226 The Study of Living Languages, [no. 4, new series. 
yond his strength, when if he would divide it and carry a portion 
of it at a time, he would not only accomplish his task and that 
comfortably, but would gain strength by the exercise. How many 
especially in hot climates are so injured in their health, not by 
learning a language, but by the way in which they learn it, that 
when they have some use of it they are obliged to lay by for a 
time. Whereas if they would learn ohe thing at a time, they 
would attain to such a clear and sound knowledge and go on so 
comfortably that they would be in no danger of ending without an 
effective use of the language. * 
A fourth point is to take care to give the who'id strength to the 
really essential parts of the subject. What S;re the things that 
constitute a sound knowledge in this case ? Certainly not a 
loose imperfect idea of the value of almost all the words of the 
language, with a rough guess at their pronunciation and the 
mode of putting them together, the power of reading the character, 
of understanding a book with the help of time for consideration, 
of recognizing the words by sight, &c. This is the foundation 
that is usually laid ; such a student now commences to apply his 
knowledge of the language to the principal, perhaps the only pur- 
pose for which he has studied it ; viz., conversation. He finds 
of course that his being able to recognize the words when he sees 
them is of no use to him ; he has no facility in recognizing them 
"by the ear, which was the only thing he required ; he says the Na- 
tive, he is attempting to talk with, speaks too fast. The fact is 
that he has not been learning the one grand thing he had to learn, 
the use of his ear. Next, he finds his knowing all the words in the 
language, in a certain way is of little or no use to him, because 
what he needs is the perfectly ready, familiar use of one in ten of 
them, but he cannot put a dozen together in that ready way which 
is necessary for conversing. 
Next, when he has with much difficulty put a sentence together 
he is paralyzed by seeing a civil, enquiring stare on the counte- 
nance of his companion, in consequence of the imperfection of his 
pronunciation, and the English mode of expression he uses. His 
failure usually produces utter discouragement, unless he has s^.ich 
I 
