18 The Study of Living Languages, [no. 4, new srries, 
it seems certain that adults with a hundred times their power of 
mind and with suitable books and teachers and regular study could 
not fail to attain to a real knowledge and ready colloquial use 
of a new language, and that without being years about it, unless 
they were altogether wrong in the method of study they adopted. 
In fact he cannot help declaring it as his opinion that when this 
subject is fairly grappled with by men, ihe great supposed obsta- 
cles to intercourse of strange languages will be found, compara- 
tively speaking, a mere bugbear ; and that the acquisition of a new 
language for all the ordinary purposes of life will be found to be 
within the reach of almost all with a comparativ,s}y very small ex- 
penditure of time and labour. c 
Before proceeding to propose a system of study of living lan- 
guages, it may be well to make some remarks on the mistakes that 
are commonly made at present, and the chief difficulties that are 
usually met with, as well as on the time generally expended, on 
such study. 
A great many of the common mistakes can easily be traced to 
the circumstance that almost universally the students have previ- 
ously been accustomed to study dead languages, and from their not 
observing that almost all their ideas have been formed from that 
study, while the principal points to be attended to in the study of 
living languages are exactly those that are of little or no conse- 
quence in that of dead ones, and vice versa. In learning Latin or 
Greek, for instance, the sole objects usually are to be able to read 
so as to understand the writings of highly educated men and (but 
as very secondary) to write elegant formal essays. The following 
are therefore the leading points aimed at; 
1st. A knowledge of the character, 
2nd. A knowledge of the whole vocabulary of the language, in- 
cluding a multitude of words seldom or never used collo- 
quially in the ordinary business of life. 
3rd. A readiness in perceiving the meaning of long involved 
formal sentences, such as are found in grave prose and in 
poetical writings. 
