width, and the jaw is 12 in. thick, with teeth 

 in good preservation, weighing between 2 lb. and 3 lb. each. 

 The remains are said to be all in good condition, and they 

 are rightly described as the most astounding discovery in 

 the way of fossil remains with which America has yet 

 presented us. 



CoNsu.MiTiojf OF Watch Gl.^skeb.— According to the 

 Ilfnitt C/ironomclrirjtie, there are annually manufactured 

 2,500,000 watches, and during the last tifty years more 

 than 70,000,000 have been put on the n.arket; there 

 remains yet for us to add a stock of not less than 

 .'(0,000,000 of old watches, which makes a total of 

 86,000,000 to 87,000,000 watches rec|uiring glasses. The 

 new watches consume nearly 1,000,000, which make^ an 

 annual consumption of not less than 17,000,000 of glasses. 

 But we must add that every watchmaker away from a town 

 sees the necessity of always having on hand an assortment 

 responding to the wants of his customers. "Then, if we 

 take into account children's watch(!8, lockets, compasses, (fee, 

 one finds one's self with astonishment in the face of an 

 annual consumption which cannot b'' less than 100,000,000 

 of glasses." 



