july— sept. 1857.] The Study of Living Languages. 227 



a good opinion of himself that he attributes it entirely to the stu- 

 pidity of the Native. Ih reality he has been giving the whole of 

 his attention to matters that are of little or no use to him, while 

 he has almost entirely neglected those that are essential. 



This brings us to the fifth principle, that the language must be 

 learnt by the ear and not by the eye. This is one of the great funda- 

 mental mistakes made almost universally in studying living langua- 

 ges : the student never for a moment studies without seeing the 

 words, though he knows that his whole object is to recognize them 

 by his ear, without any assistance from the eye. A man might just 

 as well attempt to train himself for a walking journey by sitting 

 down for a year and turning a winch with his arms, or try to 

 strengthen his limbs by moving for 6 months on crutches. Every 

 body knows the consequence of this system, but every body pursues 

 it. From the first the ear must be the main medium, of receiving 

 instruction and though the eye may be used a little at first with 

 some advantage just to help the memory, yet after a little time the 

 ear should be employed alone in conversation. 



A man may consider he has laid a sound foundation when he 

 has made the following acquisitions. 



1st. The perfectly accurate pronunciation and thoroughly fami- 

 liar knowledge of a certain number of the most generally used 

 words, however small, so that they are to him exactly as words of 

 his own language, that is, that he has not to search about in his 

 memory for them when he wants them, but that they will come of 

 themselves, and these pronounced so that a Native cannot but re- 

 cognize them. 



2nd. The power of putting these together in a good number 

 of real bona, fide Native expressions, however short, without any 

 effort, expressions which he can confidently use, because he knows 

 they are real, as he actually learnt them from a Native, and not 

 ones that he has invented and which consequently may or may not 

 convey the meaning he intended or any meaning. One will often 

 hear a Native who has learnt English at a school use a sentence 

 which is unexceptionable as to grammar, &c, but which is objec- 



