Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1872-08-28
On The Study of Languages.-NO. 2.

EDITORS CHRONICLE: In your issue OF the
22nd inst, argued that language and lit
erature should be foremost in female educa-
ton, and that young ladies aspiring to the
rank of educated women should embrace in
their course of linguistic study, the Latin,
English, French and German languages,
and in the order namedHabove. Why in
this order is the subject now.
In studying a language the first thing for
a child to learn is what an idea is second
ly. what thought is; that ideas are the
materials of thought /; that thought is
constituted and expressed by affirming an
attribute of subject that words are signs
of ideas or of the relations of ideas that
the same words may be used so as to rep
resent ideas, merely, either singly or asso-
ciated, or so as to express exact and COM
pact thought. In this way the pupil OBJ
tains clear idea of a sentence as an eX-
preston of thought of its essential ele-
ments of subjects and predicate, asanlmals
eat, or are eating. Then he adds, step by
step, the different subordinate elements,
as the kinds of animals, what they eat,
when, where, how and why they eat, I'LL
| the five elements of sentence are express
| ed in all their possible forms of a word, a
| phase. or clause, and in all their condi-
| tons of simple, complex or compound. To
do this their simplest form requires very
| little Knowledge Of declensiOn, comparison
/ or congregation. These are studies in the
| development of the subject just as they are
needed for practice. This is studying the
science of language in its various grammat-
ical forms and usages.
Now, because in the Latin there are but
few prepositional and connecting words,
certain terminable syllables supplying
their place, and the same word or ortho-
| granny seldom represents different parts
of speech and different offices, and because
the form of the word indicates more clearly
than can be done in English, its grammat-
ical and logical relations, the elements OF
sentences in all their forms, relations and
| condition, are more easily and clearly ap-
pretended by the use of Latin and English.
Hence much time and labor is saved by
commencing the study Of the Latin Ian
guage and grammar before English. Hav.
ING pursued the Latin for a year or more,
the pupil soon perceives in studying, III
the same way, using Green's First Les
sons) his own vernacular English, that he
has little else to learn but idiOmatic differ
ences, and those differences that neces'
sarily exist between a dead language,
retaining only its classical farms and
usages,and a living language with It's faml,
liar phrases, colloquial forms and juvenile
literature. The simultaneous study OF
these two languages till pretty thorough
knowledge of grammatical forms and OF the
analysis of sentences is obtained, prepares
the way for substituting, as a study, the
French in the place of the English.
This language, daughter of the Latin
| with which the pupil is now quite familiar
may under a skillful and ingenius teacher
with proper text books and methods of in
struction, using phonetic elements chiefly
and its colloquial forms, be learned in one
third of the time that is usually given to
its acquisition.
7 Having given one years time to the
French with the simultaneous study of the
Latin. the latter may give place to the
Analysis of the English Language by
Professor Greene. By proper use of thi'
most philosophic work the pupil becomes
thoroughly acquainted with language as
science, and in its higher and more Difficult
rhetorical and logical elements. He is now
prepared to commence the German and t.
' read the French and Latin classical au
thors with the appreciation and growing
culture of literary critic. AND now i
the time for reading some standard WORE
rhetoric or literary criticism.
A young girl of fair ability, commencing
the above mentioned course at the age o
| IL or Il years, may, at the age of Is or i
wears be we'll read in the literature of thes
| four languages, with a due proportion o
scientific and art studies intertwined
making very complete general education
| one of more real worth to any young lad.
than all the money in the United State
treasury. M. G. BUTLER.