Daily tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1895, 1890-07-26
A Plea for the Natural Method.

1ects for analytical dissection merely.
but should be studied with the view
TO a deeper knowledge of our native
tongue, and higher appreciation of
our literature. The world nOw-a-
days has more vital and pressing sub
jects for critical analysis, and it is far
more important for the student to
know the derivation of his daily
vocabulary than 10 know the reason
for asubiunctive here and an optative
there. One who learns language
by the natural method, and reads it
diligently, ahsorbs its idiom almost
as if it were his mother-tongue, and
the use of the subjunctive and the
optative are as plant for him as the
keyboard to the operator who knows
nothing of theoretical electricity.
Reading comes before writing, and "a
long way before grammar. De-
Quincy and Mill would hardly
have read Greek at ~ years of age
with such fiuency on homeopathic
doses of text and allopathic doses of
syntax, nor would the younger Pitt
have read (at sight at the age of
nineteen the mysterious Cassandra
of Sycophron. Can one of our mod
ern graduates of the syntactical meth
Oh read in days sitting the simplest
of Cicero's Grafton? And yet he can
"cOllar and fling" the moods and
lenses Of the ancient languages as
easily as Mr.. Wegg the vernacular.
Our laws and religion, our social and
political institutions touch Rome and
Athens at thousand points; and
our literature and our history are so
full of illusions to the life that once
throbbed in the heart of those cen
tres of ancient civilization that they
can never be fully appreciated by
one who is ignorant of their Ian.
guages. Who would not rather fight
with Homer on the windy plains of
Troy, or sit with Laughing Horace on
the sunny side of his Tuculan villa,
than to critically dissect a few chap
tiers of these authors? And shall we
withdraw our gaze from the sack Of
Troy to note some Graecism of the
Mantuan bard, or cease to
follow Hannibal over the
Alps to remark how loose Titus
is in the sequence of his lenses.
Those who study the classics by the
syntactical method are compelled to
give so much time to analysis and
construction, that they not only neg
lect the literature of the language,
but even fail to acquire a meagre vo-
cabulary. We have adopted the
German university system, but we
do not prepare our students for it,
and it will never succeed until we
do. To do this let us return to our
fathers method, the only natural
and sensible one.
Before allowing a boy to com
mence Latin, see that he has fair
English vocabulary and some know
ledge of our best authors then in
troduce him to his accidence, teach
him his forms thoroughly, explain
the simplest rules of grammar and
start him to reading some author
easier than Caesar; have him to
read the classics in their proper Sc
quence, never leaving an author I'M
til his style is mastered or his vocab-
ulary acquired. Then when he can
read Cesar, Cicero and Virgil easily,
introduce him to the more critical
study of the language. Pursue this
course until he is of a suitable age to
enter college, which is the proper
place to pursue the philosophical
study of the language. From such
course of training sprung Bently
and Person, a Pitt and a Gladstone,
and some of our greatest American
statesmen, and though in these de-
generate days we may not look for
such results, yet we may expect
classical scholars and cultivated gen.
tlemen, at least we will have fewer
bachelors of arts such as we now
have, who are offended when they
meet in a novel with classical quo
tation. J. M. GORDON.