OF EDUCATION.

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do not see how it can reasonably be made any one’s study, but as an in-troduction to rhetoric : when it is thought time to put any one upon thecare of polishing his tongue, and of speaking better than the illiterate,then is the time for him to be instructed in the rules of grammar, andnot before. For grammar being to teach men not to speak, but to speakcorrectly, and according to the exact rules of the tongue, which is onepart of elegancy, there is little use of the one to him that has no needof the other; where rhetorick is not necessary, grammar may be spared.I know not why any one should waste his time, and beat his head aboutthe Latin grammar, who does not intend to be a critick, or make speeches,and write dispatches in it. When any one finds in himself a necessity ordisposition to study any foreign language to the bottom, and to be nicelyexact in the knowledge of it, it will be time enough to take a grammaticalsurvey of it. If his use of it be only to understand some books writ init, without a critical knowledge of the tongue itself, reading alone, as Ihave said, will attain this end, without charging the mind with the mul-tiplied rules and intricacies of grammar.

§ 169. For the exercise of his writing, let him sometimes translateLatin into English : but the learning of Latin being nothing but thelearning of words, a very unpleasant business both to young and old, joinas much other real knowledge with it as you can, beginning still withthat which lies most obvious to the senses; such as is the knowledge ofminerals, plants, and animals, and particularly timber and fruit-trees, theirparts and ways of propagation, wherein a great deal may be taught &child, which will not be useless to the man. But more especially geo-*graphy, astronomy, and anatomy. But, whatever you are teaching him,have'a care still, that you do not clog him with too much at once; ormake any thing his business but downright virtue, or reprove him for anything but vice, or some apparent tendency to it.

§ 170. But, if, after all, his fate be to go to school to get the Latintongue, it will be in vain to talk to you concerning the method I thinkbest to be observed in ichools. You must submit to that you find there,not expect to have it changed for your son ; but yet by all means obtain,if you can, that he be not employed in making Latin themes and decla-mations, and, least of all, verses of any kind. You may insist on in it, ifit will do any good, that you have no design to make him either a Latinorator or poet, but barely would have him understand perfectly a Latinauthor; and that you observe those who teach any of the modern lan-guages, and that with success, never amuse their scholars to make speechesor verses either in Freneh or Italian, their business being language barely,and not invention.

§ 171. But to tell you, a little more fully, why I would not haveh.m exerciled in making of themes and verses: 1. As to themes, theyluve, I confess, the pretence of something useful, which is to teach peopleto speak handsomely and well on any subject ; which, if it could beattained this way, I own, would be a great advantage; there being no-

P 2 thing

Grammar.

Themes.