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The Museum Gazette 



that the names of things are simply certain arrangements of 

 letters by which the things are known, and that it is just 

 as natural to some people to call a four-legged milk-giving 

 animal vacca or capra, as the case may be, as cow or goat. 

 Neither the one nor the other name signifies special learning, 

 but for those who wish to interchange opinions it may become 

 necessary to know both, and to know that they mean the 

 same thing. It will now be very easy to point out that in 

 the language used in the playground and shop there are many 

 words which were not known to our immediate ancestors, 

 but are founded on those which the Romans used, and fur- 

 ther, that the Romans themselves borrowed much from the 

 Greeks. It may even be hinted that in the past it is quite 

 possible that some of our ancestors were not Anglo-Saxons, 

 but used at their dinner tables the very words which we 

 now have to learn at school. Not even to the dullest will it 

 be necessary to explain that in order to use words without 

 blundering it is desirable to know what they mean, but it 

 may with advantage be made clear that the further the 

 student advances the greater will be the number of words 

 he will encounter which do not explain themselves unless he 

 knows their Latin equivalents. The teacher's task is now 

 clear. Lists of important root-words should be prepared 

 which should be committed to memory, and by well -devised 

 expedients should be made so familiar that they are always 

 available. There could be rio better exercise, perhaps, than 

 the perusal of some scientific catalogue, say of butterflies 

 or birds. 



We must not venture into further detail, for it would take 

 us too far, and be for the present object out of place. Our 

 purpose is, to urge that a standard of educational attainment 

 for the million should be aimed at, which should include a 

 sound but elementary acquaintance with the history of the 

 older nations, and as a matter of memory, an extensive 

 knowledge of their vocabularies. Such education would 

 make no pretence of being in any sense classical, nor would 



