while others must remain miserably cared for, makes every such structure a monument of folly and injustice, and not of public spirit and self-sacrifice?

H. F. H.

METHODS OF TEACHING CLASSICAL LANGUAGES

BY J. R. JAQUES.

WHILE We would make the learning of inflections the work of the first term, first in time and first in importance, not mingling with them any exceptions, irregular and dialectic forms, we would not, by any means, confine the mind to mere memorizing. Every form of inflection should, so far as possible, be discussed and explained. Its historic and euphonic origin should be discussed, that the mind may begin to organize its knowledge into scientific order. Philosophy cannot be introduced too early.

The elements of the grand science of Language may be gradually unfolded, even the first term; and that fundamental department of linguistic science called phonology-or the science of the universal alphabet-must, in its germs, be implanted in the student's mind from the very first, as affording the only cluw to traverse the maze of Greek declension and conjugation with pleasure and profit. With the light of this science, the student's pathway may be made bright, and his work invested with a charm. Few students will fail to be fascinated with the new realms of thought thus opening before them.

The classification of consonants in Greek, with all their changes, bewildering in number, but beautiful in their law, must be mastered, reviewed, and wrought into the very fibre of the mind. Nor should the teacher stop with what he finds in the Greek grammar. He should go out botanizing in the wide fields of Phonology, bringing back fairest bouquets to deck the homely tables of inflections. He should linger in the company of Bopp, and Heyse, and Pott, Max Müller, and Dwight, and a host of other lights of the New Philology, till he is all phosphorescent, and come to the recitation room with floods of light to illuminate every dark point.

The whole doctrine of consonantal classification, and interchange of cognate letters, must be made clear and beautiful as the sunbeam, and impressed upon the mind as the magic key of universal language. The terms labials, linguals, gutturals, mutes and liquids, sibilants and spirants, and the like, must be made all redolent of meaning, and familiar as household words.

To facilitate this work, the English may be called into use, as furnishing illustrative examples, and sometimes illustrative amusement. For instance, the statement that "a lingual before sigma or 's' is dropped," is a very abstract statement, till attention is called to the same tendency in English, and the pupil tries to pronounce, "He thrusts his fists against the posts,

And still insists he sees the ghosts."

On the same principle, changing' months' to 'muns,' and 'clothespins' to 'clos-pins.' Thus the principle of metathesis is far less abstract when the pupil attempts to pronounce, "A big black bug's blood," or "six sleek, slim saplings"; or hears the story of the excited member of Congress, who rose and addressed " Mr. Speaker" as "Sister Meeker"! and wishing to say, in his own dialect, “the Oliver Ellsworth has bust her biler," said "the Elliver Ollsworth has biled her buster!" [Enclitics may be explained by such words as gim me, imbibe, cupboard, etc.] The rule that "successive syllables should not begin with a rough mute or aspirate" comes very near home when he finds himself changing' the other' into 't'other,' and so on almost endlessly.

Thus, out of the very tendencies of correct English, or dialectic English, or vulgar English, the vigilant teacher may cull a whole museum of illustrative examples to explain the workings of latent laws in language, which are the foundation of the consonantal and vowel changes in Greek and Latin declension and conjugation. Moreover, this whole process throws a new light on our own language.

Finally, the whole array of inflections may be generalized, by grouping them, and showing how diverse forms, by historic growth and phonetic change, have sprung from one or more simple original forms.

The tables of inflections being thus learned, the student is pre

pared to take up his reader, which should be copiously supplied with references to the grammar. The rules of Syntax can now be learned just as far and as fast as the successive lessons require. Little need be said of the character of the reader or mode of reading it, as we are fortunately well supplied with admirable readers, with select sentences fitted to illustrate the successive rules of Syntax. Here the Ollendorff system, in a modified form, has a place in a philosophical course of classic study, the exercise of translating from English to the foreign language being an indis. pensable part of the course.

We can pause only to state the conviction that, throughout the reading of preparatory books, the importance of repeating the principal parts of verbs can scarcely be exaggerated. They can be fully and forever learned by the student. And when the class comes to the reading of a classic author, to introduce variety, and to develop correct habits of study, there may be a variety of exercises on successive days, the students being advertised that on the morrow there will be a special exercise in some part of Syntax, or Etymology, or other matters of interest and profit. The whole field of Grammar, Philology, etc., may thus be traversed or unveiled in glimpses, in successive lessons.

The importance of translations by the ear, the exegesis of the text, in colloquial lectures and other elements of a perfect classic drill in the class-room, are acknowledged, but can not now be discussed.

Of course, it comes not within the province of this discussion to point out the importance of the auxiliary studies of classic Geography, History, Literature, Mythology, etc. These are all indispensable as a part of the apparatus for interpretation or exegesis; but our discussion to-day has to do with the methods of teaching the language itself.

There is no branch of education that calls into play a wider range of thought, investigation, qualifications, and accomplishments.. But among the many branches of knowledge utilized by the classic instructor, none are more important than the Science of Language, or the "New Philology.'

No scholar is ushered into the penetralia or arcana of Language

till he masters the law of consonant changes as formalized in what is called "Grimm's Law of Consonant Change." Not till the investigator knows and feels that the consonants are the thoughtbearers of the root—the constant quantity in the word does he step securely upon the enchanted ground of Comparative Philology. Not till he is mentally conscious, by almost a new instinct, of the change of the consonants into their cognate letters (when they change at all) does he see the beautiful and constant law that has developed the many languages and dialects of the Aryan or IndoGermanic family.

The teacher must not then consider that he is fully equipped for his deep and wide work till he has a considerable knowledge, not only of the Greek and Latin, but of the German, French, Spanish and Italian, and the Sanskrit, so far as the roots are concerned, Nor can the Hebrew though belonging to another linguistic stock, called the Semitic― be rejected, without sacrificing in the Hebrew grammatical system an important apparatus for the illustration of the laws of universal language.

The toil and time necessary for the acquisition of a lexical and grammatical knowledge of these languages are amply repaid by the brighter light they reflect upon our work, and by the fair flowers and fairer fruits they bring to refresh us in "digging among the roots"; for, as Goethe profoundly says, " He who knows nothing of foreign tongues, knows nothing of his own." So he who knows a foreign tongue, knows it not well till he learns others of the same family. [Journal of Proceedings of the Illinois State Teachers' Association.]

THE CHINESE LANGUAGE.

IF by grammar is meant a collection of rules exhibiting the change which nouns and adjectives undergo in declension, and verbs in conjugation, there is nothing corresponding to it in Chinese. Chinese stands alone in the whole realm of human speech as a type of languages without inflections, and it is for this reason, apart from its literary interest or practical importance,

that a study of Chinese becomes indispensable to every student of language. What a philosopher might imagine the earliest stage of language to have been, is presented to us in Chinese as an undeniable reality. What a careful analysis of other families of languages teaches us-viz: that all that is now purely formal in language was originally material stands before us in Chinese, not as the result of a laborious induction, but as a simple fact. There was a language, and there is still a language, and a language spoken by a larger number of human beings than any other, in which we have no sign of gender, case, or number, no personal termination, no tenses or moods, no irregular nouns or defective verbs, nay, in which there is no outward distinction between a noun, an adjective, a verb, an adverb, and a participle. What a happy country China must be! many a schoolboy would think, where there are no irregular verbs, no false quantities, no genders. But, alas! there is no rose without thorns, and in spite of all its grammatical simplicity, Chinese at least, the ancient classical Chinese is known as one of the most difficult languages to learn. We quote from M. Stanislas Julien's work:

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"All Chinese characters are monosyllabic, independent and 'inconjugable.' They are not capable of receiving those inflections which in Greek and Latin show at a glance the gender, case, and number of nouns, the voice, tenses, moods, and persons of verbs. But, in spite of this absence of inflections, the Chinese language is to a well-informed sinologue' as clear and intelligible as those learned languages which abound in inflections. If it were otherwise, how could the innumerable works which it has produced in every branch of literature for more than 2,000 years, have been read and reproduced from century to century, since the first discovery of printing? The Chinese began to print from woodcuts in 581 A. D. In the year 907-400 years before the discovery of printing in Europe they introduced the use of stone for the same purpose, and in 1040 they invented movable types. Again, how could it now, under its modern form, called kouan hoa, or vulgar language, be spoken in China, Cochin China, Japan, Siam, Corea, and even in Thibet, by a population of more than four hundred and fifty millions, that is to say, by half of the civilized world?