Cautions. Two cautions are needed in the exercise of young memory. 1. The teacher must not expect that the child's memory will always retain its original strength. As the judgment strengthens, the memory weakens; and this is true not only of phenomenal memories (such as are recorded in "calculating boys"), but also of ordinary boys and girls.

Where this is the case, the teacher must be quick to discern it, and make allowance for it. But it is a good plan to cover a good deal of ground while the memory is young and strong, and as soon as the child has attained to the understanding of passages worth permanently remembering, to practice him in constant revision of old lessons. A good deal will inevitably slip away; but much that is of lasting value will thus remain.

2. Possibly copious repetition may be found, in some children, incompatible with good repetition; where, by "goodness," is meant, not accuracy, but excellence of elocution. The reason is, that it is difficult to find many passages worth permanently remembering, with which a child can so identify himself as to repeat them naturally and forcibly. A "permanent" passage of poetry will contain thoughts fit for men; and a boy, finding them unfitted for him, naturally repeats them as though they were not his, and falls into a monotone, or, at all events, fails in giving the words their due modulation. For boys, therefore, a permanent passage is generally most easily selected from serious poetry, where no great height or depth of passion is touched, and where an even modulation is not out of place, as in Milton's Creation, or the 104th Psalm in prose, or the 107th.

A good deal could be done (it is true) for elocution if you could secure that the child should never hear bad reading or elocution. Still, with some children, anything like acting is a physical impossibility; they shrink from it with a dislike which, being often associated with a just reserve, strength of character, and self-respect, deserves itself to be respected. Therefore, while requiring clearness and encouraging spirit, a teacher ought not to expect all children to show much elocutionary execution. But distinctness, at all events, may be enforced; and for this reason the pupil, when reciting, ought to stand at a considerable distance from the teacher.

52. FRENCH.

1. French should be begun between the age of six and seven, and, in any case, before Latin; partly for the sake of the French, because French can be better taught at home than at school; but partly, also, for the sake of the Latin, because, by beginning with French, a spoken language, the pupil acquires a sense of the utility of linguistic study generally, and is more likely to approach Latin, not as being a mere collection of Vocabularies, Declensions, and Conjugations, but as a language, if not to be spoken, at least to be read and used.

2. The first lessons in French should be oral. If a child begins with book-lessons, he is almost sure to trust for his pronunciation more to the book than to the teacher, and so he begins at once to pronounce badly. But if he learns his first French words only from his teacher's lips, he cannot (at least as the result of reading) pronounce the x in "" deux," or the s in " nous "before a consonant, or leave them out before a vowel, for he does not know that the x and the s are there. For some time no attempt should be made to appeal to the Reason. Phrases, not separate words, should be taught, and no explanation should be given of grammatical structure. In the course of these sentences, the pupil must be told that among intimate friends in France "thou" is used instead of " you," so that the teacher may freely introduce the forms of Verbs in the second person singular.

3. These early phrases and short sentences should be such as to require a frequent repetition of the more common forms of the verbs "avoir" and " être "; and when the pupil is familiar with a great number of these, he may be called on to construct out of his store the Present Tense of "avoir." Then for the first time he may be told to write down these forms, and to note how greatly the pronunciation, to which he is now accustomed, differs from that which would appear to be pronunciation to an English boy reading French words without guidance; and now for the first time some rules of pronunciation may be given to him.

4. The pronunciation of the French u and of some of the nasal sounds will always present difficulties to English boys; but more might be done than is done at present to prevent boys from introducing English accent into French.

"I remember," says Preceptor, "being told, as a child, that I should not be able to read French correctly till I could repeat "le malade imaginaire" without laying the slightest accent on any syllable, as though it were 'le-ma-lad-im-ag-in-aire'; and for practical purposes this precept is very useful, as an antidote against the ordinary pronunciation, 'le mállard, or márlard imaginaire.'”

seems.

But when teachers try to put this rule in practice-say in the repetition of a Fable of La Fontaine-they will find it not so easy as it For whereas Englishmen use much accent, but little modulation, Frenchmen compensate for their almost complete absence of accent by an abundant modulation, which would sound to English boys "sing-songy" and absurd. It follows that when English boys read La Fontaine without accent and without modulation, the effect is flat in the extreme; and teachers who may succeed in repressing English accent will mostly fail in inculcating, or never try to inculcate, French modulation.

However, what cannot be done in a class, where boys are deterred by the fear of "making themselves ridiculous" before their school-fellows, may be done much more easily with two or three private pupils;

and one reason for the early commencement of French is that a foundation of good pronunciation can be much more easily laid at home than at school.

5. The French names of Past Tenses given in most text-books are inconsistent with the terminology which the pupils will afterwards learn in Latin and English. In English the pupil is told that “I have spoken" is the Complete Present (or Perfect), and that "I spoke" is the Indefinite or Simple Past; but in French "j'ai parlé " is called the "Preterite Indefinite," and "je parlai" the "Preterite Definite."

If the names of the French Tenses are retained, it seems best to make no attempt to explain them; for though they can be explained, the nomenclature proceeds on less intelligible and symmetrical principles than those which regulate the names of the English Tenses.

In settling questions about Tenses it is not always necessary to trouble the pupils with the technical names of the Tenses. For their knowledge of the Tense can often be tested by asking them to "translate into French I have spoken, he will speak, you were speaking," etc.

53. LATIN.

1. When to begin Latin.-With a quick boy, Latin may be begun at the age of six-and-a-half or seven; but if a boy is in the country and amid circumstances which give him abundant opportunities for healthy exercise and amusement, it would probably be better to delay the study till ten. In towns, it is difficult to know how to fill a young boy's time without Latin. At seven years of age, he is not old enough to study history with any advantage; geography and chemistry, if imparted to him so young, will not be found to remain in him; and Arithmetic, French, and English are hardly sufficient to occupy his time. If opportunity allows, he might be taught something of botany and music; but where a boy of seven is healthy, lively, and interested in his studies, and is making sufficient progress in French and Arithmetic with two hours of work a day, it seems not premature to let him add a daily half-hour of Latin. After a week or two, a half-hour may be taken from French and given to Latin, so that he may be inspirited in his new study by the sense of rapid progress.

2. The "Double System."-Undoubtedly the best way to teach Latin is to enable the pupil, in his very first lesson, to utilize his knowledge so as to turn English into Latin, as well as Latin into English.

"As a boy," says Preceptor, "I had the experience of being trained for a time on what used to be called 'the Hamiltonian system,' and then on the old Grammar system, which taught a great mass of Accidence and Syntax before giving the pupil any opportunity of utilizing his knowledge; and as a teacher I taught Latin (for about ten years) on what is called 'the Crude Form system'; but I am convinced that none of these work so well as the 'Double System,' which makes the pupil'give out' as fast as he 'takes in.'

3. Ambiguous Exercises.-So far, then, Latin is to be taught like French, but it is also to be taught differently. For whereas the object of learning French is (mainly) to be able to speak and understand the language and literature, the object of learning Latin is (mainly) to strengthen the Reason and Judgment. Hence, whereas we began by teaching French without any appeal to Reason, in Latin the Reason must be called into play from the first.

Few text-books sufficiently recognize the necessity of early exercises which shall compel the pupil from the beginning to use Reason; but they can be easily composed by the teacher himself. They may be called “Ambiguous Exercises," and can be employed in the very first lesson. For when the pupil has learned by heart "Insula " or " Dominus," he should be at once required to translate into English, "insulæ," ""domino," "insulis," etc., having been forewarned that "wherever Latin words are susceptible of two or more renderings, two or more must be given."

4. The Cases. The force and use of the Cases should be explained as soon as they are introduced to the pupil's notice.

Some of the names of the Cases, e.g. Accusative, are so inherently absurd that no attempt should be made to explain these. The teacher should simply content himself with explaining their use.

But it may be at once pointed out that the Ablative, "besides always expressing (1) the instrument by or with which an action is performed, also sometimes expresses (2) separation, motion from, or ablation," and this should be illustrated at once by an example: The woman frees the daughter from blame; Femină filiam culpâ liběrat.

By this means the boy is warned from the first that when you say by or with in connection with the Ablative Case, you do not use by in the sense of near, nor with in the sense of along with, and thus he is enabled to avoid much unnecessary confusion and bewilderment caused by the ordinary method of learning the Cases without explanation of their force.

The early introduction of the double meaning of the Ablative enables the teacher to introduce, in the very first week of learning Latin, such an ambiguous sentence as "Nautae dextră feminam violenţĭā liběrat," which may be rendered, "The sailor's right hand liberates the woman "-either "by violence "1 or from violence," so as to oblige the pupil at an early stage to realize the necessity of pondering and judging before he decides on the meaning.

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5. The Discouragement of Guessing.—The exercises, and especially those from Latin, into English, should not be so easy as to be construed without thought. It is of the utmost importance in teaching Latin to

1 The question whether "violentia (a particularly useful word in early exercises) would be used in Classical Latin to represent "by violence" in precisely such a sentence as this is a refinement that need not trouble us at this stage; yet the teacher will do well, even at the outset, to avoid any glaring violations of the best Latin usage.

force the pupil at the commencement of the study to distrust any inferences as to the meaning of a Latin sentence derived from the order of the words.

"For a very long time," writes Preceptor, "(in the course of a weekly entrance examination of a most elementary kind) I have been in the habit of asking those boys who profess to have learned Latinalmost all of whom are over thirteen years of age, and have learned Latin two, three, four, or five years to construe the sentence, 'Oppida magna boni agricolæ habent,' and not one in five has been able to construe these few simple words correctly. Such a translation as, 'They have the great towns of the good husbandmen,' would have been treated as satisfactory, because logical; but almost all have succumbed to the temptation of regarding oppida' as nominative 'because it comes first,' and they have then rushed to the conclusion, in despite of Cases and Grammar, that the meaning must be 'Great towns have good husbandmen.'"

This is the natural consequence of setting boys too easy exercises at first-exercises in which the paucity and order of the words, combined with the simplicity of the idioms, encourage a boy to jump at the meaning without troubling himself to think. The method is intended kindly; the teachers wish not to discourage the boys at the start by too difficult tasks. But it is not real kindness. The kinder plan would be to discourage jumping at once, not only by giving each boy a light and portable ladder, but also by making the wall so high that jumping shall either not be attempted, or shall result in an inevitable and retributary fall.

6. Reasons for Rules.-Since Latin is to be taught by an appeal rather to Reason than to Memory, the reasons for all rules should be given, so far as is possible.

Some rules such as the rule which fordids the use of "neminis" and "nemine," and many of the rules and exceptions relating to genders-cannot be explained, and must be simply learned by heart. But many others can be, and should be, explained; and, in particular, the rule of Sequence of Tenses-which is sorely perplexing to those boys who have failed to grasp the difference between the English and Latin Tenses can be made so easy and intelligible by a clear exposition of the force of the English "Complete Present," and of the wider use of the Latin so-called Perfect, that it is nothing short of cruelty to withhold the explanation.

7. Recapitulation.-The pupil should learn to turn his English Exercises into Latin not only in writing, but also orally and fluently.

A good First Latin Book ought to contain so much that the teacher should be able with advantage to make the pupil repeat the old exercises again and again, each time improving in fluency. It should also have appended a copious store of recapitulatory exercises, to test those too mechanical boys who succeed pretty well when they are "doing"