PASSAGES IN POETRY AND IN PROSE. 333 progress in the vocables of the language. Granting the facility in treasuring up compositions in poetry, we must not be blind to its weaknesses. The form, the compactness, the feeling, the touches of lofty diction,-transport us with the piece as a whole, without our troubling ourselves about the meanings of the parts, least of all, the individual words. It is only in the greatest masters, that we are made alive to the sense of each word, and not always in them. Take as an example, the following couplet, and note the sources of its impressions on a youthful mind: Thy spirit, Independence, let me share, It is quite enough to commend the couplet to a lusty youthful soul, that it draws upon the egotistic feeling, by the fact of sharing the spirit of some lord, no matter who, or what, he is the lord of. The meaning of 'Independence' is not thought of at all; nay, little is done even to conceive the 'lion heart' or 'eagle eye.' The lines would have their full inspiration, and would find a ready admission to the young memory, if they were written Thy spirit, Mumbo-Jumbo, let me share, Lord of the Tweedle-dum and Noodle-three. It thus happens that poetry, above all other things, may be committed to memory as three-fourths words, and one-fourth meaning. It is enough that a vague thread of sense is traceable, provided interesting emotions are kindled in its track. Prose passages are less easy to commit, but more likely to be turned to account, than poetry. It is not, however, the highest economy to prescribe long compo sitions. What we want for ready use is a well-turned sentence form, or a suitable designation or phrase for some meaning that we are at loss to render. Now the stringing together of the sentences of a long passage does not contribute to the resuscitation that we desire; this is served more by the impressing of sentences individually, and especially such as have some marked and valuable characteristics, either in structure or in phrases. For very young pupils, these exemplary forms cannot be made apparent; and if they are to have their language memory strictly artificial, it can only be by the rote memory of passages. At the age of critical understanding, the committing of pieces at length should give place to the impressing of selected examplars, in the shape of single sentences or short series of sentences, made alive by critical exegesis or the singling-out of merits and defects. The pupils in the French Lycées should be looked upon as beyond the age when power of expression is best cultivated by the mechanical memory of passages however good. The practice with them savours of French drill and of inability to discriminate and criticize. The pupil will willingly absorb into his memory sentences and short passages that he has been awakened to appreciate and admire. With advanced pupils, one of the best opportunities for committing to memory passages of poetry and exemplary prose, is in connection with exercises of recitation and delivery. The foregoing remarks on the education in language by itself have had chiefly in view mere vocables, although the illustration has sometimes extended to the other part of language, namely, Structure. This SENTENCE STRUCTURES. 335 part needs to be more closely viewed on its own account. In the practice of speech, in listening to speech, and in reading, we imbibe the structural arrangements of words in sentences and trains of sentences; and the passages that we learn by heart give us models of sentences as well as words and phrases. Long before we grammatically dissect a sentence, we are supposed to have been familiar with all the leading varieties of sentence forms. Now the schoolmaster may allow the accumulation of sentence types to proceed silently with the reading lessons, or he may do something expressly to quicken the process of stamping them on the memory. I assume that the age of Grammar has not yet arrived; and hence the science of sentences is not entered upon. That age is, nevertheless, drawing near; and there may, conceivably, be a preparation for it, not to say a certain amount of independent tuition having the same final result, although not in the same complete form. As has been said of vocables, so we may say of sentences, they follow the acquirement of meanings or thoughts. A fact needs a sentence to express it: a simple fact, a simple sentence; a complicated fact, a complicated sentence. The sun has set,' is a simple fact in simple sentence form. 'If you ascend to a height you will see the sun reappear,' is a conditional fact in a conditional sentence. If we have learnt, by verbal communication, many simple facts and many complicated facts, we have learnt many simple sentences and many complicated sentences. What more do we want? The answer is that, as with vocables, there is great convenience in knowing all the language forms for the same fact, simple or complicated. The learning of these additional, or supernumerary forms, is an education relating not to things, but to language. As with vocables, sentence forms are best learnt in company with the knowledge that they are to express, and should not be made to precede that knowledge. The limitations to the principle have been sufficiently given. Now as to the schoolmaster's province, in teaching or impressing these forms. The analogy of vocables still applies. The teacher having before him a given sentence, expressing a certain piece of information, can point out to his pupils, and exercise them in discerning and producing other sentence arrangements, with or without variation of the words employed. This is the best device yet promulgated for anticipating the formal teaching of Grammar; only, it must be done upon system, although the system need not be obtruded on the pupils. When we come to put the question-What does Grammar (in our own language) do for us?—we shall find that this is one of its chief benefits. Among the most simple examples of equivalence is the change from the Active to the Passive Voice-'Cæsar invaded Britain,' 'Britain was invaded by Cæsar.' Another is the interchange of Noun and Pronoun. We may further cite the conversion of Nouns into Noun clauses, of Adjectives into phrases and clauses, of Adverbs (single words) into phrases and clauses. One of the most valuable preparatory exercises of equivalence is the filling up of omissions or ellipses, so common in every language as to be an authorized fact of the language. Half the difficulties of grammatical parsing grow out of these ellipses. Please to give me VARIATIONS IN ARRANGEMENT. 337 something to drink' is a grammatical puzzle till the full expression is given-' May it please you to give me something that I may drink.' The use of nouns as adjectives is altogether elliptical-'stone walls,' 'walls that are made of stone.' Another important contraction is the turning of clauses into abstract nouns'What we see, we believe,' 'seeing is believing,' 'sight is belief.' The arrangement of words and clauses in sentences admits of great variation. Qualifying words may either precede or follow the words qualified, but there is usually one arrangement that is best in the particular case. At the early stages of the exercise, there is little attempt made to show preferences; the perception of the pupils is not sufficiently advanced; but opportunities should be taken of leading them on to this point, which is the goal of all language-teaching: The teacher can form to himself a scheme of variations, for which Grammar and his own sense will be the guide. He will not iterate easy changes, nor harp upon such as are devoid of importance. He will know what are the variations most needed in composition, and most adapted to bring out clearness and succinctness of expression; but he will not as yet divulge his motives or his reasons. Although it is enough for him to have in view the exigencies of Grammar, he may also ring a few of the rhetorical changes that are of common occurrence as inversion of subject and predicate, interrogation, exclamation, metaphor and metonymy.' 'The methods of teaching by means of Equivalent Forms has been systematically and fully exemplified in a First Work on English, by Mr. A. F. Murison. The plan of the work is accommodated to a complete view of the Parts of Speech, and the Analysis of the Sentence; while it may be |