&$$ Tlic Study of Living Languages, [no. 4, new series, 



be particularly observed that it is not the b&re knowledge of a word 

 that is wanted, so that a person by more or less thought can recall 

 it to his mind, it must, to be of any use in conversation, be per- 

 fectly familiar, and it must have been repeated nloud so many times 

 that the organs of speech have been thoroughly exercised in it, and 

 that it may be pronounced both correctly and with the utmost free- 

 dom. Nothing but multiplied repetitions of it aloud with continued 

 reference to a correct standard, and in connection with various other 

 words can accomplish this. It must take some time thus to appro- 

 priate new words, and especially the first 100 words of a language, 

 but the process cannot possibly be hastened, but on the contrary 

 indefinitely delayed, by attempting thousands of others before the 

 first are secured. 



The number 100 is chosen for the first batch, as being about the 

 smallest number that can enable one to make up some variety of 

 short sentences, so that each word may be seen in a variety of si- 

 tuations and in its various inflections ; and they are sufficient to 

 provide for exercising the student in the first rudiments of grammar. 



3rd. To each of these batches of words a set of sentences is to 

 be added ; these are all to be the commonest colloquial expressions. 

 They should consist of a certain number written on each word in 

 the batch, and contain no words that are not in it. It is essential 

 that they should be written by Natives, and those who cannot speak 

 English would be preferable, in order that there may be a security 

 for the sentences being true Native expressions. It is also essen- 

 tial that the writers should not be highly educated men, but ordi- 

 nary intelligent men of the middle classes, otherwise the sentences 

 would be almost sure to be full of fanciful things. The list of 

 words should be given to several different persons in order to se- 

 cure a good variety of expressions, and some selection should be 

 made. The first set ought not to consist of less than 1,000 sen- 

 tences, that is 10 to each word, in order that by means of this 

 batch of words the first rudiments of grammar may be quite fa- 

 miliar, and some considerable notion obtained of the general 

 style of expression peculiar to the language, keeping throughout 

 the grand object in view, which is to arrange that, so far as pos- 



