Page:Home Education by Isaac Taylor (1838).djvu/248

 of newly arranged vocabularies, and new selections of readings.

With a description of some impressive scene, in a lively and natural style, as the nucleus of the exercise, four or five languages may be familiarized, at one and the same time, and without implying any more effort, on the part of the learner, than is required in the study of a single language. On the contrary, I believe that the mind is aided and lightened, rather than oppressed, by the conveyances in conjunction, of several sets of words and idioms. But then the entire system of teaching must be natural and colloquial, not scholastic or abstruse. The modern European tongues (at least) may, with great ease, be thus taught in conjunction; and so many are the points of agreement among them, that the points of difference give rise to little difficulty: and it is evident that, when four or five languages, placed, as we may say, in parallel columns, are compared, the general impression made upon the learner's mind by the analogies, or identical forms, in a view of the four or five, in conjunction, will be so strong as to aid him much in rendering himself master of the peculiarities of each. The English language, claiming cousinship as it does, on both sides, with the northern and with the southern tongues, opens the way to the acquirement of any one of either class. Especially is this true (after Greek and Latin have been acquired) in relation to French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, which in fact may more readily be taught and learned as so many dialects of the same stock, than separately and consecutively.

Thus far we have spoken of that correspondence between the conceptive faculty and Language which is promoted, in an inartificial manner, by the mere use of its descriptive portion, while it is employed for enriching the mind with ideas of the various scenes and single objects of the visible world. And if this process be pursued in the two modes