224: The Study of Living Languages, [no. 4, new series, 
pended, is an immense desideratum. It would lead numbers to 
make a beginning who now never attempt it ; and many such, if 
they once began, would not rest till they had obtained some con- 
siderable knowledge of it. 
An encouraging system is equally required for those who do at 
present set themselves to the study with the purpose of going 
through with it. Nothing can be more discouraging than the 
means usually pursued at present, whereas if a man were pursuing 
a system in which he felt at every step, that he was making real 
useful progress, he would go on with tenfold spirit, always feeling 
too, that stop where he would, his labour had«J.ot been thrown 
away. In endeavouring to accomplish the firflt object the follow- 
ing rules may be laid down. 
1st. The student is really to learn the language and not to at- 
tempt to ieach himself. For instance, nothing is more common 
than for a man, as soon as he has learnt a few words, with the 
help of his grammar to begin to try and form sentences. In this 
way he may certainly make a new language of his own, but it will 
not be the language he proposes to learn. Thus numbers attempt to 
communicate with Natives by English sentences made up of foreign 
words which consequently are not merely scarcely intelligible but 
often convey no meaning at all, though perfectly correct as regards 
both words and grammar. The student must not at first attempt 
to take the smallest step alone. He must not pronounce a word 
nor put two words together by himself. He must be content to 
learn every thing, and that thoroughly, from a Native, sound by 
sound, word by word, expression by expression, and not attempt 
to go beyond this, till he has become so established in correct pro- 
nunciation, in his knowledge of the correct value of words and in 
the actual forms used by the Natives that there is no danger of his 
substituting something of his own for the real language. 
It is by no means sufficient to learn a sound or expression once 
or ten times : it can only be correctly acquired by exercise, by thou- 
sands of repetitions, referring every time immediately to a correct 
standard. If a man reads for an hour with a teacher and then 
goes attempting to pronounce the words by himself for the rest of 
