dead. For if a child of two years old by this method learns to speak his mother tongue, I am sure the same method will greatly assist and facilitate the learning of any other language to those who are older.

VI. Let the chief lessons and the chief exercises of schools, v. c. where Latin is learned, (at least for the first year or more) be the nouns, verbs, and general rules of syntax, together with a mere translation out of some Latin author into English; and let scholars be employed and examined by their teacher daily in reducing the words to their original or theme, to the first case of nouns or first tense of verbs, and giving an account of their formations and changes, their syntax and dependencies, which is called parsing. This is a most useful exercise to lead boys into a complete and thorough knowledge of what they are doing.

The English translations, which the learner has made, should be well corrected by the master, and then they should be translated back again for the next day's exercise by the child into Latin, while the Latin author is withheld from him; but he should have the Latin words given him in their first case and tense, and should never be left to seek them himself from a dictionary; and the nearer he translates it to the words of the author whence he derives his English, the more should the child be commended. Thus he will gain skill in two languages at once. I think Mr. Clark has done good service to the public by his translations of Latin books for this end.

But let the foolish custom of employing every silly boy to make themes or declamations, and verses upon moral subjects, in a strange tongue, before he understands common sense, even in his own language, be abandoned and cashiered for ever.

VII. As the learner improves, let him acquaint himself with the anomalous words, the irregular declensions of nouns and verbs, the more uncommon connexions of words in syntax, and the exceptions to the general rules of grammar. But let them all be reduced, as far as possible, to those several original and general rules, which he has learned as the proper rank and place to which they belong.

VIII. While he is doing this, it may be proper for him to converse with authors which are a little more difficult, with historians, orators, and poets, &c. but let his tutor inform him of the Roman or Greek customs which occur therein. Let the lad then translate some parts of them into his mother tongue, or into some other well known language, and thence back again into the original language of the author. But let the verse be translated into prose, for poesy does not belong to grammar.

IX. By this time he will be able to acquaint himself with some of the special emphases of speech, and the peculiar idioms of the tongue. He should be taught also the special beauties and ornaments of the language: and this may be done partly by the help of authors, who have collected such idioms and cast them into an easy method, and partly by the judicious remarks which his instructor may make upon the authors which he reads, wheresoever such peculiarities of speech or special elegancies occur.

X. Though the labour of learning all the lessons_by heart that are borrowed from poetical authors which they construe, is an unjust and unnecessary imposition upon the learner, yet he must take the pains to commit to memory the most necessary, if not all the common rules of grammar, with an example or two under each of them: and some of the select and most useful periods or sentences in the Latin or Greek author which he reads may be learned by heart, together with some of the choicer lessons out of their poets; and sometimes whole episodes out of heroic poems, &c. as well as whole odes among the lyrics, may deserve this honour.

XI. Let this be always carefully observed, that the learners perfectly understand the sense as well as the language of all those rules, lessons, or paragraphs, which they attempt to commit to memory. Let the teacher possess them of their true meaning, and then the labour will become easy and pleasant: whereas, to impose on a child to get by heart a long scroll of unknown phrases or words, without any ideas under them, is a piece of useless tyranny, a cruel imposition, and a practice fitter for a jackdaw or a parrot, than for any thing that wears the shape of a

man.

XII. And here, I think, I have a fair occasion given me to consider that question which has been often debated in conversation, viz. whether the teaching of a school full of boys to learn Latin by the heathen poets, as Ovid in his Epistles, and the silly fables of his Metamorphoses, Horace, Juvenal, and Martial, in their impure odes, satires, and epigrams, &c. is so proper and agreeable a practice in a Christian country.

XIII. (1.) I grant the language and style of those men who wrote in their own native tongue must be more pure and perfect, in some nice elegancies and peculiarities, than modern writers of other nations who have imitated them; and it is owned also, that the beauties of their poesy may much excel; but in either of these things boys cannot be supposed to be much improved or injured by one or the other.

XIV. (2.) It shall be confessed too, that modern poets, in every living language, have brought into their work so many words, epithets, phrases, and metaphors, from the heathen fables and stories of their gods and heroes, that in order to understand these modern writers, it is necessary to know a little of those ancient follies: but it may be answered, that a good dictionary, or such a book as the Pantheon or history of those Gentile deities, may give sufficient information of those stories, so far as they are necessary and useful to school-boys.

XV. (3.) I will grant yet further, that lads who are designed to make great scholars or divines, may by reading these heathen poets, be taught better to understand the writings of the ancient fathers against the heathen religion; and they learn here what ridiculous fooleries the gentile nations believed as the articles of their faith, what wretched and foul idolatries they indulged and practised as duties of religion for want of the divine revelation. But this perhaps may be learned as well either by the Pantheon, or some other collection at school; or after they have left the school, they may read what their own inclinations lead them to, and whatsoever of this kind may be really useful for them.

XVI. But the great question is, whether all these advantages which have been mentioned, will compensate

for the long months and years that are wasted among their incredible and trifling romances, their false and shameful stories of the gods and goddesses and their amours, and the lewd heroes and vicious poets of the heathen world. Can these idle and ridiculous tales be of any real and solid advantage in human life? Do they not too often defile the mind with vain, mischievous, and impure ideas? Do they not stick long upon the fancy, and leave an unhappy influence upon youth? Do they not tincture the imagination with folly and vice very early, and pervert it from all that is good and holy?

XVII. Upon the whole survey of things, it is my opinion, that for almost all boys who learn this tongue, it would be much safer to be taught Latin poesy (as soon and as far as they can need it) from those excellent translations of David's Psalms, which are given us by Buchanan in the various measures of Horace; and the lower classes had better read Dr. Johnston's translation of these psalms, another elegant writer of the Scots nation, instead of Ovid's Epistles; for he has turned the same psalms, perhaps with greater elegancy, into elegiac verse, whereof the learned W. Benson, Esq. has lately published a noble edition, and I hear that these psalms are honoured with an increasing use in the schools of Holland and Scotland. A stanza or a couplet of these writers would now and then stick upon the minds of youth, and would furnish them infinitely better with pious and moral thoughts, and do something towards making them good men and Chris

tians.

XVIII. A little book collected from the psalms of both these translators, Buchanan and Johnston, and a few other Christian poets, would be of excellent use for schools to begin their instructions in Latin poesy; and I am well assured this would be richly sufficient for all those in lower rank, who never design a learned profession, and yet custom has foolishly bound them to learn that language.

But lest it should be thought hard to cast Horace and Virgil, Ovid and Juvenal entirely out of the schools, I add, if here and there a few lyric odes, or pieces of satires, or some episodes of heroic verse, with here and there an epi

gram of Martial, all which shall be clear from the stains of vice and impiety, and which may inspire the mind with noble sentiments, fire the fancy with bright and warm ideas, or teach lessons of morality and prudence, were chosen out of those ancient Roman writers for the use of the schools, and were collected and printed in one moderate volume, or two at the most, it would be abundantly sufficient provision out of the Roman poets for the instruction of boys in all that is necessary in that age of life.

Surely Juvenal himself would not have the face to vindicate the masters who teach boys his 6th satire, and many paragraphs of several others, when he himself has charged us,

Nil dictu fædum, visuque, hæc limina tangat
Intra que puer est.

Suffer no lewdness, nor indecent speech,

Th' apartment of the tender youth to reach.

Thus far in answer to the foregoing question.

Sat. 14.

DRYDEN.

But I retire; for Mr. Clark, of Hull, in his Treatise on Education, and Mr. Philips, preceptor to the Duke of Cumberland, have given more excellent directions for learning Latin.

XIX. When a language is learned, if it be of any use at all, it is a pity it should be forgotten again. It is proper, therefore, to take all just opportunities to read something frequently in that language, when other necessary and important studies will give you leave. As in learning any tongue, dictionaries which contain words and phrases should always be at hand, so they should be ever kept within reach by persons who would remember a tongue which they have learned. Nor should we at any time content ourselves with a doubtful guess at the sense or meaning of any words which occur, but consult the dictionary, which may give us certain information, and thus secure us from mistake. It is mere sloth which makes us content ourselves with uncertain guesses; and indeed this is neither safe nor useful for persons who would learn any