learning the grammar of their own tongue before they are very good grammarians? Let us hear what Mr. Locke says upon this subject: — "If grammar ought to be taught at any time, it must be to one that can speak the language already; how else can he be taught the grammar of it? This at least is evident, from the practice of the wise and learned nations amongst the ancients. They made it a part of education to cultivate their own, not foreign languages. The Greeks counted all other nations barbarous, and had a contempt for their languages. And though the Greek learning grew in credit amongst the Romans towards the end of their commonwealth, yet it was the Roman tongue that was made the study of their youth their own language they were to make use of, and therefore it was their own language they were instructed and exercised in. "But, more particularly, to determine the proper season for grammar, I do not see how it can reasonably be made any one's study, but as an introduction to rhetoric. When it is thought time to put any one upon the care of polishing his tongue, and of speaking better than the illiterate, then is the time for him to be instructed in the rules of grammar, and not before. For grammar being to teach men not to speak, but to speak correctly, and according to the exact rules of the tongue, which is one part of elegancy, there is little use of the one to him that has no need of the other. Where rhetoric is not necessary, grammar may be spared. I know not why any one should waste his time, and beat his head about the Latin grammar, who does not intend to be a critic or make speeches, and write despatches in it. When any one finds in himself a necessity or disposition to study any foreign language to the bottom, and to be nicely exact in the knowledge of it, it will be time enough to take a grammatical survey of it. If his use of it be only to understand some books writ in it, without a critical knowledge of the tongue itself, reading alone, as I have said, will attain that end, without "Nomina anomala quæ contrahuntur sunt, 'Oxona, quæ contrahuntur in omnibus, ut yoos yous, &c. 'Oxiyoπaðî, quæ in paucioribus casibus contrahuntur, ut substantiva Baryton'a in up. Imparyllatria in oup," &c. &c. From the Westminster Grammar we make the following extract—and some thousand rules, conveyed in poetry of equal merit, must be fixed upon the mind of the youthful Grecian, before he advances into the interior of the language: — " finis thematis finis utriusque futuri est Post liquidam in primo, vel in unoquoque secundo, ∞ circumflexum est. Ante o finale character Explicitus de primi est implicitusque futuri o itaque in quo o quasi plexum est solitu in σw." Westminster Greek Grammar, 1814. 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 translation, 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 made in the language, and a great degree of practical grammar has been acquired. 3. It substitutes 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 receives some little pay from the first moment of his apprenticeship, 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 his defence, cannot be permitted to address tongue, may go into the study of the language as deeply and as 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 attention 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 be any truth in this, it will make Mr. Hamilton one of the most useful men of his age; for if there be anything which fills reflecting men with melancholy and regret, it is the waste of mortal time, parental money, and puerile happiness, in the present method of pursuing Latin and Greek. COUNSEL FOR PRISONERS. 8vo. London. 1826. the jury in his behalf, nor reply to the charges which have, or have not, been substantiated by the witnesses. The petitioners have felt their situation peculiarly painful and embarrassing when the pri soner's faculties, perhaps surprised by such an intimation, are too much absorbed in the difficulties of his unhappy circumstances to admit of an effort towards his own justification, against the statements of the prosecutor's counsel, often unintentionally aggravated through zeal or misconception; and it is purely with a view to the attainment of impartial justice, that the petitioners humbly submit to the serious consideration of the House the expediency of allowing every accused person the full benefit of counsel, as in cases of misdemeanour, and according to the practice of the civil courts." With the opinions so sensibly and properly expressed by these jurymen, We have we most cordially agree. before touched incidentally on this subject; but shall now give to it a more direct and fuller examination. look upon it as a very great blot in our over-praised criminal code; and no effort of ours shall be wanting, from time to time, for its removal. We person we remember in his station, who has not considered sound sense to consist in the rejection of every improvement, and loyalty to be proved by the defence of every accidental, imperfect, or superannuated institution. We have now the benefit of discussing these subjects under the government of a Home Secretary of State, whom we may (we believe) fairly call On the sixth of April, 1824, Mr. George a wise, honest, and high-principled Lamb (a gentleman who is always the man-as he appears to us, without advocate of whatever is honest and wishing for innovation, or having any liberal) presented the following peti-itch for it, not to be afraid of innovation from several jurymen in the habit tion*, when it is gradual and well conof serving on juries at the Old Bailey:-sidered. He is, indeed, almost the only "That your petitioners, fully sensible of the invaluable privilege of Jury trials, and desirous of seeing thein as complete as human institutions will admit, feel it their duty to draw the attention of the House to the restrictions imposed on the prisoner's counsel, which, they humbly conceive, have strong claims to a legislative remedy. With every disposition to decide justly, the petitioners have found, by experience, in the course of their attendances as jurymen in the Old Bailey, that the opening statements for the prosecution too frequently leave an impression more unfavourable to the prisoner at the bar, than the evidence of itself could have produced; and it has always sounded harsh to the petitioners to hear it announced from the bench, that the counsel, to whom the prisoner has committed If this petition of jurymen be a real bonâ fide petition, not the result of soli We must always except the Catholic question. Mr. Peel's opinions on this subject (giving him credit for sincerity) have always been a subject of real surprise to us. It must surely be some mistake between the Right Honourable Gentleman and his chaplain! They have been travelling toge ther, and some of the parson's notions have been put up in Mr. Peel's head by mistake. We yet hope he will return them to their rightful owner. citation and we have no reason to doubt it-it is a warning which the Legislature cannot neglect, if it mean to avoid the disgrace of seeing the lower and middle orders of mankind making laws for themselves, which the Government is at length compelled to adopt as measures of their own. The Judges and the Parliament would have gone on to this day, hanging, by wholesale, for the forgeries of bank notes, if juries had not become weary of the continual butchery, and resolved to acquit. The proper execution of laws must always depend, in great measure, upon public opinion; and it is undoubtedly most discreditable to any men intrusted with power, when the governed turn round upon their governors, and say, "Your laws are so cruel, or so foolish, we can not, and will not, act upon them." The particular improvement, of allowing counsel to those who are accused of felony, is so far from being unnecessary, from any extraordinary indulgence shown to English prisoners, that we really cannot help suspecting, that not a year elapses in which many innocent persons are not found guilty. How is it possible, indeed, that it can be otherwise? There are seventy or eighty persons to be tried for various offences at the Assizes, who have lain in prison for some months; and fifty of whom, perhaps, are of the lowest order of the people, without friends in any better condition than themselves, and without one single penny to employ in their defence. How are they to obtain witnesses? No attorney can be employed - no subpœna can be taken out; the witnesses are fifty miles off, perhaps-totally uninstructed living from hand to mouth - utterly unable to give up their daily occupa tion, to pay for their journey, or for their support when arrived at the town of trial — and, if they could get there, not knowing where to go, or what to do. It is impossible but that a human being, in such a helpless situation, must be found guilty; for as he cannot give evidence for himself, and has not a penny to fetch those who can give it for him, any story told against -- him must be taken for true (however false); since it is impossible for the poor wretch to contradict it. A brother or a sister may come and support every suffering and privation themselves in coming; but the prisoner cannot often have such claims upon the persons who have witnessed the transaction, nor any other claims but those which an unjustly accused person has upon those whose testimony can exculpate him and who probably must starve themselves and their families to do it. It is true, a case of life and death will rouse the poorest per. sons, every now and then, to extraor dinary exertions, and they may tramp through mud and dirt to the Assize town to save a life- though even this effort is precarious enough: but imprisonment, hard labour, or transportation, appeal less forcibly than death-and would often appeal for evidence in vain, to the feeble and limited resources of extreme poverty. It is not that a great proportion of those accused are not guilty-but that some are not—and are utterly without means of establishing their innocence. We do not believe they are often accused from wilful and corrupt perjury; but the prosecutor is himself mistaken-the crime has been committed; and in his thirst for vengeance, he has got hold of the wrong man. The wheat was stolen out of the barn ; and, amidst many other collateral circumstances, the witnesses (paid and brought up by a wealthy prosecutor, who is repaid by the county) swear that they saw a man, very like the prisoner, with a sack of corn upon his shoulder, at an early hour of the morning, going from the barn in the direction of the prisoner's cottage! Here is one link, and a very material link, of a long chain of circumstantial evidence. Judge and jury must give it weight, till it is contradicted. In fact, the prisoner did not steal the corn; he was, to be sure, out of his cottage at the same hour-and that also is proved - but travelling in a totally different direction - and was seen to be so travelling by a stage coachman passing by, and by a market gardener. An attorney with money in sake which led to nothing useful, and by the annihilation of which our faculties were left to be exercised by difficulties which do lead to something useful might have been spared all this? The whole system is nonsense, and the man an impostor. If there had been any truth in it, it must have occurred to some one else before this period."- by mathematics, natural philosophy, This is a very common style of obser- and every branch of useful knowledge? vation upon Mr. Hamilton's system, Can any be so anserous as to suppose, and by no means an uncommon wish that the faculties of young men cannot of the mouldering and decaying part be exercised, and their industry and of mankind, that the next generation activity called into proper action, should not enjoy any advantages from because Mr. Hamilton teaches, in three which they themselves have been pre- or four years, what has (in a more cluded."Ay, ay, it's all mighty well vicious system) demanded seven or -but I went through this myself, and I eight? Besides, even in the Hamilam determined my children shall do the tonian method it is very easy for one same." We are convinced that a great boy to outstrip another. Why may not deal of opposition to improvement a clever and ambitious boy employ proceeds upon this principle. Crabbe three hours upon his key by himself, might make a good picture of an un- while another boy has only employed benevolent old man, slowly retiring one? There is plenty of corn to from this sublunary scene, and lamenting that the coming race of men would be less bumped on the roads, better lighted in the streets, and less tormented with grammars and lexicons, than in the preceding age. A great deal of compliment to the wisdom of ancestors, and a great degree of alarm at the dreadful spirit of innovation, are soluble into mere jealousy and envy. thrash, and of chaff to be winnowed away, in Mr. Hamilton's system; the difference is, that every blow tells, because it is properly directed. In the old way half their force was lost in air. There is a mighty foolish apophthegm of Dr. Bell's, that it is not what is done for a boy that is of importance, but what a boy does for himself. This is just as wise as to say, that it is But what is to become of a boy who not the breeches which are made for a has no difficulties 'to grapple with? boy that can cover his nakedness, but How enervated will that understand-the breeches he makes for himself. ing be, to which everything is made All this entirely depends upon a comso clear, plain, and easy! no hills to parison of the time saved, by showing walk up, no chasms to step over; the boy how to do a thing, rather than everything graduated, soft, and smooth. by leaving him to do it for himself. All this, however, is an objection to Let the object be, for example, to make the multiplication table, to Napier's a pair of shoes. The boy will effect bones, and to every invention for the this object much better if you show abridgment of human labour. There him how to make the shoes, than if you is no dread of any lack of difficulties. merely give him wax, thread, and Abridge intellectual labour by any leather, and leave him to find out all process you please — multiply mecha- the ingenious abridgments of labour nical powers to any extent-there will which have been discovered by expe be sufficient, and infinitely more than rience. The object is to turn Latia sufficient, of laborious occupation for into English. The scholar will do it the mind and body of man. Why is much better and sooner if the word is the boy to be idle?-By and by comes found for him, than if he finds itthe book without a key; by and by much better and sooner if you point comes the lexicon. They do come at out the effect of the terminations, and last though at a better period. But the nature of the syntax, than if you if they did not come- if they were use- leave him to detect them for himself. less, if language could be attained without them would any human being wish to retain difficulties for their own eagerly by the Church of England to defraud A very foolish old gentleman, seized on Lancaster of his discovery. ledge of grammar, which must materially diminish the difficulty of reading the next book; that his difficulties diminish in a compound ratio with every fresh book he reads with a key till at last he reads any common book, without a key and that he attains this last point of perfection in a time incomparably less, and with difficulties incomparably smaller, than in the old method. - The thing is at last done by the pupil | verborum, and a certain practical knowhimself for he reads the language · which was the thing to be done. All the help he has received has only enabled him to make a more economical use of his time, and to gain his end sooner. Never be afraid of wanting difficulties for your pupil; if means are rendered more easy, more will be expected. The animal will be compelled or induced to do all that he can do. Macadam has made the roads better. Dr. Bell would have predicted that the horses would get too fat : but the actual result is, that they are compelled to go ten miles an hour instead of eight. There are a certain number of French books, which when a boy can construe accurately, he may be said, for all purposes of reading, to be master of the "For teaching children, this, too. I French language. No matter how he think is to be observed, that, in most has attained this power of construing cases, where they stick, they are not to the books. If you try him thoroughly, be further puzzled, by putting them and are persuaded he is perfectly upon finding it out themselves; as by master of the books then he possesaking such questions as these; viz.ses the power in question he underwhich is the nominative case in the stands the language. Let these books, sentence they are to construe? or demanding what aufero' signifies, to lead them to the knowledge what 'abstulere' signifies, &c., when they cannot readily tell. This wastes time only, in disturbing them; for whilst they are learning, and apply themselves with attention, they are to be kept in good humour, and everything made easy to them, and as pleasant as possible. Therefore, wherever they are at a stand, and are willing to go forwards, help them presently over the difficulty, without any rebuke or chiding; remembering that, where harsher ways are taken, they are the effect only of pride and peevishness in the teacher, who expects children should instantly be masters of as much as he knows; whereas he should rather consider, that his business is to settle in them habits, not angrily to inculcate rules."-(Locke on Education, p. 74.) Suppose the first five books of Herodotus to be acquired by a key, or literal translation after the method of Hamilton, so that the pupil could construe them with the greatest accuracy ;——we do not pretend, because the pupil could construe this book, that he could construe any other book equally easy; we merely say, that the pupil has acquired, by these means, a certain copia for the sake of the question, be Telemachus, the History of Louis XIV. the Henriade, the Plays of Racine, and the Revolutions of Vertot. We would have Hamiltonian keys to all these books, and the Lancasterian method of instruction. We believe these books would be mastered in one sixth part of the time, by these means, that they would be by the old methɔd, of looking out the words in the diction ary, and then coming to say the lesson to the master; and we believe that the boys, long before they came to the end of this series of books, would be able to do without their keys - to fling away their cork jackets, and to swim alone. But boys who learn a language in four or five months, it is said, are apt to forget it again. Why, then, does not a young person, who has been five or six months in Paris, forget his French four or five years afterwards? It has been obtained without any of that labour, which the objectors to the Hamiltonian system deem to be so essential to memory. It has been obtained in the midst of tea and bread and butter, and yet is in a great_measure retained for a whole life. In the same manner the pupils of this new school use a colloquial living dictionary, and, from every principle of youthful |