july — sept. 1857.] The Study of Living Languages. 237 



sible, the attention may be concentrated on one thing at a time. 

 When a hundred words have been acquired, all the use possible 

 should be made of them as the vehicle for conveying instruction 

 in other respects before the attention is encumbered by new words, 

 ia order that when new words are taken in hand the student may 

 have his attention in a great measure released from the pressure of 

 the elementary points of grammar, peculiar style of expression, &c. 



It is also most essential that these sentences should consist of 

 only two or three words, never more than the latter. It is asto- 

 nishing how very little new matter overloads the attention of a be- 

 ginner, and the utmost care is necessary that no more should ever 

 be placed before him at a time than that he can receive a distinct 

 impression of it. A sentence of four or five words is quite too 

 much at first, and nothing is gained by attempting more than the 

 student is equal to. Comparatively speaking, a very considerable 

 time must be given to the first set of sentences, for there is a great 

 deal to be learnt by them. 



It is evident that they involve almost all the pronunciation, the 

 inflexions of the nouns and verbs, the mode of combining the 

 different parts of speech, the exercise of the organs of speech and 

 that of the ear on the sound o£2he language, &c. 



The first progress of a student in a new language, at least in 

 one entirely dissimilar to his native tongue, is indeed astonishing- 

 ly slow, and it is of no use attempting to push him on faster than 

 he can go. We constantly meet with what are called, easy books 

 for beginners, but probably there is not one published in any lan- 

 guage that is a hundredth part easy enough or that does not seem 

 to suppose a progress at first a hundred times more rapid than any 

 student makes. 



The sentences must of course be translated into English, but it 

 is essential that they should not be written originally in English 

 and then translated into the foreign language. 



We do not want to teach a man to speak English sentences in 

 foreign words, but to use the foreign expressions. 



The second set of words consisting of 150 may perhaps contain 

 ten sentences for each word, or 1,500 in all. 



