Page:The study of living languages (IA studyoflivinglan00cott).pdf/15



proceeding to propose a system of study of living languages, it may be well to make some remarks on the mistakes that, are commonly made at present, and the chief difficulties that are usually met with, as well as on the time generally expended on such study.

A great many of the common mistakes can easily be traced to the circumstance that almost universally the students have previously been accustomed to study dead languages, and from their not observing that almost all their ideas have been formed from that study, while the principal points to be attended to in the study of living languages are exactly those that are of little or no consequence in that of dead ones, and vice versâ. In learning Latin or Greek, for instance, the sole objects usually are to be able to read so as to understand the writings of highly educated men and (but as very secondary) to write elegant formal essays. The following are therefore the leading points aimed at;