young to love knowledge and virtue, we are inclined to suspect that, for the average of human talents and characters, these are the situations in which such tastes will be the most effectually formed,

METHODS OF TEACHING LANGUAGES.

1. The Gospel of St. John, in Latin, adapted to the Hamiltonian System, by an Analytical and Interlineary Translation. Executed under the immediate Direction of JAMES HAMILTON. London, 1824.

2. The Gospel of St. John, adapted to the Hamiltonian System, by an Analyticar and Interlineary Translation from the Italian, with full Instructions fol its use, even by those who are wholly ignorant of the Language. For the Use of Schools. By JAMES HAMILTON, Author of the Hamiltonian System. London, 1825.

WE

E have nothing whatever to do with Mr. Hamilton personally. He may be the wisest or the weakest of men; most dexterous or most unsuccessful in the exhibition of his system; modest and proper, or prurient and preposterous in its commendation; by none of these considerations is his system itself affected.

The proprietor of Ching's Lozenges must necessarily have recourse to a newspaper to rescue from oblivion the merit of his vermifuge medicines. In the same manner the Amboyna tooth-powder must depend upon the Herald and the Morning Post. Unfortunately, the system of Mr. Hamilton has been introduced to the world by the same means, and has exposed itself to those suspicions which hover over splendid discoveries of genius detailed in the daily papers, and sold in sealed boxes at an infinite diversity of prices, but with a perpetual inclusion of the stamp, and with an equitable discount for undelayed payment.

It may have been necessary for Mr. Hamilton to have had recourse to these means of making known his discoveries, since he may not have had friends whose names and authority might have attracted the notice of the public; but it is a misfortune to which his system has been subjected, and a difficulty which it has still to overcome. There is also a singular and somewhat ludicrous condition of giving warranted lessons; by which is meant, we presume, that the money is to be returned if the progress is not made. We should be curious to know how poor Mr. Hamilton would protect himself from some swindling scholars, who, having really learnt all that the master professed to teach, should counterfeit the grossest ignorance of the Gospel of St. John, and refuse to construe a single verse or to pay a farthing.

Whether Mr. Hamilton's translations are good or bad is not the question. The point to determine is, whether very close interlineal

translations are helps in learning a language? not whether Mr. Hamilton has executed these translations faithfully and judiciously. Whether Mr. Hamilton is or is not the inventor of the system which bears his name, and what his claims to originality may be, are also questions of very second-rate importance; but they merit a few observations. That man is not the discoverer of any art who first says the thing; but he who says it so long, and so loud, and so clearly, that he compels mankind to hear him-the man who is so deeply impressed with the importance of the discovery that he will take no denial, but, at the risk of fortune and fame, pushes through all opposition, and is determined that what he thinks he has discovered shall not perish for want of a fair trial. Other persons had noticed the effect of coal gas in producing light; but Winsor worried the town with bad English for three winters before he could attract any serious attention to his views. Many persons broke stone before Macadam, but Macadam felt the discovery more strongly, stated it more clearly, persevered in it with greater tenacity, wielded his hammer, in short, with greater force than other men, and finally succeeded in bringing his plan into general use. Literal translations are not only not used in our public schools, but are generally discountenanced in them. A literal translation, or any translation of a school-book, is a contraband article in English schools, which a schoolmaster would instantly seize as a Custom-house officer would a barrel of gin. Mr. Hamilton, on the other hand, maintains, by books and lectures, that all boys ought to be allowed to work with literal translations, and that it is by far the best method of learning a language. If Mr. Hamilton's system is just, it is sad trifling to deny his claim to originality by stating that Mr. Locke has said the same thing, or that others have said the same thing a century earlier than Hamilton. They have all said it so feebly that their observations have passed sub silentio; and if Mr. Hamilton succeeds in being heard and followed, to him be the glory—because from him have proceeded the utility and the advantage.

The works upon this subject on this plan, published before the time of Mr. Hamilton, are Montanus's edition of the Bible, with Pignini's interlineary Latin version; Lubin's New Testament having the Greek interlined with Latin and German; Abbé L'Olivet's Pensées de Ciceron; and a French work by the Abbé Radonvilliers, Paris, 1768; and Locke upon Education.

One of the first principles of Mr. Hamilton is to introduce very strict literal interlinear translations as aids to lexicons and dictionaries, and to make so much use of them as that the dictionary or lexicon will be for a long time little required. We will suppose the language to be the Italian, and the book selected to be the Gospel of St. John. Of this Gospel Mr. Hamilton has published a key, of which the following is an extract :

“་

Nel principio era il Verbo, e il Verbo era appresso Dio, e
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was near to God, and

il Verbo era Dio. the Word was God.

"2

"3

Questo era nel principio oppresso Dio.
This was in the beginning near to God.

Per mezzo di lui tutte le cose furon fatte: e senza di lui By means of him all the things were made: and without of him che e stata fatto. nothing was made of that, of which is been made.

nulla fu fatto di cio,

66

'4

In lui era la vita, e la vita era la luce degli uomini:
In him was the life, and the life was the light of the men:

E la luce splende tra le tenebre, e le tenebre hanno "5 And the light shines among the darkness, and the darknesses have

non ammessa la.

not admitted her.

"6

Vi fu un uomo mandato da Dio che nomava si Giovanni. There was a man sent by God who did name himself John. Questi venne qual testimone, affin di rendere testimonianza alla “ཀ This came like as witness, in order of to render testimony to the luce, onde per mezzo di lui tutti credessero."

light, whence by mean of him all might believe."

In this way Mr. Hamilton contends (and appears to us to contend justly) that the language may be acquired with much greater ease and despatch) than by the ancient method of beginning with grammar, and proceeding with the dictionary. We will presume at present that the only object is to read, not to write, or speak Italian, and that the pupil instructs himself from the Key without a master, and is not taught in a class. We wish to compare the plan of finding the English word in such a literal translation, to that of finding it in dictionaries-and the method of ending with grammar, or of taking the grammar at an advanced period of knowledge in the language, rather than at the beginning. Everyone will admit, that of all the disgusting labours of life, the labour of lexicon and dictionary is the most intolerable. Nor is there a greater object of compassion than a fine boy, full of animal spirits, set down in a bright sunny day, with a heap of unkhown words before him to be turned into English, before supper, by the help of a ponderous dictionary alone. The object in looking into a dictionary can only be to exchange an unknown sound for one that is known. Now, it seems indisputable, that the sooner this exchange is made the better. The greater the number of such exchanges which can be made in a given time, the greater is the progress, the more abundant the copia verborum obtained by the scholar. Would it not be of advantage if the dictionary at once opened at the required page, and if a self-moving index at once pointed to the requisite word? Is any advantage gained to the world by the time employed first in finding the letter P, and then in finding the three guiding letters PRI? This appears to us to be pure loss of time, justifiable only if it be inevitable; and even after this is done, what an infinite multitude of difficulties are heaped at once upon the wretched

;

beginner! Instead of being reserved for his greater skill and maturity in the language, he must employ himself in discovering in which of many senses, which his dictionary presents, the word is to be used; in considering the case of the substantive, and the syntaxical arrangement in which it is to be placed, and the relation it bears to other words. The loss of time in the merely mechanical part of the old plan is immense. We doubt very much if an average boy between ten and fourteen will look out or find more than sixty words in an hour we say nothing at present of the time employed in thinking of the meaning of each word when he has found it, but of the mere naked discovery of the word in the lexicon or dictionary. It must be remembered, we say an average boy-not what Master Evans, the show boy, can do, nor what Master Macarthy, the boy who is whipt every day, can do, but some boy between Macarthy and Evans; and not what this medium boy can do while his mastigophorous superior is frowning over him, but what he actually does when left in the midst of noisy boys, and with a recollection that, by sending to the neighbouring shop, he can obtain any quantity of unripe gooseberries upon credit. Now, if this statement be true, and if there are 10,000 words in the Gospel of St. John, here are 160 hours employed in the mere digital process of turning over leaves ! But in much less time than this any boy of average quickness might learn, by the Hamiltonian method, to construe the whole four Gospels, with the greatest accuracy and the most scrupulous correctness. The interlineal translation of course spares the trouble and time of this mechanical labour. Immediately under the Italian word is placed the English word. The unknown sound therefore is instantly exchanged for one that is known. The labour here spared is of the most irksome nature; and it is spared at a time of life the most averse to such labour; and so painful is this labour to many boys that it forms an insuperable obstacle to their progress. They prefer to be flogged or to be sent to sea. It is useless to say of any medicine that it is valuable, if it is so nauseous that the patient flings it away. You must give me, not the best medicine you have in your shop, but the best you can get me to take.

We have hitherto been occupied with finding the word; we will now suppose, after running a dirty finger down many columns, and after many sighs and groans, that the word is found. We presume the little fellow working in the true orthodox manner without any translation; he is in pursuit of the Greek word Baλλw, and after a long chase seizes it as greedily as a bailiff possesses himself of a fugacious captain. But alas! the vanity of human wishes!-the never-sufficiently-to-bepitied-stripling has scarcely congratulated himself upon his success, when he finds Baλλw to contain the following meanings in Hederick's Lexicon:- 1. Jacio; 2. Jaculor; 3. Ferio; 4. Figo; 5. Saucio; 6 Attingo; 7. Projicio; 8. Emitto; 9. Profundo; 10. Pono; 11. Immitto; 12. Trado; 13. Committo; 14. Condo; 15. Ædifico; 16. Verso; 17. Flecto. Suppose the little rogue, not quite at home in the Latin tongue, to be desirous of affixing English significations to these various words, he has then, at the moderate rate of six meanings to every Latin word, one hundred

and two meanings to the word Baλλw; or if he is content with the Latin, he has then only seventeen.*

Words, in their origin, have a natural or primary sense. The accidental associations of the people who use it, afterwards give to that word a great number of secondary meanings. In some words the primary meaning is very common, and the secondary meaning very rare. In other instances it is just the reverse; and in very many the particular secondary meaning is pointed out by some proposition which accompanies it, or some case by which it is accompanied. But an accurate translation points these things out gradually as it proceeds. The common and most probable meanings of the word Baλλw, or of any other word, are, in the Hamiltonian method, insensibly but surely fixed on the mind, which, by the Lexicon method, must be done by a tentative process, frequently ending in gross error, noticed with peevishness, punished with severity, consuming a great deal of time, and for the most part only corrected, after all, by the accurate vivâ voce translation of the master-or, in other words, by the Hamiltonian method.

The recurrence to a translation is treated in our schools as a species of imbecility and meanness, just as if there was any other dignity here than utility, any other object in learning languages than to turn something you do not understand into something you do understand, and as if that was not the best method which effected this object in the shortest and simplest manner. Hear upon this point the judicious Locke :

:

"But if such a man cannot be got, who speaks good Latin, and being able to instruct your son in all these parts of knowledge, will undertake it by this method, the next best is to have him taught as near this way as may be, which is by taking some easy and pleasant book, such has Æsop's Fables,' and writing the English transalation (made as literal as it can be) in one line, and the Latin words which answer each of them just over it in another. These let him read every day over and over again till he perfectly understands the Latin, and then go on to another fable till he be also perfect in that, not omitting what he is already perfect in, but sometimes reviewing that, to keep it in his memory; and when he comes to write, let these be set him for copies, which, with the exercise of his hand, will also advance him in Latin. This being a more imperfect way than by talking Latin unto him, the formation of the verbs first, and afterwards the declensions of the nouns and pronouns perfectly learned by heart, may facilitate his acquaintance with the genius and manner of the Latin tongue, which varies the signification of verbs and nouns not as the modern lauguages do, by particles prefixed, but by changing the last syllables. More than this of grammar I think he need not have till he can read himself 'Sanctii Minerva' -with Scioppius and Perigonius's notes.' "-Locke on Education, p. 74, folio.

*In addition to the other needless difficulties and miseries entailed upon children who are learning languages, their Greek Lexicons give a Latin instead of an English translation; and a boy of twelve or thirteen years of age, whose attainments in Latin are of course but moderate, is expected to make it the vehicle of knowledge for other languages. This is setting the short-sighted and blear-eyed to lead the blind; and is one of those afflicting pieces of absurdity which escape animadversion, because they are, and have long been of