of figuring in future life in what are called the higher
departments of intellect. A certain familiar acquaintance with
language and the shades of language as a lesson, will be
beneficial to all. The youth who has expended only six months in
acquiring the rudiments of the Latin tongue, will probably be
more or less the better for it in all his future life.

But seven years are usually spent at the grammar-school by those
who are sent to it. I do not in many cases object to this. The
learned languages are assuredly of slow acquisition. In the
education of those who are destined to what are called the higher
departments of intellect, a long period may advantageously be
spent in the study of words, while the progress they make in
theory and dogmatical knowledge is too generally a store of
learning laid up, to be unlearned again when they reach the
period of real investigation and independent judgment. There is
small danger of this in the acquisition of words.

But this method, indiscriminately pursued as it is now, is
productive of the worst consequences. Very soon a judgment may
be formed by the impartial observer, whether the pupil is at home
in the study of the learned languages, and is likely to make an
adequate progress. But parents are not impartial. There are
also two reasons why the schoolmaster is not the proper person to
pronounce: first, because, if he pronounces in the negative, he
will have reason to fear that the parent will be offended; and
secondly, because he does not like to lose his scholar. But the
very moment that it can be ascertained, that the pupil is not at
home in the study of the learned languages, and is unlikely to
make an adequate progress, at that moment he should be taken from