paid at once, but in parts, a fifth annually during five years. To put the machine in motion, twenty

much less speak clearly and persuasively in any business. This I think not to be so much their fault as the fault of their education." Thus far Locke.

Monsieur Rollin reckons the neglect of teaching their own tongue a great fault in the French universities. He spends great part of his first volume of Belles Lettres on that subject; and lays down some excellent rules or methods of teaching French to Frenchmen grammatically, and making them masters therein, which are very applicable to our language, but too long to be inserted here. He practised them on the youth under his care with great success.

Mr. Hutchinson, Dial. p. 297, says, "To perfect them in the knowledge of their mother tongue, they should learn it in the grammatical way, that they not only speak it purely, but be able both to correct their own idiom, and afterwards enrich the language on the same foundation."

Dr. Turnbull, in his Observations on a liberal Education, says, p. 262, "The Greeks, perhaps, made more early advances in the most useful sciences than any youth have done since, chiefly on this account, that they studied no other language but their own. This no doubt saved them very much time; but they applied themselves carefully to the study of their own language, and were early able to speak and write it in the greatest perfection. The Roman youth, though they learned the Greek, did not neglect their own tongue, but studied it more carefully than we now do Greek and Latin, without giving our-selves trouble about our own tongue."

any

Monsieur Simon, in an elegant Discourse of his among the Memoirs of the Academy of Belles Lettres at Paris, speaking of the stress the Romans laid on purity of language and graceful pronunciation, adds, "May I here make a reflection on the education we commonly give our children? It is very remote

four of the principal subscribers agreed to take upon themselves the trust; and a set of constitu

from the precepts I have mentioned. Hath the child arrived to six or seven years of age, he mixes with a herd of ill-bred boys at school, where, under the pretext of teaching him Latin, no regard is had to his mother tongue: And what happens? What we see every day. A young gentleman of eighteen, who has had this education, cannot read. For to articulate the words, and join them together, I do not call reading, unless one can pronounce well, observe all the proper stops, vary the voice, express the sentiment, and read with a delicate intelligence. Nor - can he speak a jot better. A proof of this is that he cannot write ten lines without committing gross faults; and because he did not learn his own language well in his early years, he will never know it well: I except a few, who being afterwards engaged by their profession, or their natural taste, cultivate their minds by study. And yet even they, if they attempt to write, will find by the labor composition costs them, what a loss it is, not to have learned their language in the proper season. Education among the Romans was upon a quite different footing. Masters of rhetoric taught them early the principles, the difficulties, the beauties, the subtleties, the depths, the riches of their own language. When they went from these schools, they were perfect masters of it, they were never at a loss for proper expressions; and I am much deceived if it was not owing to this, that they produced such excellent works with so marvellous facility."

Pliny, in his letter to a lady on choosing a tutor for her son, speaks of it as the most material thing in his education, that he should have a good Latin master of rhetoric, and recommends Julius Genitor for his eloquent, open, and plain faculty of speaking. He does not advise her to a Greek master of rhetoric, though the Greeks were famous for that science; but to a Latin master, because Latin was the boy's mothes tongue

tions for their government, and for the regulation of the schools, were drawn up by Mr. Francis and

In the above quotation from Monsieur Simon, we see what was the office and duty of the master of rhetoric.

To form their style, they should be put on writing letters to each other, making abstracts of what they read; or writing the same things in their own words; telling or writing stories lately read, in their own expressions. All to be revised and corrected by the tutor, who should give his reasons, explain the force and import of words, &c.

This Mr. Locke recommends, Educ. p. 284, and says: "The writing of letters has so much to do in all the occurrences of human life, that no gentleman can avoid showing himself in this kind of writing. Occasions will daily force him to make this use of his pen, which, besides the consequence that, in his affairs, the well or ill managing it often draws after it, always lays him open to a severer examination of his breeding, sense and abilities, than oral discourses, whose transient faults dying for the most part with the sound that gives them life, and so not subject to a strict review, more easily escape observation and censure."

He adds: "Had the methods of education been directed to their right end, one would have thought this so necessary a part could not have been neglected, whilst themes and verses in Latin, of no use at all, were so constantly everywhere pressed, to the racking of children's invention beyond their strength, and hindering their cheerful progress by unnatural difficulties. But custom has so ordained it, and who dares disobey? And would it not be very unreasonable to require of a learned country schoolmaster (who has all the tropes and figures in Farnaby's rhetoric at his finger's ends) to teach his scholar to express himself handsomely in English, when it appears to be so little his business or thought, that the boy's mother (despised, tis like, as illiterate, for not having read a system of logic or rhetoric) outdoes him in it?

myself, which were signed by us all and printed, that the public might know what was to be ex

"To speak and write correctly, gives a grace, and gains a favorable attention to what one has to say: And since 'tis English that an Englishman will have constant use of, that is the language he should chiefly cultivate, and wherein most care should be taken to polish and perfect his style. To speak or write better Latin than English, may make a man be talked of, but he will find it more to his purpose to express himself well in his own tongue, that he uses every moment, than to have the vain commendations of others for a very insignificant quality. This I find universally neglected, nor no care taken any where to improve young men in their own language, that they may thoroughly understand and be masters of it. If any one among us have a facility or purity more than ordinary in his mother tongue, it is owing to chance, or his genius, or any thing, rather than to his education or any care of his teacher. To mind what English his pupil speaks or writes, is below the dignity of one bred up among Greek and Latin, though he have but little of them himself. These are the learned languages, fit only for learned men to meddle with and teach: English is the language of the illiterate vulgar. Though the great men among the Romans were daily exercising themselves in their own language; and we find yet upon the record the names of orators who taught some of their Emperors Latin, though it were their mother tongue. 'Tis plain the Greeks were yet more nice in theirs. All other speech was barbarous to them but their own, and no foreign language appears to have been studied or valued amongst that learned and acute people; though it be past doubt that they borrowed their learning and philosophy from abroad."

To the same purpose writes a person of eminent learning in a letter to Dr. Turnbull: "Nothing certainly (says he) can be of more service to mankind than a right method of educating the youth, and I should be glad to hear to give an ex

tions for their government, and for the regulation of the schools, were drawn up by Mr. Francis and

In the above quotation from Monsieur Simon, we see what was the office and duty of the master of rhetoric.

To form their style, they should be put on writing letters to each other, making abstracts of what they read; or writing the same things in their own words; telling or writing stories lately read, in their own expressions. All to be revised and corrected by the tutor, who should give his reasons, explain the force and import of words, &c.

This Mr. Locke recommends, Educ. p. 284, and says: "The writing of letters has so much to do in all the occurrences of human life, that no gentleman can avoid showing himself in this kind of writing. Occasions will daily force him to make this use of his pen, which, besides the consequence that, in his affairs, the well or ill managing it often draws after it, always lays him open to a severer examination of his breeding, sense and abilities, than oral discourses, whose transient faults dying for the most part with the sound that gives them life, and so not subject to a strict review, more easily escape observation and censure."

He adds:" Had the methods of education been directed to their right end, one would have thought this so necessary a part could not have been neglected, whilst themes and verses in Latin, of no use at all, were so constantly everywhere pressed, to the racking of children's invention beyond their strength, and hindering their cheerful progress by unnatural difficulties. But custom has so ordained it, and who dares disobey? And would it not be very unreasonable to require of a learned country schoolmaster (who has all the tropes and figures in Farnaby's rhetoric at his finger's ends) to teach his scholar to express himself handsomely in English, when it appears to be so little his business or thought, that the boy's mother (despised, tis like, as illiterate, for not having read a system of logic or rhetoric) outdoes him in it?