directly; we all reason inductively every moment of our lives, but to reason inductively for the purposes of science belongs only to those whose minds are so constituted that they can see the resemblances in things which other men think unlike, in short, to those who have powers of original combination and whom we term men of genius. If, therefore, we can impart by teaching deductive habits, education will have done its utmost towards the discipline of the reasoning faculties. When we

speak of laws and ideas we must not be misunderstood as wishing to imply any thing more than general terms arrived at by real classification. About these general terms and these alone is deductive reason conversant, so that the method of mind, which is the object of education, is nothing but the method of languag; and this is the reason why, as we have said, the educated man is known by the arrangement of his words. Hence, if there is any way of imparting to the mind deductive habits, it must be by teaching the method of language; and this discipline has in fact been adopted in all the more enlightened periods of the existence of man. It will be remembered, that in this method of language it is not the words but the arrangement of them which is the object of study; and thus the method of language is independent of the conventional significations of particular words; it is of no country and of no age, but is as universal as the general mind of man. For these reasons we assert that the method of language, one of the branches of philology, must always be, as it has been, the basis of education or humanity as such, that is, of the discipline of the human mind. We may even go farther, and assert, that, when Geometry is added to Grammar, we have exhausted the known materials of deductive reasoning, and have called in the aid of all the machinery which is at our disposal.

With regard to the importance of etymology as a part of a liberal education very little need be said. It is just as necessary that the educated man should be able to select and discriminate the words which he employs as that he should be able to arrange them methodically. We acquire our mother-tongue insensibly and by instinct, and to the untrained mind the words. of it are identified with the thoughts to which they correspond in the mind of the individual, whereas he ought at least to be taught so much of their analysis as to know that they are but

outward signs, the symbols of a prima facie classification, and to employ them accordingly. In this simplest form etymology is nothing but an intelligent spelling lesson, which the most violent utilitarian would hardly venture to discard. When, however, we remember that the most important result of intellectual education is the overthrow of one-sided prejudices, and when we reflect how apt we are to fall into practical Realism, and "to apply the analytical power of language to the interpretation of nature," we cannot value too highly that habit of dealing with words, which leads us to distinguish accurately between the mere sign and the thing signified.

6 But, though perhaps every one will at once allow that such a knowledge of language as we have described is an essential element of intellectual training, it may still be asked, What has this to do with the study of two dead languages? In the first place, then, to study one branch at least of philology, namely, Etymology, we must have some particular language in which to study it; and although the method of language is independent of any particular language, yet, like every other method or science, it must have its facts as well as its laws. It will be conceded that if we would go beyond the rudiments of spelling and speaking, if we would catch a glimpse of what speech is in itself and as detached from ourselves, it would be desirable to select some foreign language, and if possible one no longer spoken or liable to change: languages still in use are so fluctuating and uncertain that an attempt to get fixed ideas of the general analogy of language from them is like trying to copy the fantastic pictures of an ever-revolving kaleidoscope. The classical languages lie before us in gigantic and well-preserved remains, and we can scrutinize, dissect, and compare them with as much certainty as we should feel in experimenting upon the objects of any branch of natural philosophy. They are, therefore, well adapted to supply us with the facts for our laws of speech or the general analogy of language; and we might make them the basis of our grammatical study, even though they had nothing to recommend them but their permanence of form and perfection of grammatical structure.

7 This, however, is not all: it is indeed necessary to study some language, and that too a dead language, in order to give the mind a full grammatical training; but the mere fact of learning another language, whether dead or living, is in the highest degree beneficial. We learn our own language from the lips of a mother or a nurse, it grows with our growth and strengthens with our strength, so as to become a sort of second self; and the words of the uneducated are household gods to him. This idolatry is shaken, the individual is brought away from his own associations to the higher truths which form the food of the general mind of man, whenever he has learned to express his thoughts in some other set of words. It was a great mistake of Ennius to say that he had three hearts because he understood three languages (Aulus Gellius, noctes Atticæ, xvii. 17); the heart of a people is its mother-tongue only (Jean Paul, xlvii. p. 179). The Emperor Charles the Fifth was nearer the truth when he said autant de langues que l'homme sçait parler, autant de fois est il homme;-for every language that a man learns he multiplies his individual nature and brings himself one step nearer to the general collective mind of Man. The effect of learning a language, then, consists in the contrast of the associations which it calls up to those trains of thought which our mother-tongue awakens. In this again the dead languages possess a great advantage over every living one. It has been well remarked "that our modern education consists in a great measure in the contrast between ourselves and classical antiquity *;" it is a contrast produced by a sleep of more than a thousand years between the last of the great men of old and the first of the great moderns when the reawakened world looked with instructive astonishment upon its former self.

8 In addition to the two reasons which we have stated as grounds for preferring the two classical languages as materials of grammatical study, there is a third reason which has generally been thought to be alone sufficient,-the value of the literature to which they are a key. On this particular subject we do not

* W. von Humboldt, über die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen

Sprachbaues, p. 27.

intend to dwell; books without number have been written upon it, and there does not seem to exist a doubt as to the paramount excellence of the Greek and Latin writers. To those who still argue the old question about the comparative merits of modern and ancient literature, it is sufficient to answer, that if the old classical literature were swept away the moderns whom they so admire would in many cases become unintelligible and in all lose most of their characteristic charms*.

9 Lastly, the introduction of that branch of philology which we call comparative grammar offers a great recommendation to the careful study of these two languages. Notwithstanding the beneficial contrast which they present, they are aged sisters of our own mother-tongue, and, studied according to the true philological method in combination with the Asiatic members of the family, they open the way to an easy and speedy acquirement of every one of the Indo-Germanic languages, and are thus a key to the greatest treasure which the mind of man has collected, -the recorded wisdom of the Caucasian race.

10

From what we have said it appears that for the mental training of the individual some philology is necessary; that grammar is best studied through the classical languages; that the study of these languages is also recommended by their contrast to our own, by the value of the literature to which they are the key, and by their place in the family of languages to which our own tongue belongs. These are reasons why the individual who is to be liberally educated, should study Greek and Latin. But the advantages of philological studies are not confined to the individual. They may be cultivated to a higher degree than is necessary for the mere purposes of education, and be made to contribute to some of the most valuable and interesting applications of human knowledge. The claims of ethnological philology to rank as a principal branch of general science have been sufficiently vindicated of late years. The British Association for the Advancement of Science, at its meeting in 1847, was thus

*See Sedgwick, Discourse on the Studies of the University, 4th edit. p. 36; and Whewell, On the Principles of University Education, p. 35.

addressed by the Chevalier Bunsen*: "If man is the apex of the creation, it seems right, on the one side, that a historical inquiry into his origin and development should never be allowed to sever itself from the general body of natural science, and in particular from physiology. But, on the other hand, if man is the apex of the creation, if he is the end to which all organic formations tend from the very beginning; if man is at once the mystery and the key of natural science; if that is the only view of natural science worthy of our age-then ethnological science, once established on principles as clear as the physiological are, is the highest branch of that science for the advancement of which this Association is instituted. It is not an appendix to physiology or to any thing else; but its object is, on the contrary, capable of becoming the end and goal of the labours and transactions of a scientific institution." Those who are jealous for the dignity of man will not fail to echo these sentiments. Ethnology, which treats of the different races into which the human family is subdivided, and indicates the bonds which bind them all together, has not only appropriated to itself all the functions of the anthropology, which discussed the natural and moral, the physical and metaphysical history of man, but has exacted contributions from other sciences which were once independent of it. Anatomy, chemistry, geography, history, grammar, and criticism have each brought a stone to this great fabric; and it is reasonable that this should be the case. For when the very Kosmos finds in man the most beautiful exemplifications of its own perfect harmony and order, universal science should recognise in the science which treats of man, its object, its aim, and its end.

11 There is in fact no sure way of tracing the history and migrations of the early inhabitants of the world except by means of their languages; any other mode of inquiry must rest on the merest conjecture and hypothesis. It may seem strange that any thing so vague and arbitrary as language should survive all other testimonies, and speak with more definiteness, even in its changed and modern state, than all other monuments however grand and durable. Yet so it is; we have the proof before us every hour. Though we had lost all other history of our country we should

* Report, p. 257.