404 Edward Livingston Youmans. 



importance of methodizing mental acquisition, and utiliz- 

 ing the principle of natural association among the elements 

 of knowledge, the immeasurable superiority of the sci- 

 ences for this purpose becomes at once apparent. This 

 is happily illustrated by some observations of Dr. Arnold, 

 respecting the memory of geography. He says : 



And this deeper knowledge becomes far easier to remember. 

 For my own part I find it extremely difficult to remember the posi- 

 tions of towns, when I have no other association with them than 

 their situations relatively to each othei. But let me once understand 

 the real geography of a country its organic structure, if I may so 

 call it ; the form of its skeleton, that is, of its hills ; the magnitude and 

 course of its veins and arteries, that is, of its streams and rivers ; let 

 me conceive of it as a whole made up of connected parts ; and then 

 the positions of towns viewed in reference to these parts becomes at 

 once easily remembered, and lively and intelligible besides. 



If now it be said that it is not mere memory of words 

 that is contended for, but the discipline and judgment af- 

 forded by the grammatical study of the structure of lan- 

 guage, the crushing answer is that a dead language is un- 

 necessary for this discipline, which is far better secured by 

 the systematic study and thorough logical analysis of the 

 vernacular tongue.* Perhaps there is no point in educa- 

 tion in which there is so universal and intense an agree- 

 ment among independent thinkers, as in condemning the 

 folly of beginning the acquisition of foreign languages, 

 living or dead, by the study of their grammar the method 

 in general use among those who defend it as a mental dis- 

 cipline. The usual school practice of thrusting the young 

 into the grammar, even of their native tongue, is well 

 known to be one of the most efficient means of the artifi- 

 cial production of stupidity ; but the habit of introducing 



* See Prof. Jewell's able paper on the Logical Analysis of the Eng- 

 lish Language, in Proceedings of New York University Convocation. 



