or the arguments of the learned, the obstinacy of the prejudiced, or the cavils of the interested. Is it so with Mr. Hamilton's system? I answer, No. It is "vulnerable in a thousand places." Of what avail is it to tell us, it can produce certain effects, and that it has produced those effects, when the simplest calculation will demonstrate the impossibility of any such results.

I shall now proceed to shew, first, that there is no originality in the "Hamiltonian System," and secondly, that it is inferior to those methods of teaching languages which have been hitherto practised in this country.

In order to disprove Mr. Hamilton's claim to originality in his system, I cannot do better than quote a passage from Mr. Corney's admirable little pamphlet on the subject. He says

"Mr. Locke, in § 167 of his "Thoughts concerning Education," first published in 1690, but written several years earlier, recommended the method of learning Latin by a literal interlineary translation of Esop, &c.; M. du Marsais, a grammarian of celebrity, recommended the same method; M. l'Abbé d'Olivet, well known as the editor of Cicero, had seen it practised in this country, and published his "Pensées de Cicéron" with a view to promote it; and above all it was developed with remarkable neatness and plausibility by M. l'Abbé de Radonvilliers, a member of the French Academy, in a small volume printed

at Paris in 1768, entitled "De la manière d'apprendre les Langues." As this volume is perhaps inaccessible to many of those to whom I address myself, I shall transcribe a specimen from it, and compare it with a Hamiltonian specimen.

"M. de Radonvilliers takes his first example from Tacitus: "Urbem Romam a principio reges habuere;" but transposes it. He then gives, I. A literal version, and II. A version of the sense:

EXAMPLE.

Text. A principio reges habuere urbem Romam. Lit. vers. Au commencement des rois eurent la ville de Rome. Sense. Au commencement la ville de Rome eut des Rois."

In addition to this may be mentioned the system of Dufief, between which and Mr. Hamilton's there is a very evident connection. Mr. H. states that "grammar is the result of observations upon the writings of our literati." Dufief says, "languages were made first, and grammar afterwards; and hence the rules of grammar, or the particular principles of a language, are only a collection of observations upon custom." From which, each would infer, that grammar is not necessary to the acquirement of a language, and that its rules should not be taught until the pupil has a perfect acquaintance with the major part of the words of that language. Locke says, "if grammar ought to be taught at any time, it must be to one that can speak the language already: how else can he be taught the grammar of it.”

How far all these opinions are correct will presently be considered.

In the following passage Mr. Hamilton appears to have made a wonderful discovery.

"It will be evident to every man who witnesses the first Lecture or Lesson, that, if the object of study be to obtain the knowledge of words and their meaning, that mode which presents these words, with their meaning affixed, to the Eye of the Pupil, at the same moment that he hears them distinctly pronounced, must impress them on his memory, in a manner immeasurably superior to the fugitive and uncertain idea of its meaning or pronunciation which he could derive from a Dictionary, while, at the same time, he escapes the disgusting and unavailing drudgery of it."

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But is not this precisely what Condillac says in the following sentence, which is translated from his Cours d'Etude. Could any one know a language, if the brain did not acquire habits answering to those of the ears to hear it, to those of the lips to speak it, and to those of the eyes to read it? The recollection of a language is not, therefore, solely in the habits of the brain; it is besides in the habits of the organs of hearing, of speech, and of sight."

The next consideration is the propriety of the method of teaching which Mr. Hamilton has adopted; and this method I apprehend consists in a literal interlineary translation, and in the rejection of a grammar. Rollin, who was principal of the University at Paris, and whose opinion ought to be of some weight, says, “interlineary interpretations should never be allowed, they are of no other use than to accustom the mind to in

dolence and neglect;" and he distinctly recommends that the pupil should begin by learning the declensions, conjugations, and most common rules in syntax. I have not the least hesitation in placing this in opposition to the opinion of Locke; for surely a man who was engaged for a considerable period of his life in the practice of education must have had a much better knowledge of the subject than one whose mind was chiefly devoted to abstruse enquiries and metaphysical speculations. No man can discover many valuable truths on the subject of education who has not been himself a teacher. The theories of the closet are ill adapted to the practice of the school

room.

That a language may be acquired without rules is evident from the method pursued in teaching Latin to Montaigne; but then it must be recollected that he learnt this, previous to his native tongue, and precisely in the same manner in which a first language is always taught to children. This however is a method which Mr. Hamilton cannot pursue. It likewise frequently happens that persons who visit a strange country, and remain in it for a considerable time, acquire the language of that country by simply listening to, and conversing with, its inhabitants. The distinction then, I apprehend rests thus, that language acquired by conversation may be, and is, learnt without the assistance of rules; whilst the ac

quirement of a language from the instruction of one individual, by the means of books, solely depends upon rules. To proceed otherwise is to act like the man who collected the whole of the materials of a house upon the ground on which it was to be built, and then found he could not proceed from having omitted to lay a foundation. Where is the architect who does not lay the first stone upon some principle that has reference to the future edifice? Every additional portion of matter is supported on that which was arranged before it, and in its turn becomes the support of what is to follow. So is it with languages; and much as Mr. Hamilton may ridicule the grammar which directs us in the proper arrangement of words, or the materials of language, 1 defy him or any other man to proceed without it. Can it be deemed otherwise than a trick to depreciate the printed grammar in the severest terms, and then to convey its rules to the pupil orally, as though they were something distinct from what is to be found in the book which is so much abused? Yet this is precisely Mr. Hamilton's method.

There are certain declensions, in the French language, of the article, noun, and pronoun, and certain conjugations of the verb, which must be taught some time, the pupil cannot acquire them intuitively; and as they continually occur from the very outset of his labours, it will certainly

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