The history, principles, practice, and results of the Hamiltonian system; with answers to the Edinburgh and Westminster reviews; lecture delivered at Liverpool, and instructions for the use of books published on this system

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HISTORY,

PRINCIPLES, PRACTICE, AND RESULTS

OF THE

HAMILTONIAN SYSTEM.

BY JAMES HAMILTON.

Price Sixpence.

THE

HISTORY,

PBINCIPLES, PEACTICE, AND BESULTS

OF THE

HAMILTONIAN SYSTEM.

WITH

ANSWERS TO THE EDINBURGH AND WESTMINSTER

REVIEWS;
A LECTURE DELIVERED AT LIVERPOOL ;

AND

INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE USE OF THE BOOKS PUBLISHED
ON THE SYSTEM.

BY JAMES HAMILTON.

CONDON:

PUBLISHED BY AND FOR

W. AYLOTT AND CO., 8, PATERNOSTER ROW.

WHERE ALL MR. HAMILTON'S PUBLICATIONS MAY BE HAD.

OV THE

TJIUTIRSITT

HAMILTONIAN SYSTEM, &c.

IN the year 1798, being established as a merchant in
Hamburg, where I had purchased a house in the Neuen
Burg for 48,000 banco marks, and had been made free
of the city, a friend recommended to me strongly, as a
teacher of the German language, a General D'Angeli, a
French emigre, who had been several years in the Aus-
trian service. I told the General I should be glad to,
profit by his talents -y but unfortunately my mind was so
filled with business, that I was afraid I could not bend it
to the study of grammar. " But sir, I shall never put a
grammar into your hands I" — " Well I if you can teach
me a language without grammar, I shall be glad to see
you to-morrow morning." I had studied the Latin for
several years, I knew some Greek, and was well acquainted
with the best authors in French and English (having re-
sided inFrance nearly three years before the Revolution);
I considered myself somewhat of a linguist, and was a
little piqued at the idea of being told by a military gen-
tleman how a language should be taught. The next
morning the General arrived with a book of anecdotes in
German, of which he translated one for me nearly word
for word, parsing as he proceeded ; so that, when he had
ended, I translated and understood it as well as so much
A 2

French or English. I confess I remained astounded at
the result ; but not being able to doubt it, I continued
my lesson, and learned thus five or six short anecdotes
in an hour. On this plan I received about a dozen lessons,
when I found T could read an easy German book ; and
having about that time occasion to go to Leipsic and
other parts of Germany, I took care to lodge at German
houses, and thus acquired a tolerable facility in speaking
and reading the language. — This is the origin of the
Hamiltonian System : I then thought as little of becom-
ing a teacher as I do now of flying ; but I was amateur
of languages enough to appreciate my obligations to Ge-
neral D'Angeli, and think it but justice to record them
here. I then recollected something of the same kind at
the school of two ancient Jesuits, Messrs. Beatty and Mul-
hall, men of great talents and learning, who, on the disso-
lution of their order by Ganganelli, had established a
school in Dublin, at which I remained four years. It was
the custom of one of these gentlemen to translate, for the
higher classes, twenty or txyentj^-five lines of Horace or
Virgil every day, in the same manner that General D'An-
geli translated the German, except that he did not parse
(it was unnecessary for boys who had for many years
studied the Latin grammar) 5 but while I took lessons in
German, and often since, it has occurred to me, that if our
masters had from the beginning thus translated for their
pupils not twenty lines but several pages, every day, we
should have, learned Latin in a tenth part of the time we
had spent at it.

Four years afterwards, I established a house in Paris,
not as an Englishman, but as a citizen of Hamburg ; and,
in conjunction with the banking-house ofKarcher and Co.,
I did considerable business with England during the peace
of Amiens.

At the rupture of the treaty of Amiens, I was made pri-
soner, notwithstanding the representations of the senate
of Hamburg in my favour. All they could obtain was,
that my name should be effaced from the list of prisoners
of war, and my Passport, or Carte de Surete, had " efface
de laliste des prisonniers de guerre/' as a citizen of Ham-
burg, inscribed on it : but as a natifof England, I was de-
tained during the war, to the ruin of my business inHam-
burg and in Paris.

In 1814, 1 revisitedEngland and Holland; but the com-
mercial world was then so totally changed, that I found
to do business again I must become an apprentice ; I was
then forty-five ; it was too late. I determined, therefore,
to go to the United States, and become a farmer and ma-
nufacturer of potash, of which I thought I knew more
than the Americans. This project I put in execution
the following year, and had actually agreed for a small
farm, 250 miles to the north-west of New York; and was
on horseback on my way to see it, at seven o'clock in the
morning in October, 1815. The cold was severe, and the
pain in both my feet intolerable. In this state I reflected,
as I passed through the woods, how I should be able to
bear a frost of four months, during which the ground
would be covered with snow, and the cold much more
intense ? I considered it impossible, and, bravely yielding
to this impression, I turned my horse's head about, to
the utter astonishment of my guide, who in vain repre-
sented to me, that we were within a mile of the farm ;
and halted not till I arrived in New York, three days
afterwards ! — having retraced in that time a journey
which it had taken me three weeks to perform.

I had in France, for my amusement, tried on my own
children and on others, though to no great extent, the new
ideas I had conceived as to teaching the languages ; and

as I was no farmer, and thought it at least possible I
might not succeed in that business, I had determined, in
the midst of the ennui and fever of my voyage to New
York, to try the experiment of it, in case of need ; not as
any thing permanent, but as a pis-aller, till something
better offered. This was the plan I resolved now to exe-
cute for the winter, promising myself in the spring to set
out afresh on my farming expedition.

Preparatory to this I wrote an Essay on the usual mode
of teaching the languages, in which I explained the ideas I
had myself on the subject ; and while I acknowledged I
had never given a lesson for money, I stated my confi-
dence in the success of the mode of teaching which I
proposed. Having finished my manuscript, I submitted
it to the inspection of the Rev. Mr. Feltus, of the Protes-
tant Episcopal Church, who so much approved of it, that
he became himself with his two sons my first pupils : at
the same time I taught two other clergymen ; and all
three, together with Judge Van Ness, of the district
court, gave me the most flattering testimonials. I was,
indeed, myself so astonished and delighted at the progress
made by these gentlemen, particularly the last, that I
gave the details of it in the papers of the day -, which
produced so favourable an impression on the public
mind, that my whole time was soon engaged, at a
dollar a lesson for each person, and I began to think
teaching a better trade than farming.

The progress of my pupils was, however, nothing equal
to what I have since produced ; but it was indubitably
greater than had ever been effected on the common plan.
There was, indeed, nothing then that could be called a
system, although two important principles formed the
best possible foundation for one. / taught, instead of
ordering to learn ; and secondly, I taught my pupils to

translate at once, instead of making them get a grammar
by heart. I had tried to parse also, as well as translate,
as D'Angeli had done with rne, but I found this would
do only with linguists. The grammar was incomprehensi-
ble at this period to the greater number of my pupils. I
therefore deferred it till they had taken half the course : by
that time, as they had me% in their reading all the in-
flections of the verbs, and changes of the other declina-
ble parts of speech, thousands of times, they found
grammar an easy task. I then gave them two or three
lectures on grammar generally, but particularly the verbs,
of which I gave them a copy ; and from this period my
pupils read at their own home, and in class learned the
use of the words they had acquired in reading. They read
the English Gospel of St. John into French, first after
me, in precisely the same manner as I had taught them
first to translate French into English, but with this es-
sential difference, my translation into French was a free
translation — in simple but correct language, which they
afterwards wrote : and in the correcting of which I gave
them the details of the principles or rules of grammar,
and thus taught them to write and speak correctly.

During the first campaign, which lasted from the be-
ginning of February till June, I took no class through
the course. My pupils read French with facility and
pleasure in twenty- four lessons, of two hours each : they
had then no keys, they were content with their progress,
and with their progress proclaimed the fame of my sys-
tem wherever they went. I had thus, in the first year,
about seventy pupils, who paid me twenty-four dollars
each for half a course, and which confirmed me a teacher
for life.

But in America as well as England, many teachers,
out-heroding Herod, imagined that the system did really

8

more than I professed, or that it did all I professed in
every instance ; and that teaching would hereafter be-
come like weaving, a mere mechanical process ; that
languages might be obtained not only without study,
but even without attending the class* I have had in all
my classes since, persons who seemed to be of this opi-
nion, and who, neither attending nor studying, fancied
they should get the language infallibly, because they had
paid their subscription, But teachers dreaded there, as
many in England yet do, the ruin of their establishments
by the introduction of the system into schools generally 5
and though they did not come forward openly to oppose
it by arguments, far less by facts, yet did they see with
pleasure the virulent attacks of anonymous writers, or
tirades of abuse from those French teachers who con-
sidered me an intruder on their profession. A second
winter in New York proved still more successful than
the first : besides the number who took twelve or twenty-
four lessons, a class of gentlemen went through the
whole course triumphantly, and realized the utmost
success I had ever predicted, speaking and writing the
French with nearly as much facility as English.

I proceeded thence to Philadelphia, in September,
where my reception was still more flattering than in
New York, and where, by the discussions which took
place, I first perceived .that in translating I ANALYZED,
and consequently taught the grammar of the language
with every word I taught my pupil : forming thus a
THIRD PRINCIPLE of the system, a principle which it is
inconceivable should have escaped the genius of Milton,
of Locke, of Clarke, of Dumarsais and his followers, all
of whom eulogized literal translations as the only ra-
tional mode of acquiring a language, but not one of
whom ever translated one line literally, for no translation

can justly be called literal which is not analytical. This
difference was the sole reason why the translations of
all these authors have been found inefficient, and even
mischievous, and have therefore been justly scouted
from the schools of all countries ; and for this reason it
is that the translations lately made, professedly Hamil-
tonian, but which are not analytical, as well as the trans-
lations professedly on the system of Locke — not one
word of either of which can be relied on by the pupil
as the precise meaning of the word above it — have equally
failed, and will for ever fail. I had, however, at this
time, no books ; my system rested wholly with myself ;
and as few men possessed such a knowledge as I did of
the English and French languages (which latter I prin-
cipally taught), few or none could rival me. I felt this,
and was, perhaps, not perfectly guiltless of illiberality
and selfishness in thus keeping my system to myself,
till some time after my arrival in England, in order that
I might be without a rival in teaching — for on my
system, I found as much facility in teaching 100 persons
(which I often did) as a class of half a dozen -, but with
books any man could do as much as I, as has been tri-
umphantly proved in England, provided he be willing to
do as much ; but many pretended Ham iltonian teachers
have disgraced the system and themselves, by effecting
much less than they promised.

In Philadelphia I delivered my first lecture, and here
my mode of teaching began to assume the character as
well as the name of a system ; by which I mean, such a
reunion and combination of certain fixed fundamental
principles, as may enable the teacher to produce certain
positive results, at all times and from every pupil, sup-
posing a moderate degree of attention. Here, I first
asserted that the words of all languages have, with few

A3

10

exceptions, one meaning only, and should be translated
generally by the same word, which should stand for its
representative at all times, and in all places ; thus con-
stituting a FOURTH principle : and, FIFTHLY, that the
simple sounds of all languages being, with few exceptions,
identically the same, it must be as easy for an English-
man to pronounce French as English, when taught, and
vice versa. Here, I first made the distinction between
accent and pronunciation, so generally confounded, the
latter being a distinct articulate utterance, the former
l the tone or song with which we speak ; that the latter
can be communicated to any person, the former is in-
communicable $ the latter may be perfect with every
accent, but all accent as far as it goes is a vice ; of im-
portance, however, only when it degenerates into brogue.
In all my classes I have demonstrated the infallible cer-
tainty of acquiring a correct pronunciation, by being
taught in class by a person possessing himself a correct
pronunciation. The reunion of these different princi-
ples justified the title of system by their results -, but the
reunion of them in a class so constructed, that each in-
dividual member should be an assistance rather than an
incumbrance to every other, in which one man could
teach as many as could hear him, and where number
added to the interest and pleasure of the lesson, consti-
tuted a SIXTH and last principle more important than
all the others. To distinguish it from other soi-disant
systems, I thought myself justified in calling it Hamil-
tonian, and the public have confirmed the appellation.

The system, to be perfect, wanted only books : I
printed in Philadelphia the first three chapters of the
Gospel of St. John in French, with an analytical key,
from which I found immense relief to myself as well as
benefit to the pupil $ and after remaining a year, I pro-

11

ceeded to Baltimore, where the fame of my system had
already preceded me, and enabled me to form immediately
numerous classes.

After teaching here about six months adult pupils, to
occupy the leisure of my wife and daughters I had just
taken about twenty children, when I was attacked by
the Professors of Baltimore College, who, in a play re-
presented by their pupils, endeavoured to ridicule the
New Mode of teaching. As they made no secret of their
intention, I had no difficulty in procuring a ticket 3 arid
using the privilege of a spectator, three days afterwards
I gave the play at full length in one of the newspapers,
with such comments on the play and actors, as'raised a
good deal of laughter at the expense of the author.
The President replied with great virulence 5 thence a
paper war which lasted three months, during which the
Hamiltonian System was fully discussed in its theory
and results, and contrasted so successfully with the
systems of the schools, that the College was obliged to
close its doors, not having a single pupil, while, in the
same time, the Hamiltonian school had increased to
above one hundred and sixty.

This school, which counted nearly twenty teachers,
each occupying a separate room, I fear not to say,
effected wonders, though it wanted an indispensable
part of the system when applied to schools, that is, ana-
lytical translations. The want of them caused me enor-
mous expense and enormous labour, which, added to an
extraordinary pressure on commerce that year, the
wretched state of my health from excessive labour and
the heat of the climate, and, above all, the yellow fever,
which made its appearance about July, — all this obliged
me to give up my school to the teachers whom I had em-
ployed, but who, unhappily, knew not how to conduct
it, and suffered it shortly afterwards to fall.

12

I went on to Washington, where healthful air and
idleness soon gave me strength to lecture $ and where I
got introduced to most of the principal men of the
Federal Government, and, among others, to Mr. Craw-
ford, Secretary of the Treasury, whose two sons I taught,
and who furnished me with letters to the American Am-
bassador in London ; as did several others, for I was
determined, sooner or later, to offer my dicovery to the
investigation of my countrymen.

I tl\ence proceeded to Boston, where I remained for five
weeks, offering my system and my lessons in vain ; I
could obtain no pupils* At length a celebrated Unita-
rian Preacher and Professor of the University attacked
my advertisement, and treated my pretensions as those
of a charlatan. I had the day before begun to teach
my first class, four pupils. In answer to this attack,
with which I acknowledge I was much pleased, I invited
the writer and his friends to come to my apartments on
that day fortnight, and, by their own examination of my
pupils, convince themselves whether I was or not the
person he was pleased to represent me. My answer
created a considerable sensation in town, and the result
became the object of general interest. On the appointed
day the Professor did not come, but seven gentlemen of
acknowledged erudition and respectability, among whom
an ex-governor of the State and one or two judges, did
come, and examined my pupils most minutely. During
the examination (in which I took myself no part) they
repeatedly expressed their admiration of the accuracy of
the translation, and the correctness of their pronuncia-
tion. They each gave me next day a distinct testimony,
couched in the strongest language, to the merits of the
system. These testimonies I published, and obtained
by them not less than two hundred pupils,

I left Boston only in June, when the heat became

13

intolerable j and, after passing some weeks at Balstown,
and visiting some other places, I returned to "Philadel-
phia in winter, where I obtained above three hundred
pupils.

Besides the places I have mentioned, I visited a great
number of towns in the interior during the summers I
passed in the States ; as also the colleges of Schenectady,
Princeton, Yale, Hartford, and Middleburg -, where I
counted as my pupils, not only a very considerable num-
ber of the students, but also the professors, with the
exception of Yale College, where the students only at-
tended. I experienced in all a degree of liberality,
which contrasted strongly with their pre-conceived opi-
nions. All had imagined the system mere charlatanerie ;
all recognised its merits before I departed.

In 1822 I went to Montreal, and thence to Quebec,
and succeeded tolerably well in both places. And thus
ended, in July 1823, my career in America. But, be-
fore I quit it to pursue this history in the United King-
dom during the last five years, let me be permitted to
mention a circumstance which occurred in Montreal.

I had among my pupils the gaoler, by whose invitation
I visited the gaol ; there were, among others, eight Eng-
lishmen confined for different offences. These I formed
into a class, and determined to try on them the effects
of my system in teaching the English their own lan-
guage ; seven of these persons knew more or less of read-
ing or spelling, though some of them very little ; one
only knew not one letter. I gave them all children's
books of the same kind, and placing the wholly ignorant
man last of the class at my left hand, I made all the
others spell, word by word, a sentence composed of
words familiar to the pupils, as, "The cat loves mice 3"
" John is a good boy," &c. &c. I began by articulating

14

audibly T — H— E — the : the first member at my right
repeated in the same tone T — H — E — the, while I con-
tinued to point 'to each letter as it was pronounced, to
the pupil on the left hand : when the word had come
round to him, he repeated with facility and pleasure,
pointing to the letters T — H — E — the! Thus did we
with each word in succession ; and after spelling all the
words in the same manner, I read the whole phrase,
which was read by each member of the class till it came
to my left hand pupil, who also read it with facility :
four short phrases were thus read, and perfectly ac-
quired in about three-quarters of an hour. I then gave
one of the prisoners full directions for proceeding, pro-
mising him half a dollar a week ; and this task he exe-
cuted so successfully, that, having called to see them
at the end often days, I found my pupil could read,
with facility and perfect understanding, in any part of
the Testament ! I have made many efforts since that
time to introduce this plan into schools ; but, strange to
tell, it has, with few exceptions, met with almost uni-
form opposition. Lately, however, I began a class of
five children, at St. Philip's Church Sunday School,
Manchester. All were wholly ignorant of their letters,
and one or two not more than five or six years old. I
gave them one lesson, and have been assured, that, at
the end of about twelve lessons, they were found fit to
enter the Testament reading class. Mr. Andrews, a
schoolmaster of Salford, has also introduced it into his
school, and has enabled a class of very small children,
not knowing one letter, to read English with tolerable
facility in about two months, with a pleasure and in-
terest to pupil and teacher, contrasting most strongly
with the labour and disgust incident to both on the com-
mon plan.

tna

...

15

Thus is the Hamiltonian System applicable to educa-
tion in all its parts. In my school in Baltimore, I ap-
plied it to writing, arithmetic, and geography, with the
fullest success* and always to the delight of the pupil —
always pleased with instruction when he can obtain it
without arduous labour or unnecessary delay : and,
above all, when it is intelligible. I here again offer my
gratuitous services to every Institution willing to adopt
the system, in any or all its parts, whether for children
or adults — whether for English or other languages ; and
though I do not engage to work long for nothing, yet 1
promise that my instructions shall be so clear, as tc
enable any honest and well-informed teacher to do as
much as I profess being able to do myself.

This history of my success in the United States, when
I counted among my pupils many of the first men in the
country, of all professions, and whose unanimous appro
bation had doubtless a little inflated a naturally enthu-
siastic imagination, was necessary, perhaps, in the mine
of the reader, to justify the confidence with which 1
offered my system to the British public. It will be re-
membered what an outcry was caused by my advertise-
ments : but wherefore ? — did not others profess to do as
I ? Many, no doubt, every day. Why, then, were those
gentlemen supposed to be acting in the right line ol
their profession, while I, for saying the same thing, was
abused as a quack or impostor ? The reason is, that J
alone appeared to be serious in what I advanced ; that
my advertisements had an air of truth that falsehood
never can put on ; that I appealed to almost instanta-
neous facts and personal experience, to the result of a feMi
lessons, as a test of the truth of what I advanced -} and
that no other man had ever thus come forward. I appeal
to the candid reader, whether I could, with a just regard

16

to truth, have said less than I did at that time ; and I
appeal, still more boldly, to the public at large, whether
I have not since fully and honourably redeemed every
pledge I have given.

The result was a success beyond what I had ever
before experienced, so that I was obliged to employ
seven other teachers with myself. In eighteen months I
had above six hundred pupils for the different languages
(Greek, Latin, German, French, and Italian) ; and, among
them, many of the first families in the kingdom. I had
brought to London above thirty letters of recommen-
dation, but I used none of them — not even those to the
American Ambassador. Three months afterwards, I
handed three of them to his Secretary, who had become
my pupil and my friend, and whose advice, repeatedly
and kindly pressed on me, to abstain from angry repli-
cation to prejudiced schoolmasters, I heartily wish I had
followed. This is, however, but one of the many faults
which I doubtless have made, though I have not men-
tioned them in this history. His Excellency did me
the honour to acknowledge my letters by a visit at my
house in Cecil-street. One of the faults, and perhaps
the greatest, was to quit London at this time : the
reasons for this have no connection with this history ;
it was, however, as mischievous as the leaving my school
in Baltimore ; for, though I left my establishment in
London in the hands of persons capable of effecting all
I had ever professed to do, yet others also took up the
system who knew it not, and thus was the public imposed
on in many instances : this, together with the knowledge
that I was no longer in London, did the system much
mischief, at a time when, assailed on all sides by other
teachers frightened at its success, it needed the support
of its veteran defenders. With the like success, as to

17

the number and respectability of my pupils, I have since
taught in Liverpool, Manchester, Edinburgh, Dublin,
Belfast, and at least twenty other places, effecting every-
where the utmost I had ever professed in the first three
sections of my course ; that is, by enabling the pupil to
read and analytically to translate, in the first section, the
Gospel of St. John ; — in the second, the Fables of Per-
rin ; — and, in the third, the Recueil Choisi ; — for all which
I had published analytical translations j but not often
going farther. For this many reasons may beassigned ;
and as I have often been blamed for it, in my justifica-
tion I think it necessary to enter into some details rela-
tive to the formation and conduct of my classes. It
may be of use for the government of other teachers,
who may remedy the inconvenience to which the rules I
have prescribed to myself (and not the system) have
subjected me. I teach adults only ; and as I find it as
easy to teach one hundred persons in a class as four or
five, my interest, as well as the interest of the pupil, is,
that I should form large classes. But to this there are
so many obstacles, chiefly from the fear of misassocia-
tion, — a thing impossible in my classes, where the mem-
bers have no more communication than if in church, —
that my private classes rarely consist of more than from
six to twelve. The members being bound only for ten
lessons, or one section, it usually happens that from ill
health, business, &c., one or two drop off at the end of
the first j as many at the end of the second $ and so on
till the class is too small to attend without loss. The
same thing happens in my public classes, when they are
taught by sections. When I have engaged to teach the
whole course, though all, who attend faithfully, infal-
libly succeed, yet these are usually the smaller part of
the class. Many of the members being in business are

18

frequently prevented from attending the class, others
from reading out of class. If the teacher were not sub-
jected to teach the language in the smallest possible
number of lessons, the non-attendance of the pupil for a
lesson or ten lessons would be a trifle ; but if, having
taught him to read in thirty lessons the French, Italian,
or German language, he be restricted to twenty more to
enable him to write and speak, and that the pupil omit
to attend one-half of them, it is evident that, without
any fault in the system, the pupil will not have attained
the desired degree of proficiency at the end of the course.
Now, as I have hitherto made it a rule not to stop longer
than five or six months in any place, — that is to say,
longer than is necesssary to form classes, and to perfect
those who choose to join them at first, and to go through
the course, — it follows that all who neglect to take the
lessons of the course are without remedy, as well as
those who, waiting to see the result of the system in the
first and second sections, become members of classes,
formed often when I have already spent half the time I
intend stopping in any place ; all these persons complain
bitterly of my departure, and I leave no place without
leaving behind me many of both descriptions. But the
Hamiltonian System has nothing to do with this. Its
author, wishing to make it known, wishing to see its
adoption by other teachers, and much more desirous
that others should obtain scholars than himself, is
obliged to travel ; but the Hamiltonian Teacher who
remains fixed in one place will not have these inconve-
niences, and will therefore do more to satisfy his pupils
than the author of the system, for the reasons above-
mentioned, has been able to do. The resident teacher
will, in every instance, fulfil the utmost wish of the
pupil ; but then the resident teacher must not confine

»

19

himself absolutely to a fixed number of lessons for a
class. He must permit the member, who has not been
able to attend, to obtain extra lessons on paying for
them, which the author of the system has never been
able to do. A circumstance of which many of his pupils
have complained, but which he has been obliged to per-
sist in, from the rule prescribed to himself, never to take
more from a pupil than the public subscription to the
course or section ; never to afford one pupil an advantage
which all did not possess.

But the mischief is by no means so great, in any of
these cases, as many pupils suppose. They think that,
not having been perfected, what they have got is worth
nothing : they have, however, got what no pupil ever got,
in any length of time, on the common plan — they can
translate with a degree of accuracy, which no teacher,
on the common plan, has ever approached; — they analyse
all they read, and thus in effect parse it ; — they have a
correct pronunciation ; — they possess, in fact, all that is
necessary to perfect themselves, and they have already
obtained more than is ever obtained on the common
plan. Only let them continue to read, and take the
fifth section the first opportunity that presents itself.

In reading over my manuscript, I perceive I have not
sufficiently described the two latter sections. I have said
at the beginning of the third section I lecture on gram-
mar generally, particularly the verbs, in which the pupil
is exercised during the whole of the third section — de-
voting half of each lesson to this, and the other half to
reading. By the exercises on the verbs, I mean orally
— teaching them to use with facility, affirmatively, nega-
tively, and interrogatively, the regular verbs, and about
a dozen others which are of momentary occurrence in
conversation -, and this, I think, has not been suffici-

20

ently attended to, or at least not been continued long
enough, in my classes hitherto, from a too great confi-
dence in the attention of the classes to know their verbs
perfectly, at a time when they can obtain a perfect
knowledge of them with so little trouble. The teacher
must trust nothing, absolutely nothing, to the pupil,
whether boy or adult. .

In three classes which I have now in Manchester,
after reading for some days the English Testament into
French, I returned to these oral exercises in the use of
the verbs j and the result has been singularly successful.
It has restored confidence to several members of these
classes, who having never read except in class, were
consequently fearful that, according to my repeated pre-
dictions, they would not be able to speak, and has in-
duced them to apply again to reading, while, in the
mean time, they use with delight, in writing and speak-
ing, the words of which they have already, by these
exercises, obtained a perfect command.

Let, I say, these exercises be continued faithfully to
the end of the third section, and four or five lessons of
the fourth. At the fifth lesson of the fourth section, I
begin to translate the English Gospel of St. John into
pure French — simple but correct language. One of the
pupils repeats the phrase as I have given it, arid thus it
is repeated four or five times, more or less, until per-
fectly understood by every member of the class : a
second verse is then read in the same manner, diminish-
ing the number of repetitions as the task becomes more
easy, until at length, at the third or fourth lesson, it is
found that one repetition is sufficient. Of what is thus
read in class, four or five verses are written by the pupil
out of class, and brought as an exercise, in the correc-
tion of which the teacher points out the faults he may

21

have made, and the mode of avoiding them in future,
with the general rules and principles of grammar. It
will be usually found, that, at the end of six or eight

exercises of this kind, he will make no more faults in
grammar. The pupil continues to read the English
Testament in the manner above described, until he can
read it alone without the assistance of his teacher ; con-

inuing daily to present some exercise in French, as a
commercial or friendly letter or anecdote, till his style be
free from Anglicisms, which are the last faults which dis-
appear, and which reading alone can perfectly conquer.
To read French at sight with as much facility as Eng-
lish,— to write a friendly or commercial letter correctly
and readily, — to speak with correctness, though not at
first with fluency, — is the usual degree of facility and
knowledge my pupils acquire in this language ; a know-
ledge, as I have elsewhere remarked, certainly suscept-
ible of extent and accuracy, but much more than has ever
yet been communicated in any length of time on the
common system ; — indeed, as much as one man can com-
municate to another, and, certainly, sufficient for any
social and commercial purpose ; — and this knowledge
the pupil is immediately able to communicate to another,
while it is acquired in so short time, with so much cer-
tainty, and with so trifling an expense of labour and mo-
ney, that surely no man or woman, acquainted with the
existence of the system, will neglect to profit by it.

The following fact is too important in itself, and too
honourable to my system, to be omitted here. — Besides
the numerous classes which assembled at my house in
Cecil-street, private classes were attended in different
parts of the town. One of my partners met a class at
the house of Mr. John Smith, M.P. This gentleman was
so delighted with the system, that he conceived the idea

22

of rendering it the national mode of instruction, and of
founding a University for the propagation of it? For
this purpose, it was judged necessary to authenticate the
progress of a class of boy's in the Latin language ; and,
after communicating with me on the subject, he very
nobly subscribed one hundred pounds towards the ex-
pense of it. Several of his friends also subscribed, so
that 58225. were collected to defray the expense of the ex-
periment, which was confided to me. I had so Jittle doubt
of producing the utmost result that the wildest imagina-
tion could suppose possible in human beings, that my
sole care was to authenticate their progress. The fear
that the public might suppose the success a delusion,
deprived me of that judgment and reflection so neces-
sary for its success. I had just given up my establish-
ment in Cecil-street to my son-in-law, Mr. UNDERWOOD;
and it was feared that the reception of ten charity boys
into the house might injure the establishment. I there-
fore took a house in Gower-street, by which I incurred
a loss of above ££300. But the great mistake was, to
make the experiment of a foreign language on boys who
knew little or nothing of their own : — they were taken
from an obscure charity school — from the very lowest
grade of human beings ; — they knew no language further
than the expression of their physical wants or childish
pleasures — they could scarcely read their Testament —
they had never read any thing else. I know not how I
could be blind enough not to see the impossibility of
teaching such children (from ten to thirteen years of age)
Latin, without first teaching them English ; or how Mr.
Smith himself, and those gentlemen who assisted at the
examination of these boys before the experiment began,
and who fully authenticated their almost total destitution
of either words or ideas in their own language, did not

23

reflect on the utter impossibility of communicating to
them a greater knowledge of Latin than they possessed
of English. As they understood the greater part of the
words of the Testament, when these words were turned
into Latin for them, they could comprehend them also
in that language ; but when we got beyond the Testament,
to Cornelius Nepos or Caesar's Commentaries, into a
language more elevated, and the expression of ideas to
which their previous ignorance rendered them total
strangers, it was necessary with the Latin word to teach
the pupil also the English word, and, with both, the idea
which they represented ; — a task impossible to perform
simultaneously to any extent, and the impossibility of
which became so evident after they had gone through
the Gospel of St. John, the Epitome of the Historia Sacra,
and the De Viris Illustribus of Aurelius Victor, that I
made them read English every day, with a hope of ex-
tending their knowledge in that language, and thus ren-
dering their acquirement of another to any extentpossible.
But this consumed the time allowed for the experiment ;
and, therefore, in order that it should not wholly fail, I
turned their attention to the French and Italian langua-
ges, and in two months made them know of these two
languages as much, or more, than they knew of Latin :
that is, that they could understand an easy author in
either; translate it with perfect grammatical accuracy
and a correct pronunciation. So far as their knowledge
of English went, so far the system operated on them to
its utmost extent, and would, I doubt not, have sufficed
for one or two other languages in the same time : but
when their English words were exhausted, then arose the
insurmountable difficulty of communicating the know-
ledge of new ones ; and here, let it be said, en passant, is
another most formidable difficulty, which the present plan

24

of teaching the Latin opposes to the progress of the pupil
in common schools, instead of making him begin by
reading a considerable number of easy English authors,
such, for example, as those published by the Society for
Education in Ireland, and thus giving him a fund of in-
formation and ideas, as well as a knowledge of his own
language, the boy is put to study the English or Latin
grammar, which can communicate to him neither words
nor ideas. It is not, therefore, to be wondered at, that
the result is such as we see it every day. But another
difficulty attended this ill-fated experiment ; a want of
harmony arose, I know not how, between the gentlemen
who induced me to undertake it and myself: — they saw
me not — they imagined they had paid for the experiment
its full value, while I knew that it occasioned me a loss
of above £500. They appeared to consider me as a mere
workman in the business. Hurt with a treatment which I
then thought, and still think, I did not merit, at the end
of six months I left town and the examination of the
pupils to the gentlemen who had proposed the experi-
ment. The account given of this examination was as
follows : —

Extract from the Morning Chronicle of Wednesday, No-
vember 16th, 1825.— " Hamiltonian System. — We yester-
day were present at an examination of eight lads who have
been under Mr. Hamilton since some time in the month of
May last, with a view to ascertain the efficacy of his system
in communicating a knowledge of languages. These eight
lads, all of them between the ages of twelve and fourteen,
are the children of poor people, who when they were first
placed under Mr. Hamilton, possessed no other instruction
than common reading and writing. They were obtained
from a common country school, through the interposition
of a Member of Parliament, who takes an active part in pro-

25

moting charity schools throughout the country ; and the
choice was determined by the consent of the parents, and
not by the cleverness of the boys.

" They had been employed in learning Latin, French, and
latterly Italian ; and yesterday they were examined by se-
veral distinguished individuals, among whom we recognised
John Smith, Esq. M. P.; G. Smith, Esq. M. P. ; Mr. J.
Mill, the historian of British India ; Major Camac ; Major
Thompson ; Mr. Cowell, &c. &c. They first read different
portions of the Gospel of St. John, in Latin, and of Caesar's
Commentaries, selected by the visitors. The translation
was executed with an ease which it would be in vain to
expect in any of the boys who attend our common schools,
even in their third or fourth year ; and proved that the prin-
ciple of exciting the attention of boys to the utmost, during
the process by which the meaning of words is fixed in their
memory, had given them a great familiarity with so much
of the language as is contained in the books above alluded
to. Their knowledge of the parts of speech was respectable,
but not so remarkable ; as the Hamiltonian System follows
the natural mode of acquiring language, and only employs
the boys in analysing, when they have already attained a
certain familiarity with any language.

" The same experiments were repeated in French and
Italian with the same success ; and, upon the whole, we
cannot but think the success has been complete. It is im-
possible to conceive a more impartial mode of putting any
system to the test, than to make such an experiment on the
children of our peasantry."

On this statement the Edinburgh Review thus remarks:

" Into the truth of this statement we have personally in-
quired, and it seems to us to have fallen short of the facts,
from the laudable fear of over- stating them. The lads
selected for the experiment were parish boys of the most

R

26

ordinary description, reading English worse than Cumber-
land curates, and totally ignorant of the rudiments of any
other language. They were purposely selected by a gentleman
who defrayed its expence, and who had the strongest desire
to put strictly to the test the efficacy of the Hamiltonian
System. The experiment was begun the middle of May,
1825, and concluded on the 16th day of November, in the
same year mentioned in the extract, exactly six months
after. The Latin books set before them were the Gospel
of St. John, and parts of Caesar's Commentaries ; some
Italian book or books (what we know not), and a selection
of French histories. The visitors put the boys on where
they pleased, and the translation was (as the reporter says)
executed with an ease which it would be in vain to expect
in any of the boys who attend our common schools, even in
their third or fourth year."

This account, as the writer in the Edinburgh Review
justly remarked, was rather under than over the mark.
It was a fair and honourable account of it ; though their
knowledge of French and Italian was scarcely attended
to at the examination, far less their previous ignorance
of all language, and their emptiness of all ideas. Had I
chosen ten boys from a different class of society, whose
ideas had been expanded by conversation, and their
knowledge of their own language by reading ; or, if I
had made these ten boys begin by a course of two months'
reading the books above alluded to, the experiment would
have been complete. I have the fullest conviction, that
were I to repeat it on proper subjects, or, what is the
same thing, begin it by a two months' course of English
reading, having at the same time translations such as I
have since made, they could have been taken through a
course of thirteen volumes, and have been made to know
them perfectly. I consider the experiment a failure;

27

but no man else has a right to consider it so : it produced,
against every obstacle that imagination could offer to its
success, a progress manifold greater than had ever been
effected on the common plan, in the same length of time,
in three languages — a progress in the Latin justly esti-
mated a three years' progress on the common plan ; and
an accuracy in translating French and Italian, which on
the plan of our sch*ools, or in any other manner than by
my translations (which were not then made), has never
been acquired in any length of time whatever. The
University, of which the System gave the first idea, has
been reared -, but its founders, disdaining the more
humble but more useful ambition of rendering the lan-
guages an easy acquisition to the youth of this kingdom,
have taken a loftier flight, and SUCCEEDED. 'Tis well :
but until the primary schools (I mean those called gram-
mar schools) adopt a different mode of teaching the lan-
guages than that now in use, or until the Universities
take up the languages themselves on a better plan, the
best of them will do little towards a greater diffusion of
real science than at present exists.

In a work such as this, intended to give a full account
of the Hamiltonian System, I ought, perhaps, to mention
those who have written for and against it. To men-
tion all the latter, would alone require a pamphlet larger
than this : had there, however, been found among them
one single man of talent — one candid and able adversary
— I would gladly give his arguments here -, but I declare,
upon my honour, I have never read a single page which?
for fact or argument, deserved notice. The late Dr.
Jones was, perhaps, the most respectable writer who has
attacked the system in Europe j but Dr. Jones had a
system of his own, and his system and his attack were
equally weak : I judged them both utterly unworthy of
notice. B 3

28

Several able defences have appeared, both here and in
America. The best of these is, without doubt, that
which drew forth Dr. Jones's attack, from the pen of the
Rev. Sidney Smith, and appeared in the Edinburgh Re-
view for June, 1826. It is written with great strength
of reasoning, as well as humour : the matter was rich,
and he has made the most of it. He concludes an essay
of twenty-three octavo pages in the following manner :
after quoting some of the rules of the Eton and West-
minster grammars, he continues, —

" Such are the easy initiations of our present methods of
teaching. The Hamiltonian System, on the other hand, 1 .
teaches an unknown tongue by the closest interlinear trans-
lation, instead of leaving a boy to explore his way by the
lexicon or dictionary. 2. It postpones the study of grammar
till a considerable progress has been acquired. 3. It sub-
stitutes the cheerfulness and competition of the Lancasterian
system for the dull solitude of the dictionary. By these
means a boy finds he is making a progress, and learning
something from the very beginning. He is not overwhelmed
with the first appearance of insuperable difficulties ; he re-
ceives some little pay from the first moment of his appren-
ticeship, and is not compelled to wait for remuneration till
he is out of his time. The student having acquired the
great art of understanding the sense of what is written in
another tongue, may go into the study of the language as
deeply and extensively as he pleases. The old system aims
at beginning with a depth and accuracy which many men
never will want, which disgusts many from arriving even at
moderate attainments, and is a less easy and not more
certain road to a profound skill in languages, than if atten-
tion to grammar had been deferred to a later period. In
fine, we are strongly persuaded, that, the time being given,
this system will make better scholars ; and the degree of
scholarship being given, a much shorter time will be needed.

If there is any truth in this, it will make Mr. Hamilton one
of the most useful men of his age ; for if there is any thing
which fills reflecting men with melancholy and regret, it is
the waste of mortal time, parental money, and puerile hap-
piness, in the present method of pursuing Latin and Greek."
The effect of this critique was to call the attention of
the public afresh to a subject which had excited a lively
interest for two years, but which was so hotly opposed
on the one hand, and so highly applauded on the other,
that the public found it difficult to form a judgment.
Much good has, therefore, resulted from it ; but this
good has not been unmixed with evil. The writer, while
he defended the barbarisms which appeared in the first
edition of my Greek Gospel of St. John, which he judged
essential to the system, supposed that they might be
remedied by a free translation in addition to the inter-
lineary one. This unlucky idea, founded on his total
unacquaintance with the practical part of this mode of
teaching, induced a number of persons wholly ignorant
of the system — nay, of the very first principles of ana-
lysis— to make these double translations ; but not mak-
ing either analytical, utterly defeated the object of the
system, by obliging the pupil often to recur to his dic-
tionary for the meaning of the word, and to his master
for the ordo. These books, to render the deception
complete, have been sold as mine, and have done much
mischief by being confounded with my system, of which
they are as distant as the antipodes. I had foreseen
this 5 but fearing that my attack of what was yet only
ideal might seem illiberal, I did not allude to it in my
answer to the Edinburgh Review, which was as follows: —

" Hamiltonian System. — To the Editor of the Edinburgh
Weekly Journal. — Sir, The last Number of the Edinburgh
Review contains so able a defence of this system, that, as

30

its author, I think I cannot with propriety delay the public
expression of my gratitude to the eloquent writer of it. In
doing this, my intention is not to add any thing to what he
has said in commendation of the system, but rather to reply
to those criticisms which a spirit of candour and imparti-
ality has induced him to make. I regret that I had not an
opportunity of conversing with him ; it would have been so
easy to prove to his satisfaction, that the few points on
which he supposes it deficient or vulnerable, are, in fact,
abundantly guarded from the inconveniences he fears. And,
first, as to the mariner in which this system has been
brought before the public, by ADVERTISING ; this has been
often attacked by my opposers, and sometimes condemned
by my friends. My advocate in the Review thinks this cir-
cumstance ' unfortunate / and I would certainly coincide
with him in opinion, for it has cost me above one thousand
pounds, provided he or any other person will point out to
me any other way under Heaven in which I could have
brought it forward with the slightest hope of success. Un-
fortunate, indeed, and painful has it often been to me to pass
for one hour for a puffer or boaster ; but if a faithful and
simple representation of my system, if a fair exposition of
its results, appear incredible or impossible, as they are in
truth on the common plan, the fault is not in me, but in the
general ignorance in society of what a right system of teach- «
ing ought to produce. No doubt, if this appearance of
puffing could have been avoided, it would be desirable ; but
the mode of avoiding it, without abandoning my profession,
neither friends nor enemies have yet pointed out. Those
who think it was only necessary to demonstrate its effects
to the heads of colleges or schools, to statesmen, clergymen,
editors, or men of learning generally, in order to have my
system ushered to the notice of mankind, with all the
honours which attended inoculation or the vaccine, know

31

little of the world, or of the classes of men they speak of;
they know not the prejudices of education, the force of
mental habits, of preconceived opinions, of private interests,
or scholastic pride. If I had not advertised, I should never
have had a pupil ; and if I had not in my advertisements
told the infallible result of my lessons, instead of being able
to count ten thousand pupils formed in ten years, I should
probably find myself with thirty or forty children in some
obscure village of the United States. They are, besides,
widely mistaken, who suppose a system of teaching can be
formed in one day, and proposed to society in a perfect
state the next : practice, publicity, experience, opposition,
rivality, jealousy, discussion, are necessary, absolutely
necessary> to perfect it, and of those the Hamiltonian System
has had its full share. When I entered my scholastic career,
I had one single principle of what has since, by the re-union
of other principles, become a system. I TAUGHT, instead of
ordering to learn ; and by the application of this one mighty
lever, which had lain rusty for centuries, I effected wonders,
' I raised a world.' This is yet, and ever will be, the basis
of the Hamiltonian System ; analytical translation, repeti-
tion, and the other principles which now compose it, being
but the handmaids of this one mighty but universally neg-
lected principle. By the use of this one principle, I say, I
effected a progress, believed, and truly believed, impossible
on the usual plan, and I published this progress $ but, in
doing so, I said the truth only ; I appealed continually to
facts ; I gave not the names of my patrons, but the names
of my pupils, and at every step invited inquiry, and defied
investigation. Is this, I ask, puffing or quackery ? If it
be, tell me what truth and simplicity are, for I know them
not. But there is another and very simple argument for
advertising, which is not always taken into account by my
friends, when they affect to condemn it as unworthy the

32

author of an useful discovery ;— I had to live by it : it has
afforded me and my family an honourable support for the
last ten years ; and I would ask, are there any other terms
on which society could justly require of me to devote my
life to the purpose of diffusing the knowledge and the
benefits of it ?

" The second objection made by the eloquent advocate
of my system is, that emulation is discarded from it; * there
is/ he says, ' no change of seats.' This would be below the
dignity of the rank and age of my pupils generally, and with
boys the loss of time would be enormous ; besides, that it
has been found unnecessary, the delight and surprise of the
pupil at the perception of his progress at every step, produces
all the effects of emulation or jealousy in other systems.
I have known parents, nay, grandfathers and grandmothers,
enter my classes, expressly stipulating not to be called on to
recite, before the end of three lessons, become the most
lively members of the class, and the most zealous co-opera-
tors in its exercises.

The third objection is, that I ascribe to one word one
meaning only. This is a vital principle, absolutely neces-
sary in all analytical translation. I do not contend for it
as a theoretic invaluable truth, but as an operative and
practical principle. I know it has many exceptions, though
infinitely fewer than is generally supposed, but the principle
itself must never be lost sight of; it would instantly re-
plunge the unhappy pupil into the chaotic confusion and
uncertainties of dictionaries, from which it is the object of
the Hamiltonian system to rescue him. Jubeo and dolor,
which the Reviewer quotes as a proof that words may have
two meanings, do not form exceptions to this principle : to
command or to order are riot two meanings, but one. Grief
and sorrow the same -} but if he will look into Ainsworth,
he will find forjubeo and dolor a number of other forced,

33

figurative, or implied meanings for each of these words,
which, on the principles of my translations, must be utterly
rejected.

" The fourth objection, € I guarantee the progress of my
pupils.' This objection has been made for want of accurate
information relative to the nature of it. . The Reviewer,
' from experiments and observations which have fallen under
his own notice/ ASSERTS, that a boy of common capacity,
and studying four hours a- day, might, on this System, be
taught the four Gospels in Greek in six weeks ; in Italian
or French in three ; in German in five. His conviction of
this- is full and perfect ; why then not GUARANTEE it to the
timid or cautious father, who pays for this acquirement in
advance, or to the modest pupil who fears such a progress to
be beyond his power. — But what if he does not attend ?
What if he be sick, or idle, or stupid ? Here is precisely
the use of the guarantee — give him his lessons over again :
\this is all I mean.

" The triumph of the Hamiltonian system is, that, with
the utmost moral certainty, you- can predict the day, nay,
the very hour, when a pupil, utterly ignorant of a language,
shall be able to translate any given easy book in it with a
correctness of pronunciation, and an accuracy of translation
and grammatical analysis, which an adept in language may
equal but not surpass ; and that this day or hour may not
be at the distance of one year, as would be usually required
on the common plan, but, with the slightest exertion on the
part of the pupil and teacher, at the end of one month !
and that such is the certainty with which the teacher under-
takes the task, that he is willing to stake all he possesses,
his reputation, on the result ; that, in short, he can
GUARANTEE. — I am, with respect, Sir, Your most obe-
dient Servant, " JAMES HAMILTON. '"

" Edinburgh, \bth Aug. 18*26'."

B 5

34

Such is the History of the Hamiltonian System, which
I have brought down to the moment of delivering the
following Lecture in Liverpool. As it may tend to elu-
cidate some points in education which I have not before
treated on, I give it nearly in the words in which I de-
livered it to one of the smallest audiences I have ever
addressed. It was, however, delivered in the same room
in which I had twice before addressed an audience of
1600 persons; but I had, unluckily, appointed my
lecture at the same hour when the result of the Catholic
Bill was expected every moment, and the whole town
was collected in groups to hear the speech of Mr. Peel on
this all-absorbing question.

LECTURE.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,

The opinion that the science of Education has much
improved within the last thirty years is so general, that
it will be thought little less than heresy to deny it. It is
certainly true that an infinitely greater number of
persons, in proportion to our population, know how to
read and write at present than before the introduction
of the Lancasterian System and Sunday Schools. This
is, so far, a good and happy result ; but this does not
prove that education as a science, that is, the mode of
imparting knowledge, more especially that of the Lan-
guages, has advanced one step, or that the higher classes
are, in this respect, better educated now than they were
a century ago.

There are in this town, as well as in every other of the

35

United Kingdom, thousands of persons who bewail their
own want of literary instruction, which they modestly,
but erroneously, attribute to their inattention* and idle-
ness while at school; and who sincerely imagine they
are taking the necessary steps to obviate so great a mis-
fortune to their offspring, by sending them to the schools
where the nobility send theirs, in the fond hope that
their children will make a better improvement of their
time and opportunity than they themselves have done.
But the cause being the same, the result turns out in-
variably the same. The sons, as the fathers, having
sacrificed real and useful knowledge to the vain and
futile advantage of studying Greek and Latin with Lord
A. and Marquis B., return to the paternal mansion
almost as empty of either as when they left it. The Lan-
guages of Greece and Rome are, doubtless, well worth a
reasonable time spent in the successful study of them;
but no man in his senses will say that it is a rational
act of the parent to make his son study these languages
seven or eight years, with the almost absolute certainty
that even in that time he will not have obtained such a
knowledge of them as to render the literature of these
ancient nations familiar to him : or that even if he did,
if he learn nothing else, that that literature alone would
suffice to make him a man of Education, a sound scholar
of the present day. This is not educating his son, but
rather insuring, as far as in him lies, his ignorance and
consequent degradation ; for though the knowledge of
Greek and Latin does not tend to degradation, per se,
of itself, yet does it lead infallibly to this result 5 for if
eight years are given up to this study, and given up ex-
clusively to it, as is usually the case, our own language,
containing information infinitely more precious, more
important, History, Geography, Astronomy, Natural

36

History, and Natural Philosophy ; the literature of our
own and other nations; the knowledge of the produc-
tions of our own country and of others ; the commercial,
political, and scientific relations of the different nations
of the earth with each other ; their manners, habits,
commerce, customs, religion, and laws, exclusive of the
liberal sciences, and that fund of indirect information
which can be acquired by reading, and reading alone,
must be sacrificed to it ; and yet all these are absolutely
necessary to constitute a right education, and are in
themselves a far more essential part of it than Greek
and Latin.

As far, therefore, as ignorance can degrade, the un-
happy student is degraded by such a course, and remains
for ever degraded, unless at this period of life, that is,
on his quitting school, he betake himself to the study of
those objects to which I have above alluded, with tenfold
more ardour than he has ever studied Greek and Latin ;
a task of uncommon difficulty in itself, and rendered
still more difficult by a distaste for learning too fre-
quently contracted at school, and by the necessity in
which he now finds himself, to apply his time and talents
to some professional pursuit, 'on his success in which is
to depend his ease, affluence, and respectability, his very
existence in after life 5 and if I grant that many have
conquered all these difficulties, and have risen to emi-
" nence, respect, and riches, it must, I think, be conceded
to me, on the other hand, that thousands in the different
professions of Divinity, Law, and Physic, victims of the
system of Education I have here signalized, however
ardent their endeavours, have been unable to raise them-
selves to respect or real usefulness, nor would be able to
procure a subsistence by their profession, if they were
not assisted by relatives and friends, and often placed

37

in positions which render them, in a great measure, inde-
pendent of those for whom they officiate.

Still, it must be granted that the Greek and Latin lan-
guages are so wound up in all our institutions, profes-
sions, sciences, literature, language, — nay, in our very
religion, customs, conversation, amusements and social
•habits, — that no man will be hardy enough to deny
their overwhelming importance ; and the parent who
feels this importance, without being sufficiently aware
of the still greater importance of the other species of
knowledge to which I have alluded, and not knowing
how to attain both, consents, however reluctantly, to
suffer his son to tread the same barren rugged road he
had himself trodden ; and thus has the work of Educa-
tion been carried on, by prescription, for the last two
centuries. But how does the study of Greek and Latin
cause all this mischief? By the most simple process
that can be conceived : by taking up all the time of the
student, and consequently preventing him from READ-
ING ! — READING, whose effects mankind seem to be
utterly unaware of; — READING, the only real — the only
effectual source of instruction ; — READING, the pure
spring of nine-tenths of our intellectual enjoyments, —
the only cure for all our ignorances ; — READING, with-
out which no man ever yet possessed extensive informa-
tion;— READING, which alone constitutes the difference
between the blockhead and the man of learning ; — READ-
ING, the loss of which no knowledge of Greek particles,
nor the most intimate acquaintance with the rules of
syntax and prosody, will ever be able to compensate 3 —
READING, the most valuable gift of the Divinity, has
been sacrificed to the acquirement of what never con-
stituted real learning, and which constitutes it now less
than ever 5 and to the contemptible vanity of being sup-
posed a classical scholar, often without the shadow of a

38

title to it. That this picture is not charged, I would
appeal to the experience of almost every man capable of
understanding me, — to every man whose position in
society has given him an opportunity of knowing those
who compose it : I would appeal to the minister of the
Gospel, the physician, the lawyer, the gentleman. I
would entreat every parent to inquire into its truth,
before it be too late to prevent its baneful effects upon
his offspring.

READING is, then, often thousand-fold the importance
of any other science, because it is the mother of them
all j and as it must not be sacrificed to Greek or Latin,
so neither should it be sacrificed to any thing else. No-
thing can, in any case, be substituted for it : it is the milk
of the intellectual child ; it is the solid nourishment of
the grown man ; it is the wine of old age. It must not,
therefore, be sacrificed in childhood to spelling, to en-
deavouring to recite, to speak, or to read with propriety ;
because, to read with propriety before we have acquired
a considerable fund of knowledge and experience of life,
is impossible and useless. Neither should it be sacrificed
to grammar or composition, nor to getting by heart any
thing whatever, because these are utterly unattainable be-
fore we have read a great deal; nor to writing, for years,
large hand, in order to be able to write small ; to arith-
metic, at an age when it is wholly useless j nor to the
thousand other contrivances which it would seem that the
enemy of mankind could alone have put into the heads
of" school-masters, to prevent the child from READING,
that is, from learning any thing, and thus keep him, like
another Sisyphus, the whole time of his scholastic life,
rolling up the stone of science all the day, to see it roll
down every night, and then be obliged every morning to
renew the disgusting task.

As reading is the source of all real instruction, as is

39

self-evident to any man who reflects on the subject ; so
it is also the sole — the only means by which the words
of a dead language can be acquired. It is inconceivable
that those persons, whose business is the instruction of
others in the languages, should not have found out this
obvious truth, that to speak or write a language, we must
know it by heart; and that so far as we know it in this
manner, so far reaches the copiousness, harmony, and
variety of our style in speaking or in writing, and no
farther !

The man whohas not learned to read, knows only those
words which he has learned in conversation; his voca-
bulary is smaller than can well be imagined, still how-
ever, proportioned and analogous to the company he has
kept. But to write and speak with any pretensions to
purity, or elegance, or variety of style, we must have read
— read a great deal, and good authors. The first book
a man reads impresses on his mind and memory a num-
ber of words he either knew not before, or knew so im-
perfectly that he did not dare to use them ; every suc-
ceeding book augments this number, and with' it forms
gradually his judgment as to their fitness, singly or col-
lectively. No man has ever yet become a critic with
regard to language — no man has ever written or spoken
with elegance and propriety, by any other means.

Now if this be correct with regard to our own lan-
guage, how much more demonstrably correct is it with
regard to a foreign idiom, in which we derive no assist-
ance from conversation ? Here reading must do the
whole j and here precisely it is that we are prevented
from reading by our masters, and directed to obtain a
knowledge of the language by grammatical rules, by
philological criticisms, in the study of which we remain
occupied till we have no longer time to study at all ; till

40

we are called to take an active part in the duties of life.
I am conscious that I shall be thought verbose and dif-
fuse on this subject: "It is ridiculous," exclaims the
critic, " to tell us so much of the utility of READING ;
we all feel and know it." I beg your pardon, sir, not
one in a thousand of those for whom I write, know or
feel that the words of a language are to be got by read-
ing only : if they did, they would practise it for them-
selves and prescribe it to others, instead of giving them
a dictionary for that purpose.

Still, I have admitted the absolute necessity of acquir-
ing the Greek and Latin languages, and the Greek and
Latin languages are the cause of all the evil : how are
we to get over this difficulty? how remedy the evil with-
out putting away the cause ? for, if we study them as
we have hitherto done, there is no time for reading —
what, then, is to be done? STUDY THEM ON A DIF-
FERENT PLAN, if such a plan exists ; and if it does not,
seek and find one. BUT IT DOES EXIST : its existence
is demonstrated by evidence as clear as light ; it can be
denied by none ; it can be doubted only by the man who
has never inquired. Yes, the Latin and Greek lan-
guages, instead of occupying eight or ten years' disgusting
labour, may be acquired without difficulty, nay, with
interest and delight, and with them a fund of that infor-
mation which I have above signalized as more valuable
than they, from the reading of the authors in every branch
of literature found in these languages, — all may, I say,
be acquired with infallible certainty in eighteen months
or two years ; and will thus, instead of being a hinderance
to real and useful information, constitute in themselves
the most important and useful portion of it. The know-
ledge of them, instead of being confined to the Fellows
of Colleges, will be found, where they ought to be found,
in the study of the Lawyer, the Physician, and the Apo-

41

thecary, in the connting-house of the Merchant, in the
parlour of every private Gentleman ; every man of Edu-
cation will possess them really, instead of possessing,
as is now usuallythe case, the unmerited reputation of
knowing them.

I shall now enter into the details of the easy and
pleasing system I propose : in doing this, it will not be
required of me that I should enter into the proof of every
fact I advance. The Hamiltonian System has been now
before the public for many years ; its Author has not
been content with explaining it in every city of the
United Kingdom, but has taught many thousands of
pupils, and proclaimed their progress to the world ; every
where inviting the investigation of its friends, and defy-
i ng the scrutiny of its enemies ; every where appealing
to the testimony of his pupils, whose patronage alone
he has ever sought or obtained. His books have now
an extensive circulation. They are known on the Con-
tinent of Europe under the name of "Systeme Naturel;"
they are used in Calcutta, the United States, and the
West Indies ; and they have been counterfeited in Eng-
land by numbers, who imagined they were writing on
the Hamiltonian System, when they were only taking
the pupil back to the justly- scouted translations of
Locke, of Clarke,, of Stirling, and, in our own days, of ^
'fthe followers of Dumarsais ; who, not perceiving the
difference between interlinear and analytical translations,
have given false and incorrect translations interlineally. 7"
They have, at least, rendered homage to the merits of
that system which they attempted thus to appropriate
to themselves. But I come to my exposition, and ask
pardon for this long introduction.

It has been supposed that there are in the Greek and
Latin, if not in all other languages, certain fixed stamina,

42

certain fundamental rules or principles, the preliminary
knowledge of which is absolutely necessary to the ac-
quirement of the language itself. These soi-disant funda-
mental rules and principles are collected into what is
called a Grammar (a book, I believe, utterly unknown
to the Greeks and Romans), and put into the hands of
every student (not, indeed, to study or to comprehend,
that would be impossible), but to get by heart, before he
is permitted to translate ; at first sight, it appears the
most inconceivable folly, to study the rules by which
the words of a language are connected, with their deri-
vation and declension, before we know their meaning.
But the object of getting the Grammar by heart is not,
as is usually supposed, to give the student a critical, a
grammatical knowledge of the language 5 such an idea,
at the outset of his labours, would be altogether pre-
posterous, but it is TO ENABLE HIM TO LOOK FOR HIS

WORDS IN THE DICTIONARY ! Thus, if the boy were
put to translate the words da rnihi panem, without this
preliminary knowledge, as the Dictionary only contains
the root of each of these words, do, ego and panis, he
would not be able to find them. He must first know
how to conjugate the verb, do, that is, to use it in all its
moods, tenses, and persons, and to decline the pronoun
ego, and the noun panis, that is, to use them in all their
cases, before he can look for their meaning.

He has thus really to learn the language twice — first,
etymologically, in order to be able to use his Dictionary 3
and, secondly, by the help of his Dictionary, to learn the
meaning of words. The first is a Herculean labour, and
such as assuredly no ancient Greek or Roman ever
attempted. The latter is rendered inconceivably te-
dious and difficult, by the use he is obliged to make of
this Dictionary, in which a number (often from ten to

43

thirty) of implied, forced, or figurative meanings are
mixed up with the one true and literal meaning of the
word, among which the inexperienced student is ordered
to find or guess at the right ; to this, add the difficulty
of the ordo of this foreign idiom, the necessity imposed
on him of parsing every word, that is, shewing its ac-
cordance with rules, and exceptions to rules, of which
neither Homer nor Virgil ever heard, and that seem in-
vented only to vex and torment, and prevent the pro-
gress of the unhappy pupil.

I wish not to hurt the feelings of any man, much less
to satirize one of the most useful and respectable pro-
fessions in society, in thus describing the process of ac-
quiring these languages. The heads of schools know
this account to be exact, and every man who has
learned, or at least studied, these languages, knows it to
be exact. But the present teachers are not the authors
of the present system of the school : they teach as
thousands of the best and wisest of mankind have taught
before them, and as they were taught themselves : many
have already adopted, in whole or in part, the Hamil-
tonian System, and many are yet unacquainted with it.
Let us wait to condemn till they refuse to adopt a better
mode, fairly demonstrated to be truly such. Meantime,
I appeal to their testimony, that the pupil is occupied
many months, and sometimes years, not in studying,
but in learning to study , in acquiring, not the words of
the language, but the power of acquiring them. And
when, at length, he has acquired that power, the mode
in which he is obliged to use it is arduous in the extreme;
and if we add to this the idea of coercion, the non-
perception of his progress, and the disgust arising from
such an apparently useless and endless labour, we ought
not to be surprised that so many years are thus spent

44

in the acquirement of a very imperfect knowledge of
six or seven authors ; and that it then rarely happens
that the pupil would be able to read with pleasure, or
to understand without considerable labour and the help
of a dictionary, an author which he had not thus previ-
ously fagged over for many months. The above is the
chief hinderance to the success of our Education. See
the easy and effectual process by which it is obviated.

Give the pupil, instead of a Grammar and Dictionary
on the common plan, a Dictionary for every Book he reads,
comprehending not simply the roots of the words, but
every word ; let such a Dictionary point out the mood,
tense, and person of every verb, the case of every noun,
furnish a perfect analysis of the phrase and of every
word in it, so that the pupil shall not only be able to
translate his book with infallible certainty in the tenth
part of the time hitherto requisite, but be able, at the
same time, to parse it, that is, to have a perfect know-
ledge of its Grammar also. Now this Dictionary is
precisely a Hamiltonian Translation ! — take the following
examples.

ST. MATTHEW, Chapter viii.

5. Ei<7eX0oVn $e CLVTW E\Q Kawepvaovp., TrpoffrjXdev avroj
arorrap^oQ Trapa/caAwv CLVTOV*

6. Kat \syit)v' Kv'jOte, 6 TTCUC, JJLOV /3e€\r;rat iv rrj om'a

7. Kat \eyet avVw 6 'IrjcrovQ' 'Eyw eXdwv SepaTrevffw CLVTOV.

5. Ae avrw elffeXOorn (2. aor.) elg

5. And to him having entered into Capernaum,

eKaroirap^og TrpocrrjXOev (2. a-) ai»Vw, TrapaKaXwv CLVTOV,

a centurion came to to him, praying him,

45

6. Kcu XeywV Kvpie, 6 TTCUQ fjLov

6. And saying, O Lord, the child of me has been cast

iv rrj olidq, TrapaXvTiKog, detvtig j3a

in the house paralytic, dreadfully tormented.

7. Kat 6 'Irjffovg Xeygi avYw* 'Eya> eXOui' (2. a.)
7. And the Jesus says to him, I having come

avrov.
will heal him.

FABLE XI. of

JACTATOR.

VIR quidam peregrinatus, deinde in suam patriam re-
versus, aliaque multa in diversis viriliter gessisse locis
jactabat, atque etiam Rhodi saltasse saltum, quern nullus
ejus loci potuerit saltare ; ad hoc et testes, qui ibi inter-
fuerunt, dicebat se habere. Quidam autem ex iis, qui
aderant, respondens ait ; Heus tu, si verum hoc est, non
est tibi opus testibus : En Rhodus ; en et saltus.

AFFABULATIO.

Fabula significat, nisi prompta rei demonstrate sit,
omnem sermonem supervaciium esse.

JACTATOR.

The Boaster.

QUIDAM vir peregrinatus, deinde

A certain man having travelled-abroad, afterwards

reversus in suam patriam, jactabat que

having returned into his own country, did boast both

gessisse multa alia viriliter in

to have performed many other (things) manfully in

diversis locis, atque etiam saltasse (saltavisse)

different places, and also to have leaped

46

saltum Rhodi,

a leap of (at) Rhodes,

potuerit saltare

may have been able to leap J

hahere testes ad

to have witnesses to

ibi.
there.

Autem
But

quidam
some-one

respondens ait,
answering says,

est non
(there) is not

Rhodus : en
Rhodes : behold

Heus !
Ho!

nullus ejus loci
no-one of that place

dicebat se

he did say himself

interfuerunt
were present

aderant
were present

est
if

quern
which

et
and

hoc, qui

this, (those) who

ex us qui

out of those who

tu, si hoc
thou, if this

tibi testibus :

to thee with witnesses :

et saltus.

and (also) the leap.

verum,
true,

opus

en

behold

APPLICATION.

Fabula significat, nisi prompta demonstrate

The Fable signifies, unless a ready demonstration

rei sit, omnem sermonem esse supervacuum.

of a thing may be, every speech to be superfluous.

ROBINSON CRUSOE IN GERMAN.

Es war einmahl eine zahlreiche Familie, die aus kleinen
und grossen Leuten bestand. Diese waren theils durch die
Bande der Natur, theils durch wechselseitige Liebe genau
vereiniget. Der Hausvater and die Hausmutter liebten
Alle, wie ihre eigenen Kinder, ungeachtet nur Lotte, die
kleinste von Allen, ihre leibliche Tochter war; und zwei
Freunde des Hauses, R — und B — , thaten dasselbe. Ihr
Auferithalt war auf dem Lande, nahe vor den Thoren von
Hamburg.

47

Es war einmahl eine zahlreiche Familie,

There was once a numerous family,

lie bestand aus kleinen und grossen Leuten.
vhich consisted out of little and great people.

Diese waren genau vereiniget, theils durch die
These were closely united) partly through the

Sande der Natur, theils durch wechselseitige
mnds of the nature, partly through mutual

Liebe. Der Hausvater und die Hausmutter liebten
ove. The housefather and the housemother loved

ille, wie ihre eigenen Kinder, ungeachet nur
ill, as their own children, although only

Lotte, die kleinste von Allen war ihre leibliche
Charlotte, the least of all was their bodily

Fochter, und zwei Freunde des Hauses, R — und
laughter, and two friends of the house, R — and

B — , thaten dasselbe. Ihr Aufenthalt war auf
B — , did the same. Their residence was upon

lem Lande, nahe vor den -Thoren von

Lo the country, near before to the gates of

Hamburg.

Hamburg. »

FAVOLA XXII.

IL PESCATORE ED IL PICCOLO PESCE.

UN Pescatore avendo preso in mare un picciolo pesce,
»sso lo voleva persuadere che gli desse liberta, dicendo : lo
»ono or si piccolo ch' io ti faro poco pro ; ma se tu mi lasci
mdare, io crescero, e tu mi prenderai poi quando io saro
>rande, e cosi di me avrai maggior frutto. A cui il pesca-
:ore disse : io sarei ben pazzo, se quel guadagno ch' io ho
presentemente nelle mani, avvegna che sia piccolo, io il
lasciassi per isperanza di guadagno futuro, ancor che fosse
arande.

48

IL PESCATORE ED IL PICCOLO PESCE.

The Fisher and the little Fish.

UN Pescatore avendo preso in mare un picciolo pesce,
A Fisher having taken in sea a little fish.,

esso voleva persuadere lo che desse

he did will to persuade him that he might give

gli liberta, dicendo ; lo sono ora si piccolo che io
to him liberty, saying • I am now so little that I

faro ti poco pro ; ma se tu lasci mi
shall do to thee little profit j but if thou lettest me

andare, io crescero, e tu prenderai mi poi

to go, I shall increase, and thou will take me then

quando io saro grande, e cosi avrai

when I shall be big, and thus thou wilt have

maggiore frutto di me. A cui il pescatore disse ;
greater fruit of me. To whom the fisher said;

io sarei ben-pazzo, se quel guadagno che
I should be very-foolish, if that gain which

io ho presentemente nelle mani, avvegna-che
/ have at-present in the hands, although

sia piccolo, io lasciassi il per speranza di

it may be little, I might leave it for hope of

futuro guadagno, ancora-che fosse grande.

future gain, although it might be great.

PERRIN'S FABLES.— FABLE LXXXI.

LE CHAMPIGNON ET LE GLAND.

UN gland, tombe d'un chene, vit a ses cotes un cham-
pignon. Faquin, lui dit-il, quelle est ta hardiesse d' appro cher
si pres de tes superieurs? Race de fumier ! comment oses-
tu lever la tete dans une place ennoblie par mes ancetres
depuis tant de generations? Ne sais-tu pas qui jesuis?

49

Illustre seigneur, dit le champignon, je vous connais par-
faitement bien, et vos ancetres aussi : je ne pretends pas
vous disputer 1'honneur de votre naissance, ni la comparer
avec la mienne ; au contraire, j'avoue que je sais a peine
d'ou je suis venu ; mais j'ai des qualit6s que vous n*avez
pas 5 je flatte le palais des hommes, et je donne un fumet
delicieux aux viandes les plus exquises et les plus dedicates :
au lieu que vous, avec tout 1'orgueil de vos ancetres et de
votre extraction, vous n'etes propre qu'£ engraisser des
cochons.

APPLICATION.

On asouvent reproehe a 1' auteur du systeme Hamiltonien
son defaut de titres — il n'est ni reverend, ni docteur, ni pro-
fesseur! il n'est rien ! — d5 accord — mais ses traductions
sont bonnes — servons-nous en.

LE CHAMPIGNON ET LE GLAND.

The Mushroom and the Acorn.

UN gland, tombe d'un chene, vit a ses cotes
An acorn, fallen from an oak, saw to his sides

un champignon. Faquin, dit-il lui, quelle est ta
a mushroom. Scoundrel, said he to him, what is thy

hardiesse d' approcher si pres de tes superieurs?
boldness of to approach so near of thy superiors ?

Race de futnier! comment oses-tu lever la tete
Race of dunghill ! how darest thou to raise the head

dans une place ennoblie par mes ancetres depuis
in a place ennobled by my ancestors since

tant f de generations? Sais-tu qui je suis?

50 many of generations ? Knowest thou who I am ?

Illustre seigneur, dit le champignon, je connais
Illustrious lord, said the mushroom, I know

vous parfaitement bien, et vos ancetres aussi : je
you perfectly well, and your ancestors also: I

50

pretends ne-pas disputer vous 1* honneur de votre
pretend not to dispute to you the honour of your

naissance, ni comparer la avec la mienne ; au
birth, nor to compare it with the mine j to the

contraire, j* avoue que je sais a-peine d'ou je
contrary, I confess that I know scarcely whence I

suis venu ; mais j* ai des qualites que vous avez
am come ; but I have of the qualities that you have

n'pas ; je flatte le palais des homines, et je donne
not; I flatter the palate of the men, and I give

mi delicieux fumet aux viandes les plus exquises
a delicious flavour to the meats the most exquisite

et les plus dedicates, au lieu que vous, avec
owe? the most delicate, to the place that you, with

tout T orgueil de vos ancetres et de votre
all the pride of your ancestors and of your

extraction, vous £tes propre ne-qu' a engraisser des
extraction, you are proper but to fatten of the

cochons.
hogs.

APPLICATION.

On a souvent reproche a P auteur da
One has often reproached to the author of the

Hamiltonien Systeme son defaut de titres — il est n'
Hamiltonian System his • want of titles — he is not

ni reverend, ni docteur, ni professeur — il est n'rien !
nor reverend, nor doctor, nor professor he is nothing !

d' accord! mais ses traductions sont bonnes. Servons
agreed ! but- his translations are good. Let us serve

nous en.

ourselves of them.

Now, as far as translation goes, I would ask what can
the student possibly wish for more than he has here — the
precise (not implied, not forced, not figurative) meaning

51

f each word, so that he shall know that meaning wher-
ver he may hereafter meet it, and however connected ;
he ordo, or order, pointing out the grammatical analysis
f the phrase ; the case of every noun and adjective ; the
riood, tense, and person of every verb, by appropriate
nd unchanging signs ? I repeat my question : as far as
perfect translation goes, what more can be required or
/ished for than is here given ? The experience of twelve
ears, arid as many thousand pupils, enables me to reply
riumphantly, "Nothing." But for the Latin, the Gospel
f St. John, the Epitome Historian Sacrae, the Fables of
Esop, Eutropius, Aurelius Victor, Phaedrus, each perfect
vith analytical translations, at four shillings each;
Cornelius Nepos, six shillings and sixpence; Comrnen-
aries of Ca3sar, seven shillings and sixpence ; Selectae
: Profanis, 2 vols. ten shillings ; Sallust, seven shil-
ings and sixpence ; the Metamorphoses of Ovid,
leven shillings and sixpence ; and six books of Virgil,
ire already published, and some of them have passed
hrough several editions ; in all thirteen volumes, a
greater number than are ever read (even in part) in
schools. But, it will be asked, Are not several of these
mthors nearly of the same facility, and may not some
)f them be omitted without loss ? Those who make this
nquiry have forgotten all I have said of the necessity of
•eading : every one of them should be read ; and I would
lave published still more of them, did I not know that
he student who has a perfect knowledge of these thir-
;een volumes will be able to read, with facility and plea-
sure— Cicero, Seneca, Horace, Terence, 'Li vy, or any
)ther classical author ; but I would not answer for his
3eing able to do so before he shall have read them all.
Ill the above authors have the penultima marked when
it is short ; when it is not marked, it is long 5 and thus,
c 3

52

by this easy contrivance, the practical, and consequent-
ly useful, part of prosody, is acquired, without costing
the pupil a moment's study, and without fear of hi&
making a false quantity in reading. Each of these
volumes can (with delight and interest) be acquired by
the pupil in four or five weeks, and even sooner, if it be
thought necessary that he should devote his whole time
to this study. In fifteen months he will be able to take
up any one of them and read it with ease and pleasure,
and a perfect intelligence of every word. And to ac-
complish this unspeakably happy revolution, no effort is
required on the part of the teacher ; the constitution of
his school remains the same ; he has no more trouble,
nay, infinitely less, than he had before. He prescribes
a task as before, but a pleasing and an intelligible one j
the pupil acquires it with facility, not a dozen or twenty
lines merely, but from five to ten pages. The master is now
no longer dreaded, and treated as an enemy ; he is loved
and cherished as a friend. Here is no need of coercion ;
what is so easy to be acquired, is acquired by the pupil
from the desire to fulfil his duty, or at least to avoid
being thought stupid or idle by his fellows. This will
leave him time for every other useful and pleasing study;
especially READING in his own language, or in some
other modern language, the French, Italian, or German,
for which books are prepared on the same plan, and
which the pupil may learn to read in a few months with
as much pleasure .as English. Here then is the plan
which conciliates and renders rational the study of Latin
and Greek, because on this plan alone is the success cer-
tain, and the time devoted to it not extravagant.

But there are two objections to this improvement : first,
this mode will not teach him grammar! Those who make
this objection cannot see the wood for trees ! to analyze

53

a phrase word for word, to translate it by corresponding
parts of speech, and to point out the grammatical con-
struction of the phrase — the mutual dependance of all
the words of a sentence on each other, is not this the
very essence of grammar ? Could Horace or Virgil do
more ? Ay, but the rules ? Horace and Virgil knew
none of these rules. But the examiners at the Univer-
sity do, and insist on the knowledge of them, though
they do not insist on an extensive knowledge of the
meaning of words. I am sorry for it ; but let us see if
we cannot satisfy them : when the pupil has read with
that degree of accuracy which constitutes the very
essence of the Hamiltonian System, the thirteen volumes
above-mentioned, or even half of them, give him an Eton
Grammar, let him read it over with attention ; give
him Clarke's Introduction to the making of Latin ; let
him read the rules in both with attention, and let his
master prescribe the study which may be necessary for
him to satisfy his superiors -, a few days will abundantly
suffice for the purpose. I would, however, guard him
against the positive errors of both — the futility of several
of Clarke's rules, the extreme complexity of others. I
would caution him against the signs of the tenses given
in the Eton Grammar, of which scarcely one is right,
Take an example of one grossly wrong : the sign of the
potential mood is may or can; now I defy the most learn-
ed friend of this establishment to form a single phrase in
English in which the word can is the sign of a time. But
all this is straying from my subject : I meant to shew
that when the boy can read and understand a Latin au-
thor with facility, the master will be at liberty to make
him as profound a grammarian as the author of the Her-
mes, if he please, and that without the expence of more
than one week.

54

The second objection is, the translation is in bad Eng-
lish, following the idiom of the Latin language, and not
that of his own ; the pupil will therefore contract the ha-
bit of speaking bad English : an objection as rational as
the former. To speak or write good English, we must
converse with those, whether living or dead, who speak
or write it well: if we do this (and we must do it in order
to have any just pretensions to a liberal education), there
is no fear that, in common discourse or writing, we shall
substitute the barbarisms of a foreign idiom for that
purity of diction and style which is acquired by reading
the classical authors of our own country. There has
hitherto been no instance of such an anomaly, and never
will while the world lasts.

But there is one more objection, and though last, not,
perhaps, the least important: will not the introduction of
this system destroy our schools ? If fifteen months suf-
fice for the Latin, how can the teacher count, as at present,
on keeping the pupil four or five years ? The time for the
reception of instruction, as marked out by nature, can-
not be changed by any change in the mode of communi-
cating that instruction ; the difference will be, that the
student will quit his school an accomplished scholar and
a well-informed gentleman ; and that the certainty of
arriving at this desired point (a certainty which never
before existed) will induce thousands to give their chil-
dren a classical education (because it will be as cheap as
any other), who on the present system would never have
thought of it; so that the adoption of this system will
fill the schools instead of emptying them ; will double the
number of pupils instead of lessening it.

The opposition this system has every where met with
from school-masters, so singularly contrasted with its
enthusiastic reception from all those who have had an

55

opportunity of witnessing its effects, can only arise either
from the fears to which I have above alluded, that its
introduction would prove injurious to their schools, or
from the idea that its advantages are really chimerical —
that I really do not teach Grammar ; that Grammar is
inconsistent with the System. To this I think -I have
already given a sufficient answer. But though experience
and reflection have taught me thus to judge of Grammar,
I do not pretend that other men should see with my eyes.
I think that the theory of Grammar should be taught
only when the pupil can read the language, and under-
stand at least an easy book in it. Thousands more"*-*
learned than I, think it should precede the study of the
language. Well, let those who are of the former opinion
teach as I do, and those who are of the latter, make the
boy study his Grammar three or six months. But after
this suffer him to use a translation, not such as has often
been scouted from our schools, but a grammatical, an
analytical translation j the loss then will only be the first
six months, if even that, and the remaining progress of
the pupil such as I have here described it ; it will be
such as to be practically and really useful to the boy,
fulfilling really the designs of the parent.

Before I conclude this lecture, let me entreat the
School-master to reflect whether it may not be his in-
terest to adopt the mode of tuition here proposed to him
voluntarily, rather than have it forced on him by the una-
nimous voice of society — for indubitably one of these
things must be the necessary and immediate result of the
impulse now given to Education throughout the civi-
lized world. Mankind are anxious for real knowledge,
and will not much longer put up with the shadow of
it. Either the Teacher will find out a mode of communi-
cating a knowledge of the learned languages in a shorter

56

time/and more efficaciously, than has been hitherto done,
or the study of these languages will be relinquished al-
together. If another mode be not taken to acquire La-
tin and Greek, our new Universities will be of no avail.
This mode is here offered ; it has been proved by above
20,000 examples. Its theory is as rational as its practice
is successful. The Classical Teacher has already made
a sufficient stand for the customs of his forefathers. It
is time to yield to the united voice of reason, truth, and
nature — of good sense and common honesty ; for I will
ask the Clergyman, the honest, conscientious School-
master, if he can continue to make his pupil wade
through Grammars, Exercise Books, and Dictionaries
for years, for the attainment of what I have here proved
.may be obtained by a far easier, more certain, more ef-
fectual, more pleasing mode, in a few months ? The an-
swer is obvious ; it will be that of an honest man, he will
try the Hamiltonian System ; and, in trying it, will give
it fair play, and use, not the books of disingenuous and ig-
norant interlopers, but those of the author of the system.
Thus have acted the heads of the highly respectable
schools of Hazelwood and Bruce Castle, which I have had
pleasure in recommending to those who have done me
the honour of consulting me on this subject. Thus has
acted the Rev. W. Stevens, of Maidstone, whose
pamphlet on the success ,of the experiments made on
this system, in his Establishment, will be read with in-
terest and pleasure by all who are in earnest for the dif-
fusion of knowledge.

After I had given this pamphlet to the press, the
Westminster Review for April has appeared, with a long
and able article on this system. The writer appears to

57

have had a better opportunity of witnessing its effects
than the writer in the Edinburgh Review. He analyses
it with talent and interest, and proves, by a strict philo-
sophical anatomy of its principles, first, " that there is
power enough in the system to produce all the effects
which are said to be accomplished by it" — and, secondly,
4< that there is evidence enough to prove that these results
are actually effected by it."

It is not a little singular that these eloquent friends of
the Hamiltonian System condemn alike the mode in
which it has been offered to the British public ; and, ap-
parently, on account of that mode, which they, however,
acknowledge was unavoidable, and, without the slightest
personal knowledge of me, think it useful to their argu-
ment to speak of me with the least, possible degree of
courtesy that one gentleman (if they will allow me that
title) can speak of another. This good, however, results
from this, it will not be thought that these articles were
written to please me — far less that I paid for them. This
writer thinks it necessary to intimate that he thinks my
talents, whether natural or acquired, of a very humble
order. But is not this a singular reproach to the author
of a system which he signalizes with so much talent, as
«' being a most extraordinary improvement on any plan which
the ingenuity of the human mind had hitherto devised ?" Is
it not, I say, a singular reproach to make, " that 1 have
done it without talent ?" You have won the battle, routed
the enemy, and after a twelve years' struggle, silenced
your adversaries, and put a successful end to the war ;
but you have no claim to personal respect or consideration
— we are under no obligation to you, as you never com-
manded more than a few thousand men ! Might I not
thus successfully retort ? Without talent, without learn-
ing, without wealth, without name ; an obscure individual;
c 5

53

as these gentlemen are pleased to represent me ; after
having passed five and twenty years, not in my study,
but in my counting-house, I have accomplished what
Locke and Milton, and Dumarsais, and a number of other
wise and good men, have acknowledged and deplored the
want of for centuries ; namely, a rational and efficient
system of Education, which they have attempted to supply,
and failed in doing ; and I have accomplished this with-
out being indebted to these writers, or any other for a
single principle of my system, for a single idea. Go, you
gentlemen of wealth and learning, you men of connexions
and talents, you men who have your rulers for your pa-
trons, and can wield all the influence of the Edinburgh
and Westminster Reviews, — go and do something great
and good and useful, in proportion to the magnitude of
your means when compared with mine ; and, in the mean
time, while you render a service to your generation, and,
I trust, to every succeeding one, in pointing out the utility
of the Hamiltonian System to teachers and parents, do
not point the finger of scorn at the author, or deprive him
of the merit, as well as the profit, of his invention — do
not neutralize all you have said of good and useful in the
system, by giving your countenance to books utterly at
variance with that system, contemptible, in a literary point
of view, false and incorrect, as Hamiltonian ; and which,
by the most disingenuous manoeuvres, have been sold in
every part of the kingdom as the production of the
author of the Hamiltonian System. I do not believe
there was any intention of this kind in the mind of the
writer of the article in question ; but as it mentions but
few of the books published by me, the series of which
constitutes the very essence of the system when applied
to schools, his remarks may do the same mischief that
those of the Edinburgh Review effected, by dividing the

59

attention of the Teacher, and leading him to believe that
any other book may do as well as mine, and that he rnay
deviate widely from the system with impunity. This
idea, and the wish to amalgamate other systems with it,
has not hitherto given the system fair play, especially in
the hands of inexperienced persons, who have not con-
descended to consult the author himself, upon whom,
however, falls infallibly the blame of failure in every ex-
periment made, whether on the Hamiltonian System, or
in opposition to all its dictates and principles.

Upon the whole, I think the system much indebted to
the writer of this article. He has not only generally
given a faithful analysis of the system and its necessary
results, but he has actually forestalled, as my readers will
perceive, much of what I have here written ; which he
was enabled to do by his having in his hands the second
edition of the essay written in New York, to introduce
my mode of teaching, as detailed in the beginning of this
pamphlet — an advantage which I had not myself. The
writer is, therefore, entitled to the homage of my grati-
tude, which I most sincerely and respectfully offer him j
with the reserve, however, of one or two passages, to
which I think it necessary briefly to reply.

Five persons are by no means the best possible number
for a class. A man totally inept in the mode of teaching
on this system could alone have given such information
to this writer. I have never had better classes, public
or private, than those which counted from fifty to one
hundred members ; never had any whose exercises were
more interesting and pleasing to each particular member,
nor in which a better progress has been made ; while,
at the same time, the incorrigibly idle, the really occu-
pied, those obliged frequently to be absent, can get a
fund of useful instruction without being exposed to the

60

criticism of a private class, because they may be silent.
It is truly wonderful that this enlightened critic should
have overlooked one of the greatest advantages of the
system — that which decides more distinctly than any
other its superiority over the Lancasterian System, — that
here, monitors are superfluous ; instead of a dozen boy-
ish and ignorant teachers, one able professor teaches the
whole — teaches with the same facility as many as can
conveniently hear him.

The Reviewer does me injustice, though I hope and
believe involuntarily, when he remarks, that ' ' when Mr.
Hamilton speaks of a language being to be acquired in
so many hours, the number stated by him is not the true
number required to be a proficient in the tongue 5 to
these must, in all fairness, be added the number spent
in reading in private." Now, I have never used such
language as is here imputed to me. I have never^,
either in my lectures or advertisements, asserted that a
language was to be learnt in any number of hours, nor used
any phrase corresponding to it -y nor ever held out such
an idea to my pupils or the public. I have, on the con-
trary, in every public lecture, without, I believe, one excep-
tion, made use of language tantamount to this — " Ladies
and gentlemen, if you will do me the honour to become
my pupils, I will guarantee that you shall be-able to read
a French book with facility in two or three sections -, but
if, when you have acquired that faculty, you should not
be disposed to read, then do not come to me for the two
latter sections, for I can neither teach you to write nor
speak." I appeal to every pupil I have ever taught for
the correctness of this statement, and whether I have
not constantly held the same language ; and yet, strange
to say, I begin to doubt — I fear to mention it, before the
the thing has been fully authenticated by repeated ex-

61

periments, — I say, I fear to mention the possibility of
teaching a person to write and speak who may have read
only my three class books, the Gospel of St. John, Perrin,
and the Recueil Choisi ; but the continuance of the im-
provement in speaking and writing of several members
of my public class at present in Manchester,who, I know,
have never read more than those books, and perhaps not
all those, becomes every day more striking and astonish-
ing. To read is, as I have so often said, the secret to
know all things ; and among them it is, above all, the
only secret to acquire the words of a language; but if
the class be rightly and diligently exercised in the use of
the verbs, as I have already mentioned, after the know-
ledge only of the class books, I believe it an indubitable
and pleasing truth, that he may get the use of the smallest
possible vocabulary in writing and speaking. But this
vocabulary can only be acquired by the use of the books
in question, for they alone give the precise meaning of
the word -, nor would a vocabulary acquired on the com-
mon plan ever produce such a result.

To conclude. — The Hamiltonian System has now
passed through as severe an ordeal to test its practica-
bility and usefulness, as perhaps any other invention
which can be mentioned. Opposed, step by step, during
twelve years, by those who might justly be supposed the
best qualified to judge of its merits, it has triumphed
over all opposers, and diffuses its benign and genial in-
fluence gradually through the minds of those who once
opposed it with violence. It may, therefore, be now used
in schools or private teaching, in the same manner as
any other system which preceded it, without subjecting
the teacher to those rules which the author thought ne-
cessary to prescribe to himself.

Let, then, the teacher apply the system diligently and

62

honestly ; but, having done so, he ought not to be obliged
to guarantee any thing. The pupil who will attend, who
will read, will not the less make the utmost progress
that the system is capable of producing} while the
teacher will no longer be the victim of his confidence
in the reality of its powers, by the incorrigible dulness
or idleness of his pupil, whether child or adult.

The course may be given quarterly or monthly, with
as much advantage as by sections, which were established
for the sole purpose of pointing out to the pupil the exact
quantum of knowledge guaranteed to him in a certain
number of lessons. While this progress was considered
impracticable, it was necessary, in my opinion, to gua-
rantee it to the pupil, in order to convince him there was
no delusion ; but as this fear can no longer exist, the
division into sections is by no means of indispensable
necessity in the system. Nevertheless, I think this mode
of ascertaining the progress of the pupil preferable. But
I would advise the Hamiltonian teacher to do with all
languages as I have myself done with the Latin and
Greek; not to stipulate an absolute proficiency in any
fixed number of sections, but continue to give instruc-
tions until the pupil is satisfied he possesses as much as
his teacher can communicate. This arrangement will
render its adoption easy to every professor of languages,
and will prevent the discontent of those who, having
neglected their class, are, on the plan hitherto adopted,
without a remedy.

Almost every literary publication of respectability in
the United Kingdom has spoken favourably of the Hamil-
tonian System ; the following extracts, expressive of the
sentiments of a few of them, did not appear in the first
edition of this pamphlet : —

63

Extract from the Atlas of March ISth, 1827:—" The
plan of teaching languages according to the system named
after Mr. Hamilton, has been the subject of much contro-
versy. The writers have scribbled about it and about it,
but do not appear to have satisfied either the public or them-
selves. It is, in fact, a question of experiment. All the
reasoning in the world could not settle it ; but the applica-
tion of a little judgment and good sense may enable the ex-
perimentalist to conduct his investigation in the shortest
and safest manner, and to draw from it sound and practical
inferences. The mode of teaching languages by grammar
is this: —a language is first resolved into its component
parts, and by examining the relations of each class of words
to one another, general rules are thence drawn for the re-
construction and re-arrangement of them. When these rules
are reduced to their most general form, they constitute, with
the addition of a few definitions and axioms relative to lan-
guage fundamentally considered, what is called a grammar.
A child is taught to remember these abstract rules for the
composition of words. When it is supposed he has ac-
quired a sufficient stock of them, a piece of language in its
constructed state is put into his hands, which it is required
of him to submit to two processes : the first is to learn the
value of each word separately ; and the next to learn their
mutual relations, and thus ascertain the value of the whole
as connected. The first process is performed with the aid
of a dictionary ; the second with the aid of the grammar,
either bodily, or as its rules are remembered. By a con-
stant use of the dictionary, the student in time acquires a
vocabulary : by a rigorous application of the general abstract
rules, he learns to apply them to particular cases. Take the
following simple instance : — It is given to the student to
extract the meaning out of the following sentence : Do tibi
librum. The dictionary gives him the words, and the

64

grammar shews him that verbs " of giving'5 govern two
cases — an accusative of the thing given, and a dative of the
person to whom the thing is given: he gathers, therefore*
that the sentence means, " I give you a book." If he
meets with the verb do again, he expects two cases after it,
looks, and probably finds them ; if he finds the same words'
again, he may recollect their meaning. An assiduous prac-
tice of this exercise makes a boy, if he is quick and atten-
tive, a tolerably good Latin scholar in about seven years.
*"" The Hamiltonian plan is nearly the reverse of this. A
piece of composition is put into the student's hands in its
entire state. He is supplied with the exact value of each
word as it. stands. By continuing this comparison a suffi-
ciently long time, he acquires a vocabulary without the aid
of dictionary and grammar. This vocabulary is of a pecu-
liar kind; it embraces dictionary, grammar, and phrase-
book. For not only is the word given as to meaning in one
form, but in all forms. Not only is it found in do, ' I
give/ but dare, ' to give,' and dant, ' they give ;' not only
tu, f thou' but tibiy ' to thee/ and te, ' thee.' Now, as words
are continually occurring, and as a man really stands in
need of no very large suppellex verborum in order to read
many books and hold much conversation, there seems little
doubt but that these purposes are more rapidly answered
by the latter system. If it were desirable to make a perfect
master of a language ; if it were desirable that each student
of Latin should prove a Quintilian, and a life was not con-
sidered too much to devote to the object ; then the plan
pursued in our public schools would undoubtedly be the
best. For the ordinary purposes, however, for which Latin
is learned in this country, the Hamiltonian plan is certainly
the most rapid, and the most efficient, and it quickly enables
the learner to read the ordinary books ; and if he is inclined
to carry his investigations deeper, there is nothing to pre-

65

vent him. In the case of all modern languages, we think
there is even less doubt of its superiority. If a person
were to visit Germany and learn German, as Mr. Coleridge
describes himself to have done, without a master, without a
grammar, and solely by experience, this would be the Ha-
miltonian plan ; which is, in short, the mother's plan with
her child. In the infant's case, things are interpreted by
corresponding words ; in the case of two languages, the
thing is a word, wjiich is explained by a corresponding
word. The Hamiltonian plan has another advantage 5 it
is the readiest way of acquiring the idiom of another lan-
guage. This is done by the contrast between the perfect
foreign phrase, and the very imperfect English phrase.
Suppose the Italian phrase to be thus interpreted, —

innanzi
before

ai

to-the

piedi
feet, —

the very awkwardness of the English expression impresses
the difference on the memory almost indelibly."

Extract from the Atlas of May 10, 1829 :— "The diffi-
culty of establishing a new system that goes fundamentally
to uproot our preconceived notions and confirmed habits ,
is much greater than people generally suppose ; there are
old prejudices to be conquered, settled principles to be set
aside, and popular modes to be unlearned. Improvements
are frequently of so startling a kind, that they are received
as innovations, and the inventor or introducer of novt'
theories has not only to struggle against predilections, but
to argue the age out of its scepticism. 'It were good,
therefore/ says Lord Bacon, 'that men, in their innova-
ions, would follow the example of time itself, which indeed
innovateth greatly, but quietly, and by degrees scarce to be
perceived; for otherwise, whatsoever is new is unlocked
for ; and ever it mends some, and pains others ; and he that

66

is holpen takes it for a fortune, and thanks the time ; and
he that is hurt, for a wrong, and imputeth it to the author/
It is for these reasons that a necessity yet exists for a
further and repeated elucidation of the Hamiltoniari System,
which has been long enough before the world to spread the
knowledge of its peculiar merits, and which has excited
more discussion than any other plan for the teaching of
languages that has ever been promulgated. If it have not
crept into the confidence of the majority of thinking
people, the source of its failure must not, prima facie, be
attributed to its internal imperfections, but rather to the
obstacles that impede conversion. Few persons are willing
to acknowledge that they have been all their lives in the
wrong ; and the natural tendency to defend, even at the
expense of judgment, those opinions which they wanted saga-
city to controvert themselves, operates to prevent them from
admitting the fallacies that have been exposed by others.

"In the pamphlet before us, Mr. HAMILTON again pro-
pounds his system, with a slight sketch of the history of its
progress. This little history furnishes so many instances
of the resistance offered to his scheme by those who were
impressed with the paramount 'wisdom of our ancestors/
that we are induced to present our readers with a few illus-
trative passages. The first suggestion of the system is thus
candidly related by Mr. Hamilton."

After having made some extracts from the first edi-
tion of this pamphlet, the Reviewer proceeds : —

" At first the progress of his pupils was slow, and he
discovered that the General (D'Angeli's) plan of parsing
as well as translating would do only with linguists ; this
discovery revealed to him, for the first time, that principle
which forms a distinctive and remarkable feature in his
system, the postponement of grammar until his pupils had
accomplished half their reading course, during which the

67

inflexions of the verbs, and the changes of the other decli-
nable parts of speech were rendered familiar, and became
practically fixed in their minds. The success of the stu-
dents spread his fame ; ' and/ continues Mr. Hamilton, ' I
had in the first short year about seventy pupils who paid
me twenty-four dollars each, for half a course, and thus
confirmed me a teacher for life/ From New York he pro-
ceeded to Philadelphia, where his success was still more
flattering, and where he perceived that his mode of transla-
tion was, in fact, a strict analyzation of grammar ; a prin-
ciple which he is surprised should have escaped the genius
of Milton, Locke, Clarke, and Dumarsais. As he pro-
gressed in practice, new lights broke upon him ; and, at
last, after a long experience, he was enabled to bring his
various principles into a more regular form, and to pro-
duce that system which properly bears his name.

, " The opposition given to Mr. Hamilton while his sys-
tem was in course of development, was the natural re-
sult of that scepticism with which all novel theories are
received ; and it is well for the interests of education that
an inquisition so uncompromising should have sat upon so
important an innovation ; for we sincerely believe that it
has fully established the utmost promise which even the
'sanguine teacher anticipated. Some of the objections
taken to harass Mr. Hamilton were unworthy of literary
men ; he was repeatedly taunted with his mode of adver-
tising, which it was asserted bore too much the appear-
ance of quackery. To this taunt there are two answers ;
first, that his mode of advertising, whether judicious or in-
judicious, had nothing to do with the intrinsic value of his
system, which, in fairness, should have been tried upon
its own internal merits alone 5 second, that he possessed
no other means of making the world acquainted with his
system, except by giving it publicity in the usual way. All

68

the errors, too, of those professors, who, adopting a
of the Hamiltonian System, and retaining a portion of the
own, had endeavoured to create a motley scheme of
struction less decisive than either, were charged upon hin
as proofs of the deficiencies and inconveniences of his pla
Against numerous equally fallacious and superficial obje
tions he had to contend : the practical results exhibit the
individual and his labours in the most favourable point of
view. He has no reason to complain of resistance, since
it has produced such convincing evidence of his strength.

" It is unnecessary to discuss this system in detail. We
believe the public are very generally acquainted with it ;
but we are anxious to close our notice with a few short
observations in elucidation of those prominent points that
appear to distinguish it from all others that have been
hitherto brought into operation. Perhaps the first pecu-
liarity that strikes the inquirer' is, that Mr. Hamilton
teaches languages first and grammar after. This is a com-
plete inversion of the old mode ; but it is more consistent
with nature. Grammar is undoubtedly founded upon lan-
guage, and not language upon grammar. Language ex-
isted first, and grammar arose afterwards as a conventional
harmonizer and assistant. The obvious course, therefore,
is to obtain some acquaintance with the character of a lan-
guage before we study the method of using it correctly.
It is evidently absurd to teach the nomenclature and govern-
ment of a science, of the component materials of which we
are wholly ignorant. Schoolmasters formerly made pupils
get a grammar by rote in Latin, before they knew one word
of Latin. To substitute a real for a mechanical progress
seems to be the object of this new, but simple principle.
The next feature of novelty is the literal and analytical
translation adopted by Mr. Hamilton. Words are rendered
strictly by corresponding parts of speech, preserving accu-

69

rately the cases, moods, tenses, and persons of the original.
Thus, although some in elegancies and barbarisms of neces-
sity creep into the translation, the pupil is taught the exact
value and relation of each word 5 and learns insensibly, by
a close analysis as he proceeds, the whole grammatical con-
struction of the language he studies. Much labour, much
time, much perplexity, is saved by this process, which
smooths all the difficulties and embarrassments in the way
of acquiring profound philological knowledge. In all former
systems the pupil was disgusted by being forced to labour
over tasks he did not understand ; in this system he com-
prehends every word as he goes on, and by interesting his
understanding, his attention is fixed, and his curiosity ex-
cited. The association of the mind and memory is culti-
vated ; the learner easily recollects that which is thoroughly
clear to his sense ; and finding that at every step he gains
a portion of knowledge familiarly and quickly, he will re-
quire no further incitement to persevere, than the pleasure
he receives in increasing his intellectual resources without
toil or delay. In the pronunciation, also, of foreign lan-
guages, Mr. Hamilton has cleared away the old impedi-
ments. He has discovered — if that can be called a disco-
very which is merely the assertion of a truth that had been
long manifest to people who reflected on the subject —
that the simple sounds of all languages are the same, the
signs only by which they are represented differing. The
admission of that fundamental principle gets rid of a world
of pains-taking ; if people can be taught to pronounce pour
as if it were spelt poor, metis as if it were spelt may, &c.,
they would perceive that a true pronunciation is much
simpler than it seems. Two advantages belong to the
system that deserve to be noticed. As many pupils may
be "taught at the same moment as can be collected in an
apartment together : for the instruction that guides and

70

•

corrects one is equally applicable to all who are within
hearing ; and the labour of the pupil is transferred to the
teacher, who, as Mr. Hamilton quaintly expresses it,
' teaches, instead of ordering to learn/ These advantages
are important, and worthy of more extensive consideration
than we can afford to give them ; however, we may have
sufficiently discharged our duty, by keeping before the
public a system that is equally honourable to the age, and
to the man who had the firmness to persevere in its pro-
duction. Our opinions are not lightly delivered ; we have
examined all Mr. Hamilton's books, we have observed his
mode of instruction in full operation, and we are fully im-
pressed with the practicability and utility of his plan. It
abbreviates the period of study, reduces the amount of
labour, and increases, beyond all other systems, the actual
acquirements of the pupil."

Extract from th? Atlas of May SQth, 183O : — " There is
a strong resemblance between the systems of Hamilton and
Jacotot. They both teach language by gradation and na-
tural means. But it is in the main feature of difference
between the two systems that our difficulty lies. The Ha-
miltonian system seems to rely less upon the process by
which it produces its effects, and more upon the taking
advantage of the effects when they become visible. It
reaches the memory through the understanding, impressing
its instructions mainly by the force of conviction. It in-
stils into the mind a clear notion of the nature of things,
rather than their conventional types and agents. It works
less by the association of ideas — which, after all, must be
involuntary — than by the ideas themselves. On the other
hand, the system of Jacotot is vigilant and severe in its
means, depending for its effects upon the immediate rigour
of its progress, rather than its general influence. It re-
verses, or nearly so, the Hamiltonian doctrine, and ad-

71

dresses the understanding through the memory, by first
making its impressions deeply, and then relying upon the
mysterious operations of the mind for the classification and
application of the knowledge thus tattooed upon the reten-
tion. It is so minute and painful in its detail*, that the
probabilities are, that the pupil, in his extreme watchful-
ness of the forms and representatives of wisdom, will hardly
become wise.

" In throwing out these hints, we have no desire either
to encourage a useless controversy, or unnecessarily impugn
a system that is so largely applauded by some of the lite-
rary men of the Continent. In the discharge of our ciitical
office, it becomes us to state -truly our opinions. If they be
erroneous, we are open to conversion."

Extract from an article on " the Hamiltonian System of
teaching Languages" in the Academic Review for Sept.
1827 : — " The Hamiltonian system, like many other things,
has been much talked about, and written about, and very
little understood. The subject is interesting and important;
and as we have had an extensive practical acquaintance
with that and other methods of teaching, and have no in-
terests to serve, or predilections to indulge, except such as
are suggested by intrinsic merit and general utility, we feel
entitled to have our say upon the subject, and to receive
all the attention which our readers may think proper to
bestow upon us.

" Mr Hamilton, like all other innovators, has had great a
deal of opposition — and that not of the most liberal kind —
to contend with : he has been reviled, and his system con-
demned, by those who admitted they knew nothing of the
man, and who proved, by their writings, that they were
quite as unacquainted with his system : but he has no
reason to be dissatisfied with the result.

" That Mr. Hamilton laid himself open to the charge of

72

quackery, when he first solicited the attention of the public
in this country, we are not inclined to deny. And who
that presumes to deviate from the beaten tract of custom,
and 'wisdom of ancestors/ can hope to do himself justice
and avoid that imputation ? The monkish manufacturers
of missals and breviaries denounced Faustus as a dealer
with the devil ! Galileo, who maintained that the earth
went around the sun, was obliged to eat his words."

After detailing the process by which words and prac-
tical grammar are communicated, and its astonishing
effects on two of his young friends who attended one of
Mr. Hamilton's classes, the writer continues : —

" Our more learned readers will pardon us if we explain
what is meant by an interlinear translation. It is simply
that every word is translated, and its exact meaning in
English placed beneath it, between the lines of the original :
so that the foreign word always presents itself to the eye
in immediate conjunction with its signification in English.
But it is not by the medium of the eye only that this
system produces its effect ; the continual oral repetition
of the words by the teacher and pupils makes an impression
through the ear which is not easily obliterated. And this
repetition produces no tedium, because the words are
arranged in sentences, and connected with ideas. Would
not any one rather read * UEcho et le Hibou,9 or, * La
Guenon et sa Guenuche* than two or three columns of
words in a dictionary ? The principle exemplified every
hour in common conversation : we repeat the commonest
words of our native tongue a hundred times a day, and are
never tired."

C. F. Hodgson, Printer, 1 Gough Square, Fleet Street, London.

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