21S The Study of Living Languages, [no. 4, newsriuks, 



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, the 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 comparatively very small ex- 

 penditure of time and labour. 



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. 



