886 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 one 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 whole strength to the 

 really essential parts of the subject. What are 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 such 



