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teaching themselves profoundly, thoroughly-as it is undoubtedly in their power to do. There is no earthly reason, except a most inglorious, and to us unaccountable, apathy and sloth why our primary schools should not become in the course of a few years, certainly in less than a generation, quite equal, for all practical purposes, to any in the world. We know that there are those who will set this down for a paradox, and a very extravagant one. There are some scholars, especially the English, and those bred at English schools, who lay infinite stress upon the advantage of having what is called a proper foundation laid in the regular discipline of the boy and the youth, without which, they conceive it to be quite impossible, even for the most shining parts, aided by the greatest assiduity and perseverance, to attain to any thing like refined and perfect scholarship. All that is meant by this, we presume, is, that bearded men are not, in general, likely to acquire any great proficiency in capping and making nonsense verses, or to become so deeply versed in the endless varieties of the Trochaic, and Choriambic, and Antispastic, and Dactylic metres of the Greek tragedies, as Porson or Burney.* This may or may not be so for aught that concerns the present inquiry; but if it is pretended that such refinements are essentials of a scholarship, profitable both for use and for ornament, (the scholarship, for instance, of Gibbon and Burke) we take leave to say, that we consider such notions as rank pedantry. We are far from denying that prosody ought to be cultivated, and cultivated with all possible care and assiduity, for no species of illiteracy is at once so obtrusive and so disagreeable as a vicious pronunciation; we only maintain that that exquisite degree of proficiency in it, which is not attainable by the enlightened studies and persevering industry of manhood, must be set down to the account of what

Is vanity or dress,

Or learning's luxury or idleness.

So it is next to impossible for an Englishman or American, after a certain age, to learn to speak French with a perfectly pure accent, yet will it be pretended that he may not be critically versed in its literature, and derive from his knowledge of it all the advantage which one can promise himself, as a mere scholar, from a foreign tongue? Nay, how few, even of those who write their own language with the greatest accuracy and elegance, have pushed their researches into the mere minutiæ and curiosities of its philology as far as many great critics have gone into those of the Latin and Greek.

* Perhaps nothing more is meant than the repetition of certain "old saws"-e. g. the following from Quinctilian, (l. i. c. 12.) which are full of the good sense for which he is remarkable, though they seem to be pushed too far. Magis scias si quenquam robustum instituere literis cæperis, non sine causâ dici, παιδομαθεῖσ eos qui in suâ quidque arte optime faciant. Et patientior est laboris pueris natura quàm juvenibus. ****** Abest illis (pueris) laboris judicium.Ibid.

Sed ne temporis quidem unquam plus erit: quia his ætatibus omnis in audiendo profectus est. Cum ad stylum secedet, cum generabit ipse aliquid atque componet, cum inchoare hæc studia vel non vacabit vel non libebit.-Ibid.

Admitting, however, as we readily do, that it is a great advantage, inasmuch as it saves a world of pains at a period of life when time becomes more precious, to have been regularly bred under accomplished teachers; still we repeat, that this advantage is prodigiously overrated when it is considered as an indispensable condition of excellence. As to the doctrine of those who think that there is something magical in the very name of Eton or Westminster, who regard the learned languages as a sort of Mysteries into which an aspirant can be initiated no where else but in the sacred temple, and by none but hierophants of a privileged race, we need scarcely say, that no superstition was ever more extravagant. Latin and Greek are learned just as all other languages are, by long practice and critical observation in reading, writing, and speaking them, and by these alone. We incline to the opinion, indeed, that a self-taught student would, in these days, be more sure of acquiring a profound and exact knowledge of them than of the modern tongues; such are the facilities that are afforded by the best grammars, dictionaries, thesaurus', gradus', clavis', &c. Add to this, what is still more important than all, the excellent editions that have been published of the classical authors, with references and annotations adapted to every variety of capacity and of proficiency in this branch of knowledge, and affording the most satisfactory explanation of every difficulty that can possibly present itself to a scholar in the progress of his inquiries, so as very nearly to supersede the necessity of viva voce instruction. Considering these things, it becomes, we confess, altogether inconceivable to us how so many schools should have existed for the last half century, in the more populous parts of the United States, without, long ere this, filling the country with a race of accomplished scholars, not only sufficient to supply the places of their instructors and the ranks of the learned professions, but to diffuse an elegant taste, and the love of letters and of liberal pursuits throughout all classes of the community. Let any one who possesses a competent knowledge of the Latin grammar (and the same thing may be said of Greek, mutatis mutandis) and who has read the authors commonly taught at our academies, as imperfectly as they are commonly taught there, sit down with a determination to go through Livy's History, in one of the best VOL. I. NO. 1

2

editions, (Crevier's for instance) twice, faithfully and laboriously, referring to the notes for an explanation of whatever may be obscure in the text, and reserving for future investigation and comparison those passages which he is unable immediately to understand, and we undertake to say, that by the time he shall have accomplished his task, all the difficulties that embarrassed and discouraged his early progress will have insensibly vanished from before him. Let him then proceed to read in the same manner all the writings of Cicero, but especially the Epistles, the Rhetorical works, and the more familiar treatises on philosophical subjects, devoting an hour every day to the drudgery of double translation, and he will find when he comes to extend his studies to other authors-Tacitus, Sallust, the Plinies, &c. that those passages which are obscure to him, will generally prove to have been the subject of dispute, even among veteran philologists. We are aware that this course requires great resolution and perseverance. No one, who has not experienced them himself, can have any adequate idea of the difficulties and discouragements that crowd about the threshold of these unaided studies. But labour is the price of all excellence, and it is fit that it should be so. It is by this discipline, and by this alone, that a thorough knowledge of any language, ancient or modern, or indeed of any thing else, can be acquired. Hac arte Pollux et vagus Hercules, &c. It was by such means that some of the most learned men of past times, Erasmus and Cujas for instance, self-taught scholars-the former in an age comparatively barbarous, the latter without the smallest assistance from any teacher-raised themselves to such a height of reputation, not only in divinity or the civil law, or in profound erudition generally, but also in the humbler capacity of linguists and philolo-. gers. It is vain to say that these are rare instances, and that it is unphilosophical to reason from exceptions. We deny the fact. The literary history of the last three centuries, and indeed of all ages, abounds with such examples, and even if it did not, no young man of a generous and aspiring mind ought to deem any thing impossible that has ever been accomplished by mortal man, especially if it be what is obviously due, not to the supposed inspirations of genius, but to mere dint of toil and per

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Πωλοῦσιν ἡμιν πάντα τ' ἀγαθὰ θεοί.

Epicharmus apud Xenophon: Memorab. 1. ii. c. 1.

+ The text is a paraphrase of a favorite maxim from Macchiavelli. Non sia pertanto nessuno che si shigotisca di non potere conseguire quello che è stato conseguito da altri; perchè gli uomini (come nella prefazione nostra si disse) nacquero, vissero e morirono sempre con un medesimo ordine. Discorsi.

We are not satisfied, therefore, with the manner in which Mr. Read accounts for the miserable defectiveness of our schooleducation. It is not sufficient to say, that "the task of elementary instruction, offering but limited returns of dignity or emolument, has been suffered to devolve from its legitimate functionaries on the adventurers of learning; who, feeling the sting of genius, have wrested some slender opportunities from niggard fortune, and seek an honorable barter of their limited acquirements for present support while pressing on in the paths of professional ambition." It is, indeed, a melancholy truth, that the education of our southern youth has been of late too often committed to these great men in transitu; but making all reasonable allowances for such cases, it still remains to be explained how it has happened that so many professors of Greek and Latin in our numerous American colleges, in possession of comfortable livings, and discharged from all other duties and engagements, have dozed over their sealed volumes in such stupid unaspiring ignorance-how so many schoolmasters, in New-England for instance, looking to nothing beyond success as teachers in this elementary department, have been satisfied to "barter" (how "honorably" is none of our concern) for competent fees and a precious period of their pupils lives, such a wretched, vulgar, and worthless smattering of classical literature-how all, emphatically all, the attainments of a young man liberally, that is, expensively educated from his seventh or eighth to his fourteenth or fifteenth year, have been, with very few, if any, exceptions, limited to what is ironically called translating the ancient authors; in other words, rendering into uncouth or nonsensical English the most exquisite beauties of poetry and eloquence, without so much as the remotest idea, of what it is that has recommended to the admiration of all ages, those "Delphic lines," whose unspeakable harmony he utterly destroys by a barbarous pronunciation* above all, how the most frugal, money-making, managing, practical people in the world have quietly sate down under such enormous abuses, and borne, for no solitary good purpose that we are able to discover, a burthen of taxation that could only have been supportable

We mean, of course, the attainments for which he is indebted to the schoolmaster and the school. In addition to the New-England authorities, cited in the next note, we beg leave to refer our readers to the 7th No. of the (Boston) Journal of Education, p. 409, where the writer, after presenting a view of the exercises exacted at the public examinations of the English universities, adds, "at the period when we were at our own Cambridge, the very idea of performing such exercises would have petrified both student and preceptor." As well it might! We add for ourselves, 'experto crede Ruperto.'

because it was self imposed.* Now we freely admit that Mr. Grimké is in the right, if he means, as we are more than half inclined to suspect that he does, this system of classical studies, and we scruple not to say, that we should most heartily co-operate with him in his efforts to explode it as soon as possible, as a criminal waste of a period of life, every moment of which ought to be sacred to improvement, if we did not think that we could even now descry above the verge of our horizon, the first flush of a kindling zeal and the dawn of a brighter hope.

The extent of our subject, and the limits within which we are constrained to circumscribe the present discussion of it, make it impossible for us to say more of the very sensible and well written discourse of our late fellow-townsman, Mr. Adams, than that it exhibits an outline of the course of studies to be pursued at Geneva college in the state of New-York, together with a concise and comprehensive sketch of the recent improvements and present state of mathematical and physical science. As his opinions upon the subject of classical learning agree with our own, we hope he will be successful at once in making proselytes to his theory, and (what will be still better) living examples of its beneficial effects. One circumstance we cannot help remarking by the way, and that is, the great demand which from the case of this gentleman and from some others of a similar kind, we infer to exist in all parts of the United States, for the talents of able instructors of youth-to which, we may add, the evidence which such instances afford, amidst all the glaring imperfections of our system of elementary education, that the love-or as it would be more forcibly as well as accurately expressed in French, the besoin of knowledge, is an essential element of the national character, and one of the "canon laws of our foundation." Mr. Adams was called from the Charleston college, of which he was the principal, to preside over an institution of a similar, or even a still more important character, in the flourishing town of Geneva-a town, which is itself but a creation of yesterday, and in a country which has burst out upon our sight with all its rapidly increasing prosperity, and population, and improvements, with an unparalleled and almost magical suddenness.

* This last notion may be found in an article of Blackwood's Magazine for February or March, 1819, which was written by a New-ingland scholar, a gentleman who is now endeavouring to improve the wretched system which he then censured with such just severity. As exception may be taken in certain quarters to what we have said of New-England schoolmasters, whom we mention because they might be expected to be the best, we refer, further, to Professor Tichnor, who will be allowed, we presume, to speak en connaissance de cause. See his Remarks, &c. 1825.

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