96 M. J. EENDALL, ESQ., 3i.A., OX THK TEACHER's VOCATION. 



fetterinor," a fettering which, being mental, not bodily, affects some 

 (relatively few) hardly at all, some more, and some so much so 

 that they can scarcely move hand or foot. 



In this connection may I congratulate the said learned bodies 

 which, with others, have deliberately fostered a system of wasting 

 time over, not properly mastering, languages, a system denounced by 

 Eoger Ascham over 350 years ago, by John Milton, and by other 

 wise, learned and thoughtful men. Xot only is time wasted because, 

 if learned on right lines, the elements of these old languages might 

 be more easily and quickly mastered, and the heart of the scholar 

 is too often discouraged by what to him is little better than the 

 treadmill or shot drill (both now abolished in England),* but text- 

 books for learning modern languages are constructed on the same old 

 \'icious lines ; and anyone who, for business or other purposes, 

 desires a mastery of one of them, has to go to one of the great 

 advertised schools, all of which turn the classical " order upside 

 down. 



Our text -books are doubtless perfectly correct, except as to Latin 



quantities,'' which do not exist, Greek pronunciation which is 

 that of ^Tiitechapel, and Greek accentuation, whose chaotic misuse 

 suggests Earlswood. 



It cannot be too deeply impressed that the phrase, not the word, 

 is the unit of civilized speech ; and the phrase, whole, rightly 

 arranged and rightly pronounced, shoidd be first impressed on the 

 learner's eye and ear. 



Also, if after the more elementary lessons, the examples gave 

 some useful knowledge, moral, historical, etc., the examples in each 

 lesson being as far as possible connected with each other, then 

 perhaps we might have time for Latin and Greek, as well as for 

 many other things. 



M. Gouin speaks to this effect, the Sciences through the Languages 

 and the Languages through the Sciences.'" As it is, neither science^ 

 are learned ; nor, by the majority, languages. 



The blight seems to lie on other branches of learning. In my youth 

 I^learned about the battles of Crecy, Poictiers, and Agincourt, not 

 knowing in the least where those places were, except that they were 



somewhere in France.'* I have also seen books of travel either 



* Is this BO ? 



