ing only his interests in the present life, do not our relations to each other demand of us a close attention to the laws of speech, by which alone we can gain influence and control over our fellow-men? I am quite conscious that English grammar occupies a prominent place in all our schools; but it is English grammar in its elementary, and, perhaps I may say, least practical form. The scholar is taught the elements of his native language, it is true, but is he also led to the contemplation of these elements as combined in the best forms which language, under the direction of genius, has been made to assume? It is necessary, I grant, to insist upon a proper and thorough drill in the elementary forms of our language. But is it less necessary to lead the scholar to the best grammars which the language affords in the writings of our Shakspeares and Miltons, our Burkes and our Websters?

What Archbishop Whately says of the science of logic, as related to the process of reasoning, is equally true of the science of Grammar, as related to the work of Composition. As the most perfect mastery of the rules of logic can never make an able logician, so, also, the most thorough acquaintance with the rules of grammar can do nothing towards making an able and vigorous writer. Accordingly we find, both in the school-room and in the community, numberless instances in which the technical formularies of grammar have been fully mastered, without conferring upon their possessors any higher power than the ability to correct the mistakes of others. The process of "parsing,"

which has been, and still is, so much insisted on in our schools, though very important and quite indispensable, even, when employed to a legitimate extent, is oftentimes carried to an excess that becomes ludicrous and absurd. It sustains about the same relation to that command over language to which every teacher should direct his pupils, that lively appreciation of elegant and forcible expression, which it is the privilege of the teacher to impart, and of the scholar to acquire, that the work of morbid anatomy does to the creative arts of painting and sculpture. Some knowledge of anatomy is indispensable to the successful practice of the fine arts which I have just mentioned, but who would, therefore, recommend to the young artist to spend the greater part of his time in the charnel-house and dissecting-room? Why should the scholar's time be wholly consumed in these elementary exercises upon detached portions of composition, the mere "disjecta membra" of language, when his years and capacities fully entitle him to the privilege of advancing to higher and nobler employments. I am quite conscious that I am exposing myself in these remarks to the charge of a dreadful educational heresy, that the inference will be drawn from what I have said, that I am opposed secretly, if not openly, to the study of grammar, as ordinarily pursued in our schools. No such conclusion will be adopted by any one who can distinguish between the use and the abuse of the studies to which I have referred. In our Pharisaic observance of our educational ritual, let us not forget the weightier matters of our intellectual growth,

and while we tithe our mint, and anise, and cumin, let us not neglect those higher objects which are essential to a harmonious and thorough mental discipline.

But we must not forget that there have existed. whole generations of learned men who have acquired their power over language without the aid of technical grammar. The time would fail me to speak of those whose names are well known to fame, on whose minds the light of a systematic grammar never dawned. What were the grammars of the great masters of expression? To what did Plato and Thucydides and Herodotus and Xenophon and Aristotle repair, to obtain that mastery over their mother tongue, which has rendered their names immortal? Of whom did Cicero and Cæsar and Virgil and Ovid take their first lessons in that language into which they have breathed so lofty an inspiration? Cæsar, it is true, wrote something which has been called a Latin Grammar, but it is very questionable whether we could learn as much Latin from it, even if it had come down to us, as we can from his Commentaries. They studied grammar, no doubt, but it was not grammar in the form of arbitrary rules. It was grammar as incorporated in the works of their best writers and speakers. All our great modern Classics were produced without the aid of grammars. At the beginning of this century, before the publication of Murray's Grammar, the one in general use was "Lowth's Introduction." It is, as you well know, a small volume, but was, nevertheless, considered fully adequate to the wants of the English student at that

time. Previous to the existence of this work, Dr. Johnson had prefixed to his Dictionary a brief Compendium of Grammar, which, as Dr. Lowth informs us, comprised in ten lines the whole subject of Syntax, and yet formed no part of the course of instruction in those days. Dr. Lowth himself, Shakspeare, Milton, Dryden, Addison, Pope, Young, Thomson, Johnson, Burns, and others, whose works will perish only in the last great conflagration, acquired their knowledge of English, without the aid of English grammar.

The same has happened in France. Corneille, Molière, Lafontaine, Pascal, Bossuet, Boileau, Racine, wrote their works long before the publication of any regular French Grammar. Bembo was the first who laid down grammatical rules for the Italian language, two hundred years after Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio had given to the world their immortal works. The just inference from these statements is, not that technical grammar is not useful, but that it is not everything,—not that it is not to be properly used in our schools, but that it ought not to exclude the thorough study of those authors from whose works its precepts are drawn.

In advocating the practical advantages of this department of study, I do not claim for it the first, although I think it entitled to a very high rank. After a proper acquaintance with the fundamental branches of education, and a proper attention to those matters which concern one's particular calling, and which may hence be termed professional, what can be of greater practical utility to the

scholar, than a course of study which will acquaint him with the best thoughts of the best minds that have written for the instruction of the race? What can conduce more to give the individual power over his own mind, or better enable him to exercise influence over the minds of others? Language, I need not say, is the medium of thought, and he who has the most perfect command of language, is best able to give expression to the operations of his own mind, and to secure for them a favorable reception in the minds of others. But the happiest command of language cannot be obtained by the observance of arbitrary rules. Nor is it, as some might maintain, exclusively the gift of nature. It must come, if it come at all, from the careful study of the great exemplars of expression, as they appear in the highest departments of literary effort.

But the practical tendency of the studies which I am advocating, is not merely a matter of theoretical speculation. We are able, fortunately, to refer to experiments which have been conducted on a scale of great magnitude, and which have continued through centuries. The education of the ancient Athenians was very much of the character which I have endeavored to describe. The minds of their youth were formed by the most careful study of the classics of their mother tongue. This was quite a prominent part of their education. In Sparta, the great rival of Athens, the education was practical. Not practical, I grant, exactly in the modern sense, but still, as related to the civilization of the ancient wrold, it was really and truly practical. It did not