Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 6.djvu/491

Rh still worse, it is translation word by word. This occupation of the mind with words is bad in many respects: it does not appeal to the judgment of the pupil, who, in ignorance of the subject, translates them at a venture; it does not permit him directly to associate the idea with the word of a foreign language; it hinders the understanding of the text; for, the words sought by the aid of the dictionary and in the order of the foreign text being found by him in a disorder to which he is not accustomed, they do not present a clear and definite meaning. On the other hand, no two languages ever correspond word for word. In each there are a great number of phrases with no equivalents in the other, and, consequently, ideas that cannot be rendered into it. Hence it is impossible always to translate faithfully.

Translation with a dictionary, which substitutes the fingers for the intelligence, and, scorning reason, proceeds from the sign to the idea, rests on the false principle of the identity of signification in the corresponding words of two languages. Moreover, by its slowness, by the multiplicity of its interpretations, and the tediousness inseparable from its use, it repels beginners and retards their progress. Besides, to a child little versed in his own language, words translated one by one present but a vague meaning, or none at all. The text, which alone can determine it, he does not understand. Explain the unknown by the unknown; such is the vicious circle in which the dictionary places him.

It is, in part, to this illogical, repelling process that we must, in the majority of cases, attribute the failure of linguistic study. Those who say that the use of the dictionary impresses the words on the memory mistake strangely. They forget that this way of finding the meaning is not the fruit of reflection, and, consequently, leaves no traces in the mind. It is a simple acceptance of another's word, with the further uncertainty arising from the diverse interpretations of each word. A few years after leaving the lyceum, what do we know of the Latin and Greek learned with the dictionary? With this pretended auxiliary, observation and judgment are entirely inactive. The student does not choose between different interpretations, for, not knowing the thought of the author, he cannot know what would render it most faithfully.

Indirect reading or oral translation is insufficient, at all stages of advancement, to give a neat and precise idea of the thought of the writer, or appreciation of the literary value of a work. Still less, by its means, could the scholar study science with profit. The search for expressions corresponding to those of the original prevents the mind from following the logical connection of ideas, and from abandoning itself to the meditation which such serious subjects require. It is only in direct reading that the attention is left free from foreign considerations, and can enter fully into the thought of the author.

All the qualities and graces of style, which are the principal merit