Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1853-10-01
NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER.
NOTES ON NEW BOOKS.


EXPOSITION or THE GRAMMATICAL STRUCTURE THE Exc
LIsH LANGpAGE being attempt to furnish an i'm
proved method Of teaching grammar. For the use Of
schools and colleges. BY JoHS MULLIGAN, A. NJ New
York, d. Appleton Co., 1852.
The unnecessary multiplication Of textbooks in
our country has, we believe tended greatly to lower
the standard of education among We have
sometimes been almost tempted to believe that a
secret treaty and conederacy have been formed be-
tween teachers and publishers, according to which
the former arc obligated to recommend to their pu-
pills every new issue of the latter-an arrangement
BY which the book trade thrives in proportion as
the cause Of sound scholarship declines. If It be
true that human nature is essentially the same IN
all ages, may safely predicate the like assertion
concerning the human mind as part OF that nature
The mind Of man at the present day IS endowed
with no new powers or capacities which c-not
possessed by the men before the flood As Scotch
thinker declares, man, though he has been increas
ing in knowledge since his appearance on earth,
has not been improving in faculty; shrewd fact,
which they who expect most from the future of the
world would do vol to consider. The ancient mas
tiers of mind were in no respect inferior in cabre
to their successors. The lapse of time has not I'M
pressed on the g common mind" which it is the
province of education to FORM" any new charac-
Ter which demands for its proper culture new
theory Of training radically different from that which
was followed by pedagogues in Greece, the Jlandi
doctores (about whom Horace writes) in Rome If
our modern educational systems and school books
are go much superior 10 those Of all preceding ages
why do they not show it by their results The
Teacher of Gaee has instructed Us to judge OF the
tree by its fruits Do our schools, academies col
leges, and universities produce as many more Platos
than Athens possessed as their number would en-
title to expect Are popular orators as much SUI
peror to Demosthenes and Cicero the multitude of
national speakers" and American orators own books
which enjoy ought to make them, if there be indeed
any efficacy incur improved methods ofmodern study?
DR.. johnson in his day declared that the science Of
education understood no better by his coatempora
-ies than it FIVE hundred years before and
now prepared to add that since the doctor died it has
been nothing bettered, but rather grown worse. Ne
shortcut royal road to knowledge has been yet
found out The muchvaunted discoveries Of the age in
steam and electricity have not materially essened the
amount Of toll and study requisite form the scholar
do fancy that Mr. Ericszon's caloTc engine
viii much help the matter and we are on the whole
thankful that there is little prospect of much being
compshed in the way OF facilitating expedtng the
processes of education. We glad the
which lead to knowledge open all but do not wish
the path that leads up the Hill Difficulty to be any easier
for the scholar than Bunyans pilgrim found his for the
easy than in Mr. Robinsons "French in Five Short
Lessons The road 10 knowledge viii never be mac
Edamized by common schools or normal schools"
or free academies, s'peopes colleges" neither will
the number Of these useful institutions defend us from
seiosm than thousands of medical schools
and colleges will preserve from licensed and unlicensed
9uscSery; and if the road could be made smooth and
broad instead Of leading to the temple Of wisdom it
would be found to end in
g. limbo wide and large
The paradise Of fools"
For If science made cheap and knowledge could he
pumped into the mind water into a passive bucket
the end proposed by al education would be defeated by
the very means chosen to accomplish it. Under such
circumstances the Baconisn maxim that knowledge is
power would lose its truth for knowledge is not power
unless its possessor has wisdom and ability guide and
uphold him in its USE and this wisdom and ability can
only be BY personal experience Of the difficulties
Which beset the acquisition Of either polite or useful
learning and by The gradual mastery of these difficulties
process in which the learner is conducted step by
step from strength to strength knowledge in the hands
Of the quck;sugh and hasty Learned would prove as
mpoten; the thuuders Of Jupiter the grasp Of the
Weakling Ganymede. The old mythology in wedding
Venus Vulcan intended teach that the prize of beauty
guerdon to be won by toll.
But while thus speaking in apprehension Of the fast
among us free confess that the cause Of the
evil lie much in the force of crcum stances
in the national impotence which young America is
addicted less in education than ia politics As the
world grows older the volumes of history to be conned
the books good and bad that must be read the sciences
that be studied constantly increasing in mum
ber and yet the average period Of human life remains
much the in the time Of the Hebrew bard when
three years and ten was the longest span upon
which il could reasonably calculate and the average
period Of schooboy novoate instead Of being length
ened to meet the e1gences Of this enlarged curriculum
Of studies has in country been generally curtaed
SSH our schools all promise to make Identities Of their
pupils and teach them like him. to drive all the sciences
abreast Compelled TO learn something Of every thing
the poor victims Of this examining process arc pretty
sure 20 know nothing Of any thing And il these things
done in the tree, what will it be in the dry?
When in the Of time the domain Of human know.
ledge shall be indefinitely widenel and the creations Of
human genius indefinitely multiplied beyond their pre-
sent extent and number what ask is to become OF
the rissg generation" OF that period viii they still
be required 10 learn every thing and yet finish their
education before they have attained their majority? II
90, let al the urchins who now tagging over dor
cared classics and attercd Dlworths and whose mates
pescred only with all the sciences discovered up "a
his date repne their hard lot but lei them
rather bless their that they were born before fifty
soogies composed part Of the regular course
thas destined to ade the brains Of their grand
With such views upon educational subjects we ar
much disposed to regard book for scholastic use
nuch as the old Greeks regarded big in literature
great evil. But from this censure ne are alyay