could not do better than offer it to the consideration of my readers.

Teachers are generally of two kinds-either learned, and disposed to give to theoretical instruction an undue share of attention, or simply guided by common sense and the sound understanding of natural method. The first throw real impediments in the path of learning; the others might, perhaps, every now and then, stretch out a finger to the crawling child.

Do we not see children of five or six years old play perfectly well on the piano? and they do so though the whole line of music is composed of two staves, the notes of which differ the one from the other, bear other names, and are altogether most intricately arranged. The mere wording of the process of playing would fill up four pages with elaborate sentences. Well, children perform all these musical intricacies without knowing much more than the value of notes and fingering. As to elements of musicthorough-bass, acoustics, and other important branches of the art, they know nothing of them; and, though pedants may be horrified, we say that it is very fortunate. All this bagage scientifique comes after, and in proper time.

ΤΟ

THE ENGLISH PUBLIC.

THE English public of 1857, whom I address, do not belong to the generation who studied French with Boyer, Chambaud, or Hamel's Grammars and Dictionaries, at a time when one was reputed a French scholar who could find out the tense of an irregular verb, or make an awkward attempt at stringing together some sentences picked out of the patchwork of grammar-makers, or the florid style of Telemachus.

The English public of our days, even in spite of those who still follow the trite system of teaching languages, have not remained behind civilization in that respect. In fact, it would be rather ridiculous to admire and enjoy the advantages of steam, balloons, telegraphs, and other wonders of our time, and still keep on quietly following the old track of technical learning, when the question is simply how you may best get acquainted with the language of neighbours who are now in daily intercourse with England.

The consequence of these friendly relations soon made itself felt in England, both in public schools and private families; and the kind of studies to which learners have been hitherto subjected, is become more and more distasteful to them they have had enough of grammatical saws.

But where were they to find the art of speaking and writing correctly? Were they to consult grammarians? "L'art d'écrire n'est pas plus dans leurs livres que la beauté des fleurs dans les herbiers. Herbiers et grammaires sont également incapablés de présenter une phrase et une fleur dans leurs formes gracieuses, avec leurs suaves couleurs, leurs mouvements et leur vie; fleurs et phrases y sont mortes: on n'en trouve que la poussière et les noms.

"Aussi, qu'il avait bien raison le critique qui, dans son indignation, s'écriait: Soumettez au grammairien la plus belle strophe; son œil, soyez-en sûr, n'y cherchera ni la pensée, ni les sentiments, ni l'art de l'écrivain; non, mais il tuera cette phrase si brillante, il la déchirera pour y trouver des virgules et des points, des accents et des apostrophes, des nasales et des sifflantes, des gérondifs et de supins, et puis, tout fier de ses découvertes, vous le verrez écrire, dans le style le plus inintelligible, des classifications, des règles et des préceptes, prononcer entre les écrivains comme un juge en dernier ressort, et préconiser avec orgueil sa méthode grammaticale."-Deshoulières.

The epoch of the Great Exhibition, which will be marked with a white stone in our political and moral calendar, not only did away with many a prejudice in England and in France, but also proved to the scholar who had brushed up his French for the occasion, that the mass of rules he had in store, were not exactly the sort of thing wanted; nay, that they were a real impediment to his ever making any profitable use of the very language he had spent so many years in learning so imperfectly.

The deficiency of the old system became every day more obvious, and the almost general distaste for it gave a new zest to some of the modern methods in use on the Continent. Most of these were more or less skilful elucidations of Jacotot's system, which, it must be acknowledged, would

have been more widely diffused, had the founder chosen to write serious works on the subject, instead of indulging in a useless logomachy. This system, which has met but a very limited reception in England, because it was not well understood, was succeeded by some others in which theory was blended with practical study.

Of late years, however, lengthy German methods have been more in use. Foremost among these latter is Ollendorff's system, which, with its studied semblance of practical utility, and the advantage of saving both master and pupil much trouble, is neither more nor less than a collection of words, or scraps of sentences, with an addition of grammatical explanation, on which lengthy and uniform exercises are founded.

Had Ollendorff conceived the plan of teaching grammar by the help of these broken sentences systematically arranged, as in Arnold's classical books, it would have been to some purpose; though the study of a language by means of broken sentences will always be objected to by those who know something of the matter.

Ollendorff's system, as it ought to have been, should have presented to the beginner a little stock of words, leading gradually to the elucidation of the construction of the French language; then, by introducing the difficulties in successive steps, have gone through the whole range of rules, as exemplified by entire extracts from the best of French authors, and not simply by scraps of quotations, as is usually the case.

If we look a little deeper into Ollendorff's book, we find that the author, having much to say which exceeds the compass of his lessons, is, after a little while, simply obliged, like the grammarians of old, to bring many words and rules together for one single lesson. The verbs are in a perfect maze, when it was so easy to reduce their theory to a few

rules; and the syntax is in no degree superior to that of any ordinary grammar. In the first lesson of his work, the author, believing, with the antiquated school of grammarians, that our language is to be taught by following the order of the parts of speech as enumerated in books, and not according to their importance in the sentence, begins with the article. Then, assimilating French to Latin or German, he declines the article: "Nominative, the, le; genitive, of the, du, &c. A grammarian by profession should not be ignorant of the real value of words. In modern languages, such as French, English, Italian, Spanish, the only part of speech which has real cases is the personal pronoun. For instance, je, tu, il, become me or moi, te or toi, lui or le, &c., when they are considered as object of the action, or when they are under the influence of some preposition.

The absurd way of teaching modern languages solely after the model of Latin, was prevalent in France till 1744, when, after a contest in which they were defeated, the Latinists did not dare any longer to uphold a system based upon erroneous ideas. It has since disappeared, completely repudiated by all grammarians of repute. Such has not been the case in England; and though the leading writers of the age laugh to scorn the absurdity of restricting our language, bon gré, mal gré, to the theory of Latin grammar, the evil is not yet eradicated. But that an author, who lives in the centre of literary institutions of the highest order, should come in 1857, and teach how to decline a French article and noun, is an attempt at reviving antiquated forms not very complimentary to English learning.

But, without dwelling so much on the way of other authors, let us explain briefly why we took the pains of undertaking that which so many others had failed to do well.

The two works which have met with so favourable a reception, and have already been reprinted, led our readers to