Mr. Hamilton's Appeal.
The Times, 1824-06-07T00:00:00

I ADVEFlT~~, The Hamiltonian system has i w been b5efre the ublU c ahoye nine months. The number of pupils formed by lr. t Milton anad his partriers, or others who have taught on the sytoem, exceeds 1,0o0. Itsprinoples havebeen developed, arrs b ti etlovlC;exeaplis- file, in thirty public lecturea. A'specillec and Positiva degree of pro,scienc twas promisedin e seryinstane by the teacer, and paid yor la aedance, as tne infallible resultof a certain nsrber of lessons; and yet no Teclamation, no comnalaint, has hitb-sito been heard of on the part of the iu cile-no instance of faMlue pointed out by the holst of enemues its success has creatta. Pcublc testimonies of the most unqualified approbationt have- been offered by. Al1*. Ha2- Milton's classes, until it was supposed tio further doubt could re-i ror atdjeicl aleandid mint d of the reality of the effects a sufficient answer to the cavils of ignorance, jealousy, or self-. interest. Besides' O r. Hafnmilton's pupils are of ages; they are generallo persons of education and respectabilitye and Many of higli rank ; they cani surely judge fort them~selves, whe- ther or not they have derived anrd continue to deriye fronm MIor. Hamilton's instruction all the benefits he had romd. If not, caon it be believed that thoy would wink at delusion, and not only sufLer themselves to be defrauded with impunity, but coninuetopay section after section, te advance, to promot the com ner t oan individual whom hhe -bad never seen before ? Among thte opponests to the Hamitbeioan systena are two young mhen. one named Corny, who styles kimselfrte Champion of the Greenwich Schoolmasters, and a MriHartnol. AMr. Hamilton is pleased to perceive they have given up thciungen.h tiemanly wractice ofinterruptine his public lectures, andsoffer them- selves to the notice of the public as authors, rather than as rioters. They ate nowso erfectlyharmless, thaitr. familtonis wilingthat their pamphlets skouldreach their destination without any comTmen fhis, siexeptone line-not, indeed,thers, obut Raourv-ler's, iisen rsiblewriteronaeducatione m o 1 aswe,iasLGckeyDumariay,andothers saw obscarely the Harmiltonian system. Hon far thea were from aex lecuting what they believed possible-bor far what rus then and is Iyet called liteml aid iterlineary, translation differs from the analyt tiral translationa introduced by Mr.Ha0ilton, a shoart i one olmeto [this line willsufficiently show;bhesides theinaccuracy of theirdeas of translation, these gentlemen did not se the abuse, the perversiont of reason and justice alreadv introduced and universul wlractised intheirtines, of orderistgdolcaru, i cingdoftuaching. a in sthe greatprincple o theHaniltonian syBt tem-canalytic atranslatiof and repetition are its banmaids: " Let the mother miake the boy read the Evangelists in :iatin two or three hours in a day," &-e. says Locke. Had he said, " Let the mother (or the teacher) read for the boy," locke would have been the author of the Hamitonian Sysiv tem. The line alluded to, with its translation, runs thttsi "A principis rages habuere urbemn Romamn. "An commencement des rois eurene la vile ie Romne." .4 is not or, but dly; a is a preposition govening the ablaunvel sarp is the dative case ofthe definite article: the wordprincipi, is thoerefore translated by a dative case, and not by an ablative, as it ought: rw l is rols,and not des ros; urbem is vand,atd not la vtitl; Ronaimi isRome the accusative ame, and not de Rome the genitive: so that of 6 hords whieh compose the line, 5 are incorrectly translated. But if thetwoteachers, orc chapions ofthe GreenwichSchooltmnster swhke have cited the line so triumphantys in their pamphlets, are ignrtant of French and Latin, as well as of tie nature of analytical trsla.. tion, their knowledge of arithmetic is unquestionable. Ten thouand wiords, said to be learned in ten lessons, of one hoar each, they rightly.calculate make 16 a minute, which they assertdi imposwibleo and in this the are joined by a genitleman of equal genius afnt learning with thernselvesthe Editor of the Metropoiitan Literary Alfobthuy Joutrnal It is true, 1,00nd persons in leondo assert that they have actually learnt these 10A000 words-that is, lie whole of the Gospel of St. John, comprehending the inflections oftheverbs-. in tendlessons, thusfhulfoini twor. Hamiutoen's prediction and engage ment. Whom are we to believea ? One thousand l persons wholly dis inteeste, or interesteaonly in detecting delusion if any ; or the a renwh Schoolmasters, and their Chamtpion, interested only ir thesuccess oftheir craft? Butthe Honorary Secretary of theMle.. tropolitan Literary Society is not to be thus dismissed. This gen- tleman, in a critique of eleven octavo pages, uses language in panis of the Hamitonian system, more strong and decisive than its autlir has ever done. He assures us, t that it is not only essentialy Lo3d, but that it will ult'mately super.. sede- the present mode of teaching practise-d in our schools; thatir, will. that it bebeievaaptedota by thosn who are- nota fholly blinrd to their own interest and to the benefits which it confers;" and Yet blames in terms equally strong the mode in whien it has been introduced to the public:-` . o nffig, t em Haggeration," C emn yricism" are the preros .-asheapplies t it. Itmaybenaske with wvhat species of metaphysical transmutation it h apnpis that the eulogium of a critic by no means friendly to the au s ouild be only tphe tribute of sirict irnpartial justice in his mouth, and yet become downritht puffing and quackery when usecl bylhbin who dring eight yearshad witmessed its effects. If tuth be puffinxg, Hailton haipuffed ; if truth be empyriidsm, Hamltoo is an ePat. pyric; ut if falsehood onlyrenders men jutly liable to these Iinpu. tations it was incumbent on Dir. Jennings to prove the falsehood beforete madethem. But thboughs r.Jennigs c danotspthencitadel of this=sstm(to use his own language) to be "1impregnable,-" he contens that some of the outworks are uantenable. ror examples v11r. Hamilton asserts tlrai though some words in all languages may. have two or three meanings, yet tbat, as a general rule, one wod cht& but one raeaning, and canbe correctly translated into another in- guage by one wlord only. The Honorary Secretary here exclams. "!Surely Mr. Hamiltor doesinot mean to aver that coup and mnicere hiave eah but ene meaning-that lepus, whichi 'implies' a hare, and "'it, has but one meaning ?" Coup means a blow, and ?uiniem-e light, and niothing else; but Mr. Jenninigs, wtio, if ever he tnew any thing of this language, translates it onlY id coups de. dictiornw$r, has mistaken idiomatic phrases for the meaning oters words.n o is yet more unlucky in Latin. iypus does not "imply," but means a hanre,and ntever wit. Will it be believed that an Hfonerary Secretary of a literary society, the editor of a literary journal which appears once a month, in the discussion of a philological question,. con- founds kepus with lepos, and having hut two wvords of Latin to write, wholly mistakles the meaning ofone of them? Has he never read lit sylvis lqp6res, itt varbis quoe-re le'p6re.r T Mr. Jennings is not contenit thuS to axpose his ignorance of French and Latin, he, must bring in the Greek too; but more cautious-e speakis only oJ~ thie alphabet, which he first assures us is not taAght on the Iia =I,il. tonin sste. Fidin ou hismisakeby looking over the Greeh. key hethiks t ncesaryto ay omthing of the translwsioia ancl clbu ony fve r sx wrds ha cotried to render hi& maoranee of hislanuag aspalabl asliehadalready made it in the Latini andFrech.It ay xcie srprse hatthe author of the Hamil.. tonanSysemshofdentr he iss wthsuch pony opponents. He regrets that none maore formidable hav preentea themselves. It was necessarv, once for all, to notice the, lest it should be sup.. posed that a6 objection had bean brought against the system which coald naot be inistantaneauslv obviated: henceforthi, eatisiied with the patrnag of n elighene romsunty, and thxecoDntinually ini- creaingpoplariy o hi sysem,theauthor intends to pursue hisproessona laour, wthot averingtothe frothy declama.. tion ofconcite igorane, r te pevis pesonalities of interest., AMR. HAMILTO.,1 SAP PEAL.