ing the general principles which he has already learned in an informal way, and he finds that it is but a small part of the grammar that is entirely new to him. In the process of learning the language, he has gradually and imperceptibly acquired many of the principles of its construction, and he is now prepared to study these principles in full, and in a systematic manner.

This leads me to say, that the true position of grammar in a scheme or plan of education is very commonly not well understood. Besides, being a standard to which we can refer in cases of doubt, it should be used for two purposes, to perfect our knowledge of our own language, after we have to a considerable extent acquired it, and to enable us to acquire more readily other languages. For these purposes it should be studied whenever the scholar has gone so far in his accumulation of generalizations, as to be able to understand, in any good measure, the philosophy of the construction of language. Before he arrives at this point, it is a useless burdening of the memory to make him learn the rules of grammar. The rules will be of no advantage to him until he can understand them; and the capacity of understanding them must come from that gradual acquirement of generalizations, which is made in the ordinary mode of learning language by daily use. Grammar is of no service, then, in teaching the child the use of language, and insisting upon it as essential in the beginning of education, is very much in the spirit of the fool of whom we read in the Græca Minora, who said that

he never would go into the water till he had first learned to swim. And a philosophical disquisition on the art of swimming would be of quite as much service to a boy who is about to learn to swim, as the rules of grammar are to a child in learning his native tongue.

The general defect in teaching, of which I have thus given several illustrations, is to be seen also in the common mode of teaching the classics. Much has been said against spending so much time as is spent in these studies in our schools and colleges. I would not have the time thus spent in the full course of a liberal education much curtailed, if any, but I would have the studies pursued in a different manner from what they ordinarily are. When a classic author is studied the teacher should communicate to his pupils, as essential to a correct understanding of the author, such facts as these-the character of the author, the circumstances under which he wrote, the character of the times in which he lived, the objects for which he wrote, the scope of the book, the manners and customs referred to in the book, &c. Such facts would give great interest to the book in the mind of the pupil, and relieve his daily tasks of their tediousness. The interest which always comes from facts is imparted at once to the bare language. The pupil feels the satisfaction that always attends the acquisition of interesting information. He feels that he is doing something more than learning mere Latin or Greek. And, besides, this is the only true method in which the language itself can be perfectly learned. For

the true meaning of the author cannot be ascertained in all cases, without a knowledge of the facts to which I have alluded. No one, for example, can understand Livy's Latin unless he read him as a historian, and not as a mere Latin writer. And he cannot understand him as a historian unless he knows such facts in regard to him as I have indicated. But there is commonly in our schools, and even in our colleges, little of this mode of instruction. The interest of facts is but sparingly imparted to the learning of the bare language. It is as if words have a fixed invariable meaning, and a language can be learned by a mere translation of the requisite number of sentences, without regard to the circumstances under which they are written, or the object of the author.

The same general defect is seen in the common mode of teaching geography. It is made too much a dry study of mere lines of boundary and localities. The interesting facts that give a meaning to those boundaries and localities should constitute a large portion of the teaching in Geography. Prof. Guyot and others are redeeming this study from its barrenness, by imparting to it the interest which facts always give.

I had intended to remark upon the study of Arithmetic, and upon the naturally connected studies of Chemistry, Mineralogy and Geology, but my limits will not allow it.

It is obvious, from the view which I have given of education, that its parts are ordinarily not in

proper relative proportion. Soms things have too much prominence, and others too little. Some things which should be wholly kept out of sight, covered up, as we may say, by the results which are produced by their working, are brought out fully to view. To borrow a figure from my own profession, the very skeleton of science and learning is thrust before us, stript of the enveloping parts that give to the whole its beauty and grace. Or, to compare education with the erection of a building, which, when completed is to gratify the eye with its beautiful proportions and its appropriate adornings, and which is to be the abode of taste and comfort and peace, what should we think of the architect who should disregard beauty of proportion, neglect here and there to fill up interstices in the framework, leaving rude beams bare where both convenience and taste demand that they be covered up, and even let some part of the scaffolding remain, and yet ask of us to admire the whole as a beautiful, convenient, and complete structure!

It will be seen from the views that I have expressed, that I am opposed to all learning by rote, as it is termed, whenever it can possibly be avoided. There are some cases in which this mode of learning cannot be dispensed with. The multiplication table, for example, is learned only by rote. So, also, is much of the spelling learned in this way. It would be idle to lay it down as a fixed rule that the child shall spell no word that he does not understand.

But with a few such exceptions, learning by rote

should be excluded as far as possible. Instruction should be scrupulously adapted to the different stages of mental development in the child's progress. The mind should be made to understand, as it goes along step by step in its education. This is the only course that renders study satisfactory and interesting. It divests learning of its usual predominant character of unmeaning and profitless drudgery. As the mind, in this course of training, has to deal so continually with facts, it acquires by it a vigorous, practical energy. This desirable quality, a familiar and constant use of words without meaning obviously tends to destroy.

The effect just mentioned, as produced in the mind by a habit of learning by rote is a consideration of much importance. A habit of using words without understanding them exerts a positive injurious influence upon the powers of the mind. It prevents their full development. It exercises the memory unduly, while the other powers are not exercised sufficiently to promote a healthy growth. It effects, too, an unnatural separation between the memory and the other powers. It is necessary to a well proportioned development of the mind that what is stored in the memory should be acted upon by the reasoning powers. And, besides, the mind must put its mark on what the memory gathers, or it will have neither value nor permanency.

But learning by rote not only represses the proper development of the mental powers, but it prevents their action. A mind that has from early childhood been trained to use words unmeaningly, loses, in a