Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1872-08-22
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On the Study of Languages.

are about to commence, which should re-
celve the careful consideration of teachers
and parents. Allow me through your COL
umns to call attention to the following
questions:
First. What position should language.
belles-lettres and literature occupy in our
system of female education? Second,
what languages should our Knoxville
girls study, who aspire to the rank of we'll
educated women? And lastly, in what
order should these several languages be
studied?
L premise that each branch of study
should prepare the way for the next.
Thus, geography should precede history.
The study of rhetoric before the pupil has
a good knowledge of English grammar
and analysis, is worse than time, labor and
money wasted. These essentials of pros
per1ty and success can be economised in
in education, by right methods and prop
er order of studies, as strikingly as they
they can be by right methods and a proper
order in any other department of human
effort.
First, admit (and who does not) that
the two leading purposes of education
| are to teach us to think and to ex-
press our thoughts, and by that admis-
sion you place language first and foremost
IN system of education for language is
no less the instrument and limit of thought
than the means by which We communi-
| cate our thoughts to others.
The natural sciences acQuaint us with
facts. They give us knowledge of objects
by which we are Immediately surrounded
| in nature, and with which we have con-
stantly to do in life. These are the fruit
| full materials for thought and contempla-
ton. The mathematics and logic teach US
how to use the reasoning faculties in pass
| ing from the known to the unknown. But
the study of language, especially of an an
| cient, classical one, reproducing both its
thought and spirit in choicest English, goes
far to enable us to express our own
thoughts, extempore and with the pen,
with ease, ffuency precision skill and pow
er. This is the great object which should
ever be kept in view in studying any
| foreign tongue, ancient or modern.
Edward Everett, that prince of Ameri-
can scholars and teachers, says that he
knows of no mental effort that calls
| into such healthful and improving
exercise, so many of the mental
faculties, as the critical and
scholarly translatiDg of the best Roman
| and Greek classics, into our noble and Wig
orous Angle Saxon English. And 1 assert
as the long and careful observation in the
school room, that there is no intellectual
discipline at all equal to the study of lam
guage, for variety and force of stimulation
to every faculty.
Second. The Latin, English, French,
and German languages should be embrace
ed in course of liberal, female education,
and should he commenced in the order
named.
Ipresent the following as the chief rea-
sons for the study of Latin: First, The
Latin is, to large extent, the parent of
the French and English. and q knowledge
of the former gives the student an
4 an elementary, clear, and comprehensive
meaning of the Latin-derived English,
which he can get in no other way. What
la volume of meaning, to the Latin schola r
in the common words, tribulation, dilapi-
dated, sencere, caprice redeemer and the
like (see French on the study of Words,
page 3S) which the mere english scholar
fails to comprehend; and the great ma
Ijority of our literary words are of Latin
origin.
Second. The study of the Latin gives a
better and more varied mental and literary
discipline than can be derived from any
other study, for the language being in its
structure and idioms exceedingly unlike
the English, the reproduction of the
thought, spirit and qualities of style of its
wonderful literature, its mythology, his
tory, poetry, oratory and philosophy in
| ones own vermacular, gives the pupil a
fiuence, ease, skill and power in the use of
bis own language and practical kpowl-
edge of rhetoric, which he fails to acquire
| by the most elaborate and protracted study
i of text books upon rhetoric and literary
criticism. It is the short road to refined
literary taste, and to clear, definite, ear
nest expression of thought, either in con-
versation or by the pen accomplishments
and intellectual ornaments which every
cultivated lady should acquire. And, last
ly, the Latin claims the attention of the
literally educated as containing elaborate
and unsurpassed specimens in everv de-
partment of composition, the reading of
which, besides ministering to our literary
taste and culture in the highest degree, al
30 gives us information directly of the his
tory, mythology, politics, poetry and ora
tory of the ancient Romans in their orig
inal spirit.
OF the Importance of critical, protract-
ed and comprehensive study of the Eng
lish language and the constant practice of
| the art of composition, nothing need be
said, and yet in many female seminaries it
receives but little specific attention beyond
| the limits of a common grammar and an
elementory rhetoric.
1t is sufficient reason for embracing the
French and German languages in course
| of liberal education to say, that they are
1 the historical living and growing Language
es of peoples, were next to the English
speaking, constitute the two most advanc-
ed nations upon the face of the earth, and
with which, we are brought into intimate
| social and commercial relations; that
French and German newspapers and peri
| Odicals and books are upon the tables :;
that these languages (the latter especially
are spoken extensively upon the streets of
almost every city and village of our land,
and lastly that four-fifths of the literature
containQ the latest results of Investigation
in every department of human knowledge
is in these two languages.
Surely the youth of the present day who
are seeking liberal education cannot omit
a knowledge of these modern classical lam
guages.
But, Messrs. Editors, as this article is
already too long, reserve the third topic,
viz, the order in which they should be
studied, for future discussion.