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RE23. a . 2498

J.:
 THE

HISTORY,
PRINCIPLES, PRACTICE , AND RESULTS
OF THE

HAMILTONIAN SYSTEM ,
FOR THE LAST TWELVE YEARS ;

WITH

ANSWERS
TO THE

EDINBURGH AND WESTMINSTER REVIEWS ;

AND

His Public Lecture

IN LIVERPOOL ,

ON THE 18th OF MARCH, 1829 ;

WITH INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE USE OF THE BOOKS PUBLISHED ON THIS SYSTEM .

By JAMES HAMILTON ,
AUTHOR OF THE HAMILTONIAN SYSTEM ,

Second Edition ,

LONDON :
PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR'S WIDOW ;
AND PUBLISHED BY

J. SOUTER, SCHOOL LIBRARY, 73, ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD ;

Where all Mr. Hamilton's Publications may be had.

1831.
Compton & Ritchie, Printers, Middle Street , Cloth Fair, London .

4 / ge
ศ
 HAMILTONIAN SYSTEM , &c.

IN the year 1798 , being established as a merchant in

Hamburg, where I had purchased a house in the neuen
Burg for 48,000 banco marks, and had been made free of
the city, a friend recommended to me strongly , as a teacher
of the German language , a General D'Angeli , a French
emigré, who had been several years in the Austrian service.
I told the General I should be glad to profit by his talents ,
but unfortunately my mind was so filled with business,
that I was afraid I could not bend it to the study of gram
mar . 6 But, sir, I shall never put a grammar into your
hands !”-“6 Well ! if you can teach me a language with
out grammar , I shall be glad to see you to-morrow morn
ing ." I had studied the Latin for several years, I knew
some Greek , and was well acquainted with the best authors
in French and English (having resided in France nearly
considered myself
three years before the revolution ) ; I jengkel
somewhat of a linguist, and was a little piqued at the idea
of being told by a military gentleman how a language
should be taught. The next morning the General arrived
- with a book of anecdotes in German , of which he trans
menguraikan
lated one for me nearly word for word , parsing as he pro
ceeded ; so that, when he had ended , I translated and un
as so much French or English. I con
derstood it as welldikejutkan
fess I remained astounded at the result ; but not being
 4
able to doubt it, I continued my lesson , and learned thus
five or six short anecdotes in an hour. On this plan I re
ceived about a dozen lessons, when I found I could read an
easy German book ; and having about that time occasion
tomenginap
go to Leipsic and other parts of Germany , I took care
to lodge at German houses, and thus acquired a tolerable
facility in speaking and reading the language. This is the
origin of the Hamiltonian System : I then thought as little
of becoming a teacher as I do now of flying ; but I was
amateur of languages enough to appreciate my obligations
to General D'Angeli , and think it but justice to record them
here. I then recollected something of the same kind at
the school of two ancient Jesuits, Messrs . Beatty and Mul
hall, men of great talents and learning, who, on the disso
lutio of their order by Ganganelli, had established a
school in Dublin , at which I remained four years . It was
the custom of one of these gentlemen to translate, for the
higher classes, twenty or twenty - five lines of Horace or
Virgil every day, in the same manner that General D'An
geli translated the German, except that he did not parse
(it was unnecessary for boys who had for many years
studied the Latin grammar ) ; but while I took lessons in
German , and often since, it has occurred to me, that if our
masters had from the beginning thus translated for their
pupils, not twenty lines but several pages, every day, we.
should have learned Latin in a teuth part of the time we
had spent at it,
Four years afterwards, I established a house in Paris,
not as an Englishman , but as a citizen of Hamburg ; and ,
in conjunction with the banking-house of Karcher and Co.,
I did considerable business with England during the peace
of Amiens; the goverument, I believe, winking at our ope
rations, for we brought the English manufactured goods
 5

direct from London to Havre, calling them Indian, and

paying only two and a half per cent. duty.
putusnya
At the rupture of the treaty of Amiens, I was made pri
soner, notwithstanding the representations of the senate
of Hamburg in my favour. All they could obtain was,
dihapuskan
that my name should be effaced from the list of prisoners
ofwar, and my passport, or Carte de Sureté, had “ effacé
de la liste des prisonniers de guerre," as a citizen of Ham
burg, inscribed on it ; but as a natif of England , I was de
tained during the war, to the ruin of my business in Ham
burg and in Paris.
In 1814, I revisited England and Holland ; but the com
mercial world was then so totally changed, that I found to
do business again I must become an apprentice ; I was
then forty - five ; it was too late. I determined, therefore,
to go to the United States, and become a farmer and ma
nufacturer of potash, of which I thought I knew more than
the Americans . This project I put in execution the follow
ing year, and had actually agreed for a small farm , 250
miles to the north-west of New York ; and was on horse
back on my way to see it, at seven o'clock in the morning
in October, 1815. The cold was severe, and the pain in both
my feet intolerable. In this state I reflected , as I passed
cuaca beku
through the woods, how I should be able to bear a frost of
four months, during which the ground would be covered
with snow, and the cold much more intense ? I considered
it impossible, and, bravely yielding to this impression, I
turned my horse's head about, to the utter astonishment of
my guide, who in vain represented to me, that we were
within a mile of the farm ; and halted not till I arrived in
New York, three days afterwards !-having retraced in
that time a journey which it had taken me three weeks to
perform .
A2
 6

I had in France, for my amusement, tried on my own

children and on others, though to no great extent, the new
ideas I had conceived as to teaching the languages ; and
as I was no farmer, and thought it at least possible I
might not succeed in that business, I had determined , in
the midst of the ennui and fever of my voyage to New
York, to try the experiment of it, in case of need ; not as
any thing permanent, but as a pis-aller, till something
better offered. This was the plan I resolved now to exe
cute for the winter, promising myself in the spring to set
out afresh on my farming expedition .
Preparatory to this I wrote an Essay on the usual mode
of teaching the languages, in which I explained the ideas I
had myself on the subject ; and while I acknowledged I
had never given a lesson for money, I stated my confidence
in the success of the mode of teaching which I proposed.
Having finished my manuscript , I submitted it to the inspec
tion of the Rev. Mr. Feltus , of the Protestant Episcopal
Church, who so much approved of it, that he became him
self with his two sons my first pupils : at the same time I
taught two other clergymen ; and all three, together with
Judge Van Ness, of the district court , gave me the most
flattering testimonies. I was, indeed, myself so astonished
and delighted at the progress made by these gentlemen,
particularly the last, that I gave the details of their pro
gress in the papers of the day, whieh produced so favour
able an impression on the public mind, that my whole time
was soon engaged, at a dollar a lesson for each person , and
I began to think teaching a better trade than farming.
The progress of my pupils was , however, nothing equal
to what I have since produced, but it was indubitably
greater than had ever been effected on the common plan ;
there was, indeed, nothing then that could be called a sys
 ny
tem, although two important principles formed the best
possible foundation for one. I taught, instead of ordering
to learn ; and, secondly, I taught my pupils to translate at
once, instead of making them get a grammar by heart. I
had tried to parse also , as well as translate, as D’Angeli
had done with me, but I found this would do only with lin
guists : the grammar was incomprehensible at this period
to the greater number of my pupils ; I therefore deferred
it till they had taken half the course : by that time , as
perubahan
they had met in their reading all the inflexions of the verbs,
and changes of the other declinable parts of speech, thou
sands of times, they found grammar an easy task. I then
gave them two or three lectures on grammar generally, but
particularly the verbs, of which I gave them a copy , and
from this period my pupils read at their own home, and
in class learned the use of the words they had acquired in
reading : they read the English Gospel of St. John into
French, first after me, in precisely the same manner as I
had taught them first to translate French into English ,
but with this essential difference, mytranslation into French
was a free translation in simple but correct language,
which they afterwards wrote ; and in the correcting of
which I gave them the details of the principles or rules of
grammar, and thus taught them to write and speak cor
rectly.
During the first campaign, which lasted from the begin
ning of February till June, I took no class through the
course . My pupils read French with facility and pleasure
in twenty - four lessons, of two hours each ; they had then
no keys, they were content with their progress , and with
their progress proclaimed the fame of my system wherever
they went : I had thus, in the first year, about seventy
 8
1
pupils , who paid me twenty -four dollars each for half a 1

course, and which confirmed me a teacher for life.

But in America as well as England, many teachers, out
heroding Herod, imagined that the system did really more
than I professed , or that it did all I professed in every in 1

stance ; and that teaching would hereafter become like

weaving, a mere mechanical process ; that languages might
be obtained not only without study , but even without at
tending the class . I have had in all my classes since ,
persons who seemed to be of this opinion , and who, neither
attending nor studying, fancied they should get the lan
guage infallibly, because they had paid their subscription.
But teachers dreaded there, as many in England yet do ,
the ruin of their establishment by the introduction of the
system into schools generally ; and though they did not
come forward openly to oppose it by arguments , far less
membunuh
by facts, yet did they see with pleasure the virulent attacks
of anonymous writers, or tirades of abuse from those
French teachers who considered me an intruder on their
profession. A second winter in New York proved still
more successful than the first : besides the number who
took twelve or twenty-four lessons, a class of gentlemen
went through the whole course triumphantly, and realized
the utmost success I had ever predicted , speaking and
writing the French with nearly as much facility as Eng
Jish ,
I proceeded thence to Philadelphia , in September, where
my reception was still more flattering than in New York,
and where, by the discussions which took place, I first per
ceived that in translating I ANALYZED , and consequently
taught the grammar of the language with every word I
taught my pupil : forming thus a THIRD PRINCIPLE of the
 9

system , a principle which it is inconceivable should have

escaped the genius of Milton, of Locke, of Clarke, of Dua
marsais and his followers, all of whom eulogized literal
translations as the only rational mode of acquiring a lan
guage, but not one of whom ever translated one line lite
rally, for no translation can justly be called literal which
is not analytical. This difference was the sole reason why
the translations of all these authors have been found in.
efficient and even mischievous, and have therefore been
justly scouted from the schools of all countries ; and for
this reason it is that the translations lately made , pro
fessedly Hamiltonian , but which are not analytical, as well
as the translations professedly on the system of Locke, not
one word of either of which can be relied on by the pupil
as the precise meaning of the word above it, have equally
failed, and will for ever fail. I had, however, at this time
no books ; my system rested wholly with myself ; and as
few men possessed such a knowledge as I did of the Eng
lish and French languages ( which latter I principally
taught), few or none could rival me. I felt this, and was,
perhaps, not perfectly guiltless of illiberality and selfish
ness in thus keeping my system to myself, till sometime
after my arrival in England, in order that I might be with
out a rival in teaching for on my system, I found as much
facility in teaching 100 persons (which I often did) as a
class of half a dozen ; but with books any man could do as
much as I, as has been triumphantly proved in England ,
as much ; but many pretended
provided he be willing to domencemarkan
Hamiltonian teachers have disgraced the system and them.
selves, by effecting much less than they promised.
In Philadelphia I delivered my first lecture, and here my
mode of teaching began to assume the character as well as
the name of a system ; by which I mean , such a reunion
 10

and combination of certain fixed fundamental principles , as

may enable the teacher to produce certain positive results,
at all times and from every pupil, supposing a moderate
degree of attention. Here, I first asserted that the words
of all languages have, with few exceptions, one meaning
only , and should be translated generally by the same word ,
which should stand for its representative at all times, and
in all places, thus constituting a FOURTH principle : and,
FIFTALY, that the simple sounds of all languages . being,
with few exceptions, identically the same, it must be as
easy for an Englishman to pronounce French as English,
when taught, and vice versa . Here, I first made the dis
tinction between accent and pronunciation so generally
confounded, the latter being a distinct articulate utter
ance, the former the tone or song with which we speak ;
that the latter can be communicated to any person, the
former is incommunicable ; the latter may be perfect with
every accent, but all accent as far as it goes is a vice ; of
aksen/lagu
importance, however, only when it degenerates into brogue.
In all my classes I have demonstrated the infallible cer
tainty of acquiring a correct pronunciation, by being
taught in class by a person possessing himself a correct
pronunciation. The reunion of these different principles
justified the title of system by their results ; but the re
union of them in a class so constructed , that each indivi
beban
dual member should be an assistance rather than an incum
brance to every other, in which one man could teach as
many as could hear him, and where number added to the
interest and pleasure of the lesson , constituted a sixth and
last principle more important than all the others. To dis
tinguish it from other soi- disant systems , I thought myself
justified in calling it Hamiltonian , and the public have cona
firmed the appellation .
 11
The system , to be perfect, wanted only books : I printed
in Philadelphia the first three chapters of the Gospel of
St. John in French , with an analytical key, from which I
found immense relief to myself as well as benefit to the
pupil ; and after remaining a year, I proceeded to Balti
more , where the fame of my system had already preceded
me, and enabled me to form immediately numerous classes.
After teaching here about six months adult pupils, to
occupy the leisure of my wife and daughters, I had just
taken about twenty children , when I was attacked by the
Professors of Baltimore College, who, in a play repre
sented by their pupils, endeavoured to ridicule the New
Mode of teaching. As they made no secret of their inten
memperoleh
tion, I had no difficulty in procuring a ticket ; and using
the privilege of a spectator , three days afterwards I gave
the play at full length in one of the newspapers , with such
comments on the play and actors , as raised a good deal of
laughter at the expense of the author . The President re
plied with great virulence ; thence a paper war which
lasted three months, during which the Hamiltonian System
was fully discussed in its theory and results, and con
trasted so successfully with the systems of the schools,
that the College was obliged to close its doors, not having
a single pupil , while, in the same time, the Hamiltonian
school had increased to above, one hundred and sixty.
This school which counted nearly twenty teachers, each
occupying a separate room , I fear not to say, effected won
ders, though it wanted an indispensable part of the system
when applied to schools, that is, analytical translations .
The want of them caused me enormous expence and enor
mous labour,which, added to an extraordinary pressure on
commerce that year, the wretched state of my health from
excessive labour and the heat of the climate, and, above
1
 12

all , the yellow fever, which made its appearance about

July,-all this obliged me to give up my school to the
teachers whom I had employed, but who, unhappily, knew
not how to conduct it, and suffered it shortly afterwards
to fall.
I went on to Washington , where healthful air and idle
ness soon gave me strength to lecture ; and where I got
introduced to most of the principal men of the Federal
Government, and, among others, to Mr. Crawford , Secre .
tary of the Treasury, whose two sons I taught, and who
furnished me with letters to the American Ambassador in
London , as did several others, for I was determined ,
sooner or later, to offer my discovery to the investigation of
my countrymen .
I thence proceeded to Boston , where I remained for five
weeks, offering my system and my lessons in vain ; I could
obtain no pupils. At length a celebrated Unitarian
Preacher and Professor of the University attacked my ad
vertisement, and treated my pretensions as those of a
charlatan. I had the day before begun to teach my first
class, four pupils. In answer to this attack, with which I
acknowledge I was much pleased, I invited the writer and
his friends to come to my apartments on that day fort
night, and, by their own examination of my pupils, con.
vince themselves whether I was or not the person he was
pleased to represent me. My answer created a consider
able sensation in town, and the result became the object of
general interest. On the appointed day the Professor did
not come, but seven gentlemen of acknowledged erudition
and respectability, among whom an ex-governor of the
state and one or two judges , did come, and examined my
pupils most minutely. During the examination in which
I took myself no part) they repeatedly expressed their
 13

admiration of the accuracy of the translation , and the cor

rectness of their pronunciation . They each gave me next
day a distinct testimony , couched in the strongest lan
guage , to the merits of the system. These testimonies I
published, and obtained by them not less than two hundred
pupils .
I left Boston only in June, when the heat became into
lerable ; and, after passing some weeks at Balstown , and
visiting some other places , I returned to Philadelphia in
winter, where I obtained above three hundred pupils .
Besides the places I have mentioned, I visited a great
number of towns in the interior during tbe summers I
passed in the States ; as also the colleges of Schenectady,
Princeton , Yale, Hartford, and Middleburg ; where I
counted as my pupils , not only a very considerable number
of the students , but also the professors, with the exception
of Yale College , where the students only attended. I ex
perienced in all a degree of liberality , which contrasted
strongly with their pre-conceived opinions . All had ima
gined the system mere charlatanerie ; all recognised its
merits before I departed .
In 1822 I went to Montreal, and thence to Quebec , and
succeeded tolerably well in both places. And thus ended,
in July 1823 , my career in America. But, before I quit it
to pursue this history in the United Kingdom during the
last five years, let me be permitted to mention a circum
stance which occurred in Montreal.
I had among my pupils the gaoler, by whose invitation I
visited the gaol ; there were, among others, eight English
men confined for different offences . These I formed into
a class , and determined to try on them the effects of my
system in teaching the English their own language : seven
of these persons knew more or less of reading or spelling,
B
 14

though some of them very little ; one only knew not one
letter. I gave them all children's books of the same kind ,
and placing the wholly ignorant man last of the class at
my left hand, I made all the others spell, word by word , a
sentence composed of words familiar to the pupils, as ,
“ The cat loves mice ; " “ John is a good boy," &c . &c . I
began by articulating audibly T - H - E -- the : the first
member at my right repeated in the same tone T - H - E
the, while I continued to point to each letter as it was
pronounced to the pupil on the left hand : when the word
had come round to him , he repeated with facility and plea
sure , pointing to the letters T-H-E—the ! Thus did we
with each word in succession ; and after spelling all the
words in the same manner, I read the whole phrase, which
was read by each member of the class till it came to my
left hand pupil, who also read it with facility : four short
phrases were thus read , and perfectly acquired in about
three - quarters of an hour. I then gave one of the pri
soners full directions for proceeding, promising him half a
dollar a week ; and this task he executed so successfully,
that, having called to see them at the end of ten days, I
found my pupil could read , with facility and perfect under
standing, in any part of the Testament ! I have made
many efforts since that time to introduce this plan into
schools ; but, strange to tell, it has, with few exceptions ,
met with almost uniform opposition. Lately, however, I
began a class of five children , at St. Philip's Church Sun
day School, Manchester. All were wholly ignorant of
their letters, and one or two not more than five or six years
old. I gave them one lesson , and have been assured, that ,
at the end of about twelve lessons, they were found fit to
enter the Testament reading class . Mr. Andrews, a school
master of Salford , has also introduced it into his school,
 15

and has enabled a class of very small children , not know

iug one letter , to read English with tolerable facility in
about two months, with a pleasure and interest to pupil and
teacher , contrasting most strongly with the labour and dis
gust incident to both on the common plan .
Thus is the Hamiltonian System applicable to education
in all its parts. In my school in Baltimore, I applied it
to writing, arithmetic, and geography, with the fullest
success , and always to the delight of the pupil - always
pleased with instruction when he can obtain it without
arduous labour or unnecessary delay : and, above all,
when it is intelligible. I here again offer my gratuitous
services to every Institution willing to adopt the system,
in any or all its parts, whether for children or adults
whether for English or other languages ; and though I do
not engage to work long for nothing , yet I promise that
my instructions shall be so clear, as to enable any honest
and well- informed teacher to do as much as I profess being
able to do myself.
This history of my success in the United States, where I
counted among my pupils many of the first men in the coun
try, of all professions, and whose unanimous approbation
had doubtless a little inflated a naturally enthusiastic ima
gination , was necessary , perhaps , in the mind of the reader,
to justify the confidence with which I offered my system to
the British public. It will be remembered what an out
cry was caused by my advertisements : but wherefore ?
did not others profess to do as much as I ? Many, no
doubt, every day. Why, then , were those gentlemen sup
posed to be acting in the right line of their profession ,
while I , for saying the same thing, was abused as a quack
or impostor ?–The reason is , that I alone appeared to be
serious in what I advanced ; that my advertisements had
 16

an air of truth that falsehood never can put on ; that I

appealed to almost instantaneous facts and personal ex
perience , to the result of a few lessons, as a test of the
truth of what I advanced ; and that no other man had ever
thus come forward ; I appeal to the candid reader , whe
ther I could, with a just regard to truth, have said less
than I did at that time ; and I appeal , still more boldly ,
to the public at large, whether I have not since fully and
honourably redeemed every pledge I have given.
The result was a success beyond what I had ever before
experienced, so that I was obliged to employ seven other
teachers with myself. In eighteen months I had above six
hundred pupils for the different languages (Greek, Latin, '
German , French, and Italian ) ; and, among them , many of
the first families in the kingdom . I had brought to Lon
don above thirty letters of recommendation , but I used
none of them , not even those to the American Ambassa
dor. Three months afterwards , I handed three of them to
his Secretary, who had become my pupil and my friend ,
and whose advice , repeatedly and kindly pressed on me,
to abstain from angry replication to prejudiced school
masters , I heartily wish I had followed . This is , however,
but one of the many faults which I doubtless have made,
though I have not mentioned them in this history. His
Excellency did me the honour to acknowledge my letters
by a visit at my house in Cecil-street. One of the faults,
and perhaps the greatest, was to quit London at this time :
the reasons for this have no connexion with this history ;
it was , however, as mischievous as the leaving my school in
Baltimore ; for, though I left my establishment in London
in the hands of persons capable of effecting all I had ever
professed to do , yet others also took up the system who
knew it not, and thus was the public imposed on in many
 17

instances : this, together with the knowledge that I was no

longer in London , did the system much mischief, at a time
when , assailed on all sides by other teachers frightened at
its success, it needed the support of its veteran defenders.
With the like success, as to the number and respectability
of my pupils , I have since taught in Liverpool , Manches,
ter , Edinburgh, Dublin , Belfast, and at least twenty other
places, effecting everywhere the utmost I had ever profess
ed in the first three sections of my course ; that is , by en
abling the pupil to read and analytically to translate in
the first section , the Gospel of St. John ; -in the second ,
the Fables of Perrin ;-and, in the third , the Recueil
Choisi, for all which I had published analytical transla
tions ; but not often going farther. For this many reasons
may be assigned ; and as I have often been blamed for it ,
in my justification I think it necessary to enter into some
details relative to the formation and conduct of my classes.
It may be of use for the government of other teachers, who
may remedy the inconvenience to which the rules I have
prescribed to myself (and not the system) have subjected
me .- I teach adults only ; and as I find it as easy to teach
one hundred persons in a class as four or five, my interest
as well as the interest of the pupil, is, that I should form
large classes. But to this there are so many obstacles,
chiefly from the fear ofmisassociation ; a thing impossible
in my classes , where the members have no more communi
cation than if in church , that my private classes rarely
consist of more than from six to twelve . The members
being bound only for ten lessons, or one section , it usually
happens that from ill health, business, & c ., one or two
drop off at the end of the first ; as many at the end of the
second ; and so on till the class is too small to attend with
out loss. The same thing happens in my public classes,
B 2
 18
when they are taught by sections . When I have engaged
to teach the whole course, though all, who attend faith
fully, infallibly succeed, yet these are usually the smaller
part of the class. Many of the members being in business
are frequently prevented from attending the class , others
from reading out of class . If the teacher were not sub
jected to teach the language in the smallest possible num
ber of lessons, the non-attendance of the pupil for a lesson
or ten lessons would be a trifle ; but if, having taught him
to read in thirty lessons the French , Italian , or German
language , he be restricted to twenty more to enable him to
write and speak, and that the pupil omit to attend one
half of them , it is evident that , without any fault in the
system, the pupil will not have attained the desired degree
of proficiency at the end of the course . Now, as I have
hitherto made it a rule not to stop longer than five or six
months in any place ,—that is to say, longer than is neces
sary to form classes, and to perfect those who choose to
join them at first, and to go through the course ,-it fol
lows that all who neglect to take the lessons of the course
are without remedy, as well as those who, waiting to see
the result of the system in the first and second sections ,
become members of classesy formed often when I have
already spent half the time I intend stopping in any place ;
all these persons complain bitterly of my departure, and I
leave no place without leaving behind me many of both
descriptions. But the Hamiltonian System has nothing to
do with this. Its author, wishing to make it known, wish
ing to see its adoption by other teachers , and much more
desirous that others should obtain scholars than himself,
is obliged to travel ; but the Hamiltonian Teacher who
remains fixed in one place will not have these inconveni
ences, and will, therefore, do more to satisfy his pupils
 19

than the author of the system , for the reason's abovemen

tioned , has been able to do. The resident teacher will, in
every instance, fulfil the utmost wish of the pupil; but
then the resident teacher must not confine himself abso
lutely to a fixed number of lessons for a class. He must
permit the member , who has not been able to attend , to
obtain extra lessons on paying for them, which the author
of the system has never been able to do. A circumstance
of which many of his pupils have complained, but which
he has been obliged to persist in , from tħe rule prescribed
to himself, never to take more from a pupil than the public
subscription to the course or section ; never to afford one
pupil an advantage which all did uot possess .
But the mischief is by no means so great, in any of
these cases , as many pupils suppose . They think that ,
not having been perfected, what they have got is worth
nothing : they have, however , got what no pupil ever got ,
in any length of time , on the common plan —they can
translate with a degree of accuracy, which no teacher, on
the common plan , has ever approached ;-they analyse all
they read, and thus in effect parse it ; they have a correct
pronunciation ;—they possess , in fact, all that is necessary
to perfect themselves, and they have already obtained
more than is ever obtained on the common plan. Only let
them continue to read, and take the fifth section the first
opportunity that presents itself.
In reading over my manuscript, I perceive I have not
sufficiently described the two latter sections. I have said
at the beginning of the third section, I lecture on grammar
generally, particularly the verbs, in which the pupil is
exercised during the whole of the third section-devoting
half of each lesson to this , and the other half to reading.
By the exercises on the verbs, I mean orally- teaching
 20

them to use with facility, affirmatively, negatively, and

interrogatively the regular verbs , and about a dozen others
which are of momentary occurrence in conversation ; and
this, I think , has not been sufficiently attended to , or at
least not been continued long enough, in my classes hither
to , from a too great confidence in the attention of the
classes to know their verbs perfectly, at a time when they
can obtain a perfect knowledge of them with so little
trouble . The teacher must trust nothing, absolutely no
thing , to the pupil whether boy or adult.
In three classes which I have now in Manchester , after
reading for some days the English Testament into French ,
I returned to these oral exercises in the use of the verbs ;
and the result has been singularly successful. It has re
stored confidence to several members of these classes , who
having never read except in class , were consequently fear
ful that , according to my repeated predictions, they would
not be able to speak , and has induced them to apply again
to reading, while, in the mean time, they use with delight,
in writing and speaking, the words of which they have
already, by these exercises, obtained a perfect command .
Let , I say , these exercises be continued faithfully to the
end of the third section , and four or five lessons of the
fourth . At the fifth lesson of the fourth section, I begin to
translate the English Gospel of St. John into pure French
-simple but correct language. One of the pupils repeats
the phrase as I have given it, and thus it is repeated four
or five times , more or less , until perfectly understood by
every member of the class : a second verse is then read in
the same manner, diminishing the number of repetitions as
the task becomes more easy, until at length, at the third
or fourth lesson , it is found that one repetition is sufficient.
Of what is thus read in class, four or five verses are writ
 21
ten by the pupil out of class , and brought as an exercise,
in the correction of which the teacher points out the faults
he may have made, and the mode of avoiding them in fu
ture, with the general rules and principles of grammar. It
will be usually found , that , at the end of six or eight exer
cises of this kind , he will make no more faults in grammar.
The pupil continues to read the English Testament in the
manner above described , until he can read it alone without
the assistance of his teacher ; continuing daily to present
some exercise in French , as a commercial or friendly letter
or anecdote , till his style be free from Anglicisms, which
are the last faults which disappear, and which reading
alone can perfectly conquer .
To read French at sight with as much facility as Eng
lish ,- to write a friendly or commercial letter correctly and
readily -to speak with correctness , though not at first with
fluency ,-is the usual degree of facility and knowledge my
pupils acquire in this language ; a knowledge, as I have
elsewhere remarked , certainly susceptible of extent and
accuracy , but much more than has ever yet been communi
cated in any length of time on the common system ;-in
deed, as much as one man can communicate to another,
and, certainly, sufficient for any social and commercial
purpose ; -and this knowledge the pupil is immediately
able to communicate to another, while it is acquired in so
short time, with so much certainty, and with so trifling an
expence of labour and money , that surely no man or wo
man, acquainted with the existence of the system, will
neglect to profit by it.
The following fact is too important in itself, and too
honourable to my system to be omitted here :- Besides
the numerous classes which, assembled at my house in
Cecil street, private classes were attended in different
 22

parts of the town. One of my partners met a class at the

house of Mr. John Smith , M.P. This gentleman was so
delighted with the system , that he conceived the idea of
rendering it the national mode of instruction , and of found
ing a University for the propagation of it ! For this pur
pose, it was judged necessary to authenticate the progress
of a class of boys in the Latin language ; and , after com
municating with me on the subject, he very nobly sub
scribed one hundred pounds towards the expence of it.
Several of his friends also subscribed, so that £225 were
collected to defray the expence of the experiment which
was confided to me . I had so little doubt of producing the
utmost result that the wildest imagination could suppose
possible in human beings , that my sole care was to authen
ticate their progress . The fear that the public might
suppose the success a delusion, deprived me of that judg
ment and reflection so necessary for its success . I had
just given up my establishment in Cecil-street to my son-in
law, Mr. UNDERWOOD ; and it was feared that the recep
tion of ten charity boys into the house might injure the
establishment. I, therefore , took a house in Gower-street ,
by which I incurred a loss of above £ 300. But the great
mistake was, to make the experiment of a foreign language
on boys who knew little or nothing of their own :-they
were taken from an obscure charity school-- from the very
lowest grade of human beings ;-they knew no language
further than the expression of their physical wants or
childish pleasures -- they could scarcely read their 'Testa
ment--they had never read any thing else . I know not
how I could be blind enough not to see the impossibility of
teaching such children ( from ten to thirteen years of age)
Latin , without first teaching them English ; or how Mr.
Smith himself, and those gentlemen who assisted at the
 23
examination of these boys before the experiment began ,
and who fully authenticated their almost total destitution
of either words or ideas in their own language , did not re
flect on the utter impossibility of communicating to them a
greater knowledge of Latin than they possessed of English .
As they understood the greater part of the words of the
Testament, when these words were turned into Latin for
them, they could comprehend them also in that language ;
but when we got beyond the Testament, to Cornelius Ne
pos or Cæsar's Commentaries , into a language more ele
vated, and the expression of ideas to which their previous
ignorance rendered them total strangers, it was necessary
with the Latin word to teach the pupil also the English
word , and, with both , the idea which they represented ;
a task impossible to perform simultaneously to any extent ,
and the impossibility of which became so evident after
they had gone through the Gospel of St. John , the Epitome
of the Historia Sacra, and the De Viris Illustribus of
Aurelius Victor, that I made them read English every day,
with a hope of extending their knowledge in that language ,
and thus rendering their acquirement of another to any
extent possible. But this consumed the time allowed for
the experiment ; and , therefore, in order that it should
not wholly fail, I turned their attention to the French and
Italian languages, and in two months made them know of
these two languages as much , or more, than they knew of
Latin : that is , that they could understand an easy author
in either ; translate it with perfect grammatical accuracy ,
and a correct pronunciation . So far as their knowledge of
English went, so far the system operated on them to its
utmost extent, and would , I doubt not, have sufficed for
one or two other languages in the same time : but when
their English words were exhausted, then arose the insur
 24

mountable difficulty of communicating the knowledge of

new ones ; and here, let it be said, en passant, is another
most formidable difficulty, which the present plan of teach
ing the Latin opposes to the progress of the pupil in com
mon schools , instead of making him begin by reading a
considerable number of easy English authors, sueh , for
example , as those published by the Society for Education
in Ireland, and thus giving him a fund of information and
ideas , as well as a knowledge of his own language, the boy
is put to study the English or Latin grammar , which can
communicate to him neither words nor ideas . It is not,
therefore, to be wondered at , that the result is such as we
see it every day. But another difficulty attended this ill
fated experiment; a want of harmony arose, I know not
how, between the gentlemen who induced me to undertake
it and myself :—they saw me not — they imagined they had
paid for the experiment its full value , while I knew that it
occasioned me a loss of above £500. They appeared to
consider me as a mere workman in the business . Hurt with
a treatment which I then thought , and still think , I did
not merit, at the end of six months I left town and the
examination of the pupils to the gentlemen who had pro
posed the experiment. The account given of this exami
pation was as follows:
Extract from the Morning Chronicle of Wednesday ,
November 16th , 1825 .-- " Hamillonian System.We yester
day were present at an examination of eight lads who have
been under Mr. Hamilton since some time in the month of
May last, with a view to ascertain the efficacy of his sys
tem in communicating a knowledge of languages. These
eight lads , all of them between the ages of twelve and
fourteen, are the children of poor people , who when they
were first placed under Mr. Hamilton , possessed no other
 25

instruction than common reading and writing. They were

obtained from a common country school, through the in
terposition of a Member of Parliament, who takes an
active part in promoting charity schools throughout the
country ; and the choice was determined by the consent of
the parents , and not by the cleverness of the boys.
“ They had been employed in learning Latin , French,
and latterly Italian ; and yesterday they were examined by
several distinguished individuals , among whom we recog
nised John Smith, Esq. M.P.; G. Smith , Esq. M.P.; Mr.
J. Mill, the historian of British India ; Major Camac ;
Major Thompson ; Mr. Cowell, &c . &c. They first read
different portions of the Gospel of St. John , in Latin , and
of Cæsar's Commentaries, selected by the visitors . The
translation was executed with an ease which it would be in
vain to expect in any of the boys who attend our common
schools, even in their third or fourth year ; and proved ,
that the principle of exciting the attention of boys to the
utmost, during the process by which the meaning of words
is fixed in their memory, had given them a great familia
rity with so much of the language as is contained in the
books above alluded to. Their knowledge of the parts of
speech was respectable , but not so remarkable ; as the
Hamiltonian System follows the natural mode of acquiring
language , and only employs the boys in analysing, when
they have already attained a certain familiarity with any
language.
“ The same experiments were repeated in French and
Italian with the same success ; and, upon the whole , we
cannot but think the success has been complete. It is im
possible to conceive a more impartial mode of putting any
system to the test, than to make such an experiment on
the children of our peasantry .”
C
 26

On this statement the Edinburgh Review thus remarks :

“ Into the truth of this statement we have personally
inquired , and it seems to us to have fallen short of the
facts, from the laudable fear of over -stating them . The
lads selected for the experiment were parish boys of the
most ordinary description , reading English worse than
Cumberland curates, and totally ignorant of the rudiments
of any other language. They were purposely selected by
a gentleman who defrayed its expence , and who had the
strongest desire to put strictly to the test the efficacy of
the Hamiltonian System . The experiment was begun the
middle of May, 1825 , and concluded on the 16th day of
November, in the same year mentioned in the extract,
exactly six months after. The Latin books set before
them were the Gospel of St. John, and parts of Cæsar's
Commentaries . Some Italian book or books (what we know
not), and a selection of French histories. The visitors put
the boys on where they pleased, and the translation was (as
the reporter says) executed with an ease which it would
be in vain to expect in any of the boys who attend our
>>
common schools , even in their third or fourth year.”
This account, as the writer in the Edinburgh Review
justly remarked, was rather under than over the mark. It
was a fair and honourable account of it ; though their
knowledge of French and Italian was scarcely attended to
at the examination , far less their previous ignorance of all
language , and their emptiness of all ideas. Had I chosen
ten boys from a different class of society, whose ideas had
been expanded by conversation , and their knowledge of
their own language by reading ; or , if I had made these
ten boys begin by a course of two months' reading the
books above alluded to, the experiment would have been
complete. I have the fullest conviction, that were I to
 27

repeat it on proper subjects, or, what is the same thing,

begin it by a two months' course of English reading, having
at the same time translations such as I have since made,
they could have been taken through a course of thirteen
volumes , and have been made to know them perfectly. I
consider the experiment a failure ; but no man else has a
right to consider it so : it produced, against every obstacle
that imagination could offer to its success, a progress mani
fold greater than had ever been effected on the common
plan , in the same length of time, in three languages - a
progress in the Latin justly estimated a three years' pro
gress on the common plan ; and an accuracy in translating
French and Italian, which on the plan of our schools, or in
any other manner than by my translations (which were not
then made) , has never been acquired in any length of time
whatever. The University, of which the System gave the
first idea, has been reared ; but its founders , disdaining
the more humble but more useful ambition of rendering the
languages an easy acquisition to the youth of this kingdom ,
have taken a loftier flight, and SUCCEEDED.-"Tis well : but
until the primary schools (I mean those called grammar
schools) adopt a different mode of teaching the languages
than that now in use ; or, until the Universities take up
the languages themselves, on a better plan , the best of them
will do little towards a greater diffusion of real science
than at present exists *.
* I have just read the able and ingenious Address of Mr. Surgeon
Whatton to the Governors of the Manchester Royal Institution, pro
posing not to abandon the original design of establishing in Manchester
A TEMPLE TO THE FINE ARTS, but to extend their views, and make
the magnificent structure erected for that purpose serve also as an uni
versity for the youth of this rich and populous town. A more happy idea
could, I think, scarcely have been infanted. Why, indeed, should a
town which in population surpasses many of the capitals of Europe, and
 28

In a work such as this, intended to give a full account of

the Hamiltonian System , I ought , perhaps, to mention
those who have written for and against it. To mention
all the latter , would alone require a pamphlet larger than
this : had there, however, been found among them one
single man of talent -- one candid and able adversary
in riches far surpasses them all, except London and Paris, be de
prived of the very first of social advantages—the means of obtaining
knowledge in the fullest extent, and on the easiest terms, within their
own walls ? Why should the immense body of wealthy and enlightened
merchants which this town contains ( a body which, as Mr. Whatron
ably proves, yields to no other in the kingdom for taste and liberality),
be obliged to send their sons to a distant region, far from the parental
eye, deprived of parental care, and exposed to the inroads of juvenile
excesses or vice, to obtain that instruction which is as necessary to an
intellectual being as his existence , and which he may have at his own
door, without trouble, without danger, and comparatively without ex
pence ? Here is no 10 or £ 15,000 to be first laid out in premises, and
afterwards £ 100,000 for a building : all this is done - all this is provided ;
professors only are needed, and these can be had. Eight or £ 10,000 a
year, which would be in a great measure, or entirely furnished by the
pupils, would do all that could reasonably be proposed, until the success,
which I think indubitable, be ascertained. And who is it would oppose
such a plan as this ? An eneiny to his country and mankind must he be
who opposes a design which combines, with so much economy , the ideal
though pleasing advantages of the fine arts, with the solid advantages of
real and useful science . Among these sciences, let not the first in order,
—the most useful to a commercial nation - the knowledge of languages,
be neglected . Let it be the determination of Manchester, that, in what
ever it undertakes, it may excel . Let its university, by the adoption of
the Hamiltonian System , have the glory of giving a right system of
education, not only to England but to the whole earth. In a few years
she will send her professors, with her travellers, to every corner of the
globe ; and thus prove that industry is the parent of science as well as of
richies.
The fatigues of a professorship would be above my strength ; but I
would most gladly and gratuitously assist in the organization of any part
to which my feeble talents might be thought adequate.
 29

I would gladly give his arguments here ; but I declare ,

upon my honour, I have never read a single page which for
fact or argument deserved notice . The late Dr. Jones was ,
perhaps , the most respectable writer who has attacked the
system in Europe ; but Dr. Jones had a system of his own ,
and his system and his attack were equally weak : I judged
them both utterly unworthy of notice.
Several able defences have appeared both here and in
America. The best of these is , without doubt, that which
drew forth Dr. Jones's attack, from the pen of the Rev.
Sidney Smith, and appeared in the Edinburgh Review for
June, 1826. It is written with great strength of reasoning,
as well as humour : the matter was rich , and he has made
the most of it . He concludes an essay of twenty-three
octavo pages in the following manner : after quoting some
of the rules of the Eton and Westminster grammars , he
continues—“ 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
acquired. 3. It substitutes the cheerfulness and competi
tion 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 insu
perable 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 stu
deut having acquired the great art of understanding the
sense of what is written in another tongue, may go into
the study of the language as deeply and extensively as he
C 2
 30

pleases. The old system aims at beginning with a depth

and accuracy which many men never will want, which dis
gusts 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 per
suaded, 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 is any
truth in this , it will make Mr. Hamilton one of the most
useful men of his age ; for if there is any thing 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 .”
The effect of this critique was tº call the attention of the
public afresh to a subject which had excited a lively in
terest for two years , but which was so hotly opposed on
the one hand , and so highly applauded on the other, that
the public found it difficult to form a judgment. Much
good has, therefore, resulted from it ; but this good has
not been unmixed with evil. The writer, while he defended
the barbarisms which appeared in the first edition of my
Greek Gospel of St. John, which he judged essential to the
system , supposed that they might be remedied by a free
translation in addition to the interlineary one. This
unlucky idea , founded on his total unacquaintance with
the practical part of this mode of teaching , induced a
number of persons wholly ignorant of the system - nay, of
the very first principles of analysis -- to make these double
translations ; but not making either analytical, utterly
defeated the object of the system , by obliging the pupil
often to recur to his dictionary for the meaning of the
word , and to his master for the ordo. These books , to
 31

render the deception complete, have been sold as mine,

and have done much mischief by being confounded with
my system, of which they are as distant as the antipodes.
I had foreseen this ; but fearing that my attack of what
was yet only ideal might seem illiberal , I did not allude to
it in my answer to the Edinburgh Review, which was as
follows :

“ Hamiltonian System . - To the Editor of the Edinburgh

Weekly Journal.- Sir, The last number of the Edinburgh
Review contains so able a defence of this system , that , as
its author, I think I cannot with propriety delay the public
expression of my gratitude to the eloquent writer of it. In
doing this, my intention is not to add any thing to what he
has said in commendation of the system, but rather to reply
to those criticisms which a spirit of candour and impar
tiality has induced him to make . I regret that I had not an
opportunity of conversing with him ; it would have been so
easy to prove to his satisfaction , that the few points on
which he supposes it deficient or vulnerable, are, in fact,
abundantly guarded from the inconveniences he fears .
And, first, as to the manner in which this system has been
brought before the public , by ADVERTISING ; this has been
often attacked by my opposers , and sometimes condemned
by my friends . My advocate in the Review thinks this
circumstance ' unfortunate ;' and I would certainly coin
cide with him in opinion , for it bas cost me above one
thousand pounds, provided he or any other person will
point out to me any other way under Heaven in which I could
have brought it forward with the sliglitest hope of success .
Unfortunate, indeed, and painful has it often been to me
to pass for one hour for a puffer or boaster ; but if a faith
ful and simple representation of my system , if a fair ex
 32

position of its results appear incredible or impossible , as

they are in truth on the common plan , the fault is not in
me, but in the general ignorance in society of what a right
system of teaching ought to produce. No doubt, if this ap
pearance of puffing could have been avoided, it would
be desirable ; but the mode of avoiding it, without aban
doning my profession, neither friends nor enemies have yet
pointed out. Those who think it was only necessary to de
monstrate its effects to the heads of colleges or schools, to
statesmen , clergymen , editors , or men of learning generally ,
in order to have my system ushered to the notice of man
kind, with all the honours which attended inoculation or
the vaccine, know little of the world or of the classes of
men they speak of ; they know not the prejudices of edu
cation, the force of mental habits, of preconceived opinions,
of private interests , or scholastic pride. If I had not
advertised , I should never have had a pupil ; and if I had
not in my advertisements told the infallible result of my
lessons , instead of being able to count ten thousand pupils
formed in ten years , I should probably find myself with
thirty or forty children in some obscure village of the
United States. They are, besides , widely mistaken , who
suppose a system of teaching can be formed in one day,
and proposed to society in a perfect state the next : practice,
publicity, experience, opposition, rivality, jealousy, dis
cussion, are necessary, absolutely necessary to perfect it,
and of those the Hamiltonian System has had its full share.
When I entered my scholastic career, I had one single
principle of what has since, by the re-union of other prin
ciples , become a system . I TAUGHT instead of ordering to
learn ; and by the application of this one mighty lever ,
which had lain rusty for centuries, I effected wonders ,
' I raised a world . This is yet, and ever will be, the basis of
 33

the Hamiltonian System ; analytical translation , repetition ,

and the other principles which now compose it , being but
the handmaids of this one mighty but universally neglected
principle. By the use of this one principle, I say, I effected
a progress, believed, and truly believed , impossible on the
usual plan , and I published this progress ; but, in doing
so, I said the truth only ; I appealed continually to facts ;
I gave not the names of my patrons , but the names of my
pupils , and at every step invited inquiry , and defied in
vestigation . Is this, I ask, puffing or quackery ? If it be ,
tell me what truth and simplicity are, for I know them not.
But there is another and very simple argument for ad
vertising, which is not always taken into account by my
friends, when they affect to condemn it as unworthy the
author of an useful discovery ;-I had to live by it : it has
afforded me and my family an honourable support for the
last ten years ; and I would ask, are there any other terms
on which society could justly require of me to devote my
life to the purpose of diffusing the knowledge and the
benefits of it ?
“ The second objection made by the eloquent advocate
of my system is, that emulation is discarded from it ;
“ there is,' he says , ' no changing of seats .' This would
be below the dignity of the rank and age of my pupils
generally , and with boys the loss of time would be
enormous ; besides , that it has been found unnecessary ,
the delight and surprise of the pupil at the perception of
his progress at every step , produces all the effects of emu
lation or jealousy in other systems. I have known parents ,
nay, grandfathers and grandmothers, enter my classes ,
expressly stipulating not to be called on to recite , before
the end of three lessons, become the most lively mcmbers
 34

of the class, and the most zealous co-operators in its exer

cises .
“ The third objection is, that I ascribe to one word one
meaning only. This is a vital principle, absolutely ne
cessary in all analytical translation. I do not contend for
it as a theoretic invaluable truth , but as an operative and
practical principle. I know it has many exceptions, though
infinitely fewer than is generally supposed, but the
principle itself must never be lost sight of ; it would in
stantly re- plunge the unhappy pupil into the chaotic con
fusion and uncertainties of dictionaries , from which it is
the object of the Hamiltonian system to rescue liim . Jubeo
and dolor, which the Reviewer quotes as a proof that
words may have two meanings, do not form exceptions to
this principle : to command or to order are not two
meanings , but one. Grief and sorrow the same ; hut if he
will look into Ainsworth, he will find for jubeo and dolor
a number of other forced , figurative, or implied meanings
for each of these words, which, on the principles of my
translations, must be utterly rejected .
" The fourth objection, ' I guarantee the progress of
my pupils.' This objection has been made for want of
accurate information relative to the nature of it. The
Reviewer , ' from experiments and observations which
have fallen under his own notice ,' ASSERTS, that a boy of
common capacity, and studying four hours a -day, might ,
on this System , be taught the four Gospels in Greek in six
weeks ; in Italian or French in three ; in German in five .
His conviction of this is full and perfect ; why then not
GUARANTEE it to the timid or cautious father, who pays for
this acquirement in advance, or to the modest pupil who
fears such a progress to be beyond his power. But what
 35
ifhe does not attend ? What if he be sick, or idle , or
stupid ? Here is precisely the use of the guarantee-give
him his lessons over again : this is all I mean .
“ The triumph of the Hamiltonian system is, that, with
the utmost moral certainty, you can predict the day, nay,
the very hour, when a pupil, utterly ignorant of a language ,
shall be able to translate any given easy book in it with a
correctness of pronunciation , and an accuracy of translation
and grammatical analysis which an adept in language
may equal butnot surpass ; and that this day or hour may
not be at the distance of one year, as would be usually re
quired on the common plan, but, with the slightest exertion
on the part of the pupil and teacher, at the end of one
month ! and that such is the certainty with which the
teacher undertakes the task , that he is willing to stake
all he possesses , his reputation ,on the result ; that , in short,
he can GUARANTEE it .

“ I am , with respect,
66 Sir ,
“ Your most obedt. Servant,
" JAMES HAMILTON.

“ Edinburgh , 15th August, 1826."

Such is the History of the Hamiltonian System , which
I have brought down to the moment of delivering the
following Lecture in Liverpool. As it may tend to eluci
date some points in education which I have not before
treated on , I give it nearly in the words in which I de
livered it to one of the smallest audiences I have ever ad
dressed. It was, however, delivered in the same room in
which I had twice before addressed an audience of 1,600
persons ; but I had , unluckily, appointed my lecture at
the same hour when the result of the Catholic bill was
 36
+

expected every moment, and the whole town was collected

in groups to hear the speech of Mr. Peel on this all ab
sorbing question .

LECTURE .
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN ,
The opinion that the science of Education has much
improved within the last thirty years is so general, that
it will be thought little less than heresy to deny it. It is
certainly true that an infinitely greater number of persons ,
in proportion to our population , know how to read and
write at present than before the introduction of the Lan
casterian System and Sunday Schools. This is, so far,
a good and happy result ; but this does not prove that
education as a science, that is , the mode of imparting
knowledge , more especially that of the Languages, has
advanced one step, or that the higher classes are, in this
respect, better educated now than they were a century ago .
There are in this town , as well as in every other of the
United Kingdom, thousands of persons who bewail their
own want of literary instruction , which they modestly , but
erroneously, attribute to their inattention and idleness
while at school; and who sincerely imagine they aretaking
the necessary steps to obviate so great a misfortune to
their offspring, by sending them to the schools where the
nobility send theirs, in the fond hope that their children
will make a better improvement of their time and oppor
tunity than they themselves have done. But the cause
being the same , the result turns out invariably the same.
The sons , as the fathers, having sacrificed real and useful
knowledge to the vain and futile advantage of studying
Greek and Latin with Lord A. and Marquis B., return to
 37
the paternal mansion almost as empty of it as when they
left it. The Languages of Greece and Rome are, doubtless,
well worth a reasonable time spent in the successful study
of them ; but no man in his senses will say that it is a
rational act of the parent to make his son study these
languages seven or eight years, with the almost absolute
certainty that even in that time he will not have obtained
such a knowledge of them as to render the literature of
these ancient nations familiar to him ; or that even if he
did, if he learn nothing else, that that literature alone
would suffice to make him a man of Education , a sound
scholar of the present day. This is not educating his son ,
but rather insuring, as far as in him lies , his ignorance and
consequent degradation ; for though the knowledge of
Greek and Latin does not tend to degradation , per se, of
itself, yet does it lead infallibly to this result ; for if eight
years are given up to this study, and given up exclusively
to it, as is usually the case, our own language , containing
information infinitely more precious , more important,
History, Geography, Astronomy, Natural History, and
Natural Philosophy ; the literature of our own and other
nations ; the knowledge of the productions of our own
country and of others ; the commercial , political, and
scientific relations of the different nations of the earth
with each other ; their manners , habits , commerce,
customs, religion , and laws, exclusive of the liberal
sciences , and that fund of indirect information which can
be acquired by reading, and reading alone , must be sacrificed
to it ; and yet all these are absolutely necessary to con
stitute a right education , and are in themselves a far
more essential part of it than Greek and Latin .
As far, therefore, as ignorance can degrade, the un
happy student is degraded by such a course, and remains
D
 88

for ever degraded, unless at this period of life , that is , on

his quitting school, he betake himself to the study of those
objects to which I have above alluded with tenfold more
ardour than he has ever studied Greek and Latin ; a task
of uncommon difficulty in itself,and rendered still more dif
ficult by a distaste for learning too frequently contracted
at school, and by the necessity in which he now finds him
self, to apply his time and talents to some professional
pursuit, on his success in which is to depend his ease, af
fluence, and respectability, his very existence in after life ;
and if I grant that many have conquered all these diffi
culties , and have risen to eminence , respect, and riches ,
it must, I think, be conceded to me, on the other hand,
that thousands in the different professions of Divinity,
Law , and Physic, victims of the system of Education I
have here signalized, however ardent their endeavours,
have been unable to raise themselves to respect or real
usefulness, nor would be able to procure a subsistence by
their profession, if they were not assisted by relatives and
friends, and often placed in positions which render them , in
a great measure, independent of those for whom they
officiate.
Still, it must be granted that the Greek and Latin lan
guages are so wound up in all our institutions, professions,
sciences, literature, language, -nay , in our very religion,
customs, conversation, amusements and social habits,
that no man will be hardy enough to deny their over
whelming importance ; and the parent who feels this im
portance, without being sufficiently aware of the still
greater importance of the other species of knowledge to
which I have alluded, and not knowing how to attain both,
consents, however reluctantly, to suffer his son to tread the
same barren rugged road he had himself trodden ; and
 39

thus has the work of Education been carried on , by

prescription, for the last two centuries . But how does the
study of Greek and Latin cause all this mischief ? By the
most simple process that can be conceived : by taking up
all the time of the student , and consequently preventing him
from READING ! -READING, whose effects mankind seem to
be utterly unaware of ;-READING, the only real-the only
effectual source of instruction ;-READING, the pure spring
of nine -tenths of our intellectual enjoyments ,-the only
cure for all our ignorances ; - READING, without which
noman ever yet possessed extensive information ;-READING ,
which alone constitutes the difference between the block
head and the man of learning ;-READING, the loss of which
no knowledge of Greek particles, nor the most intimate
acquaintance with the rules of syntax and prosody, will
ever be able to compensate ;-READING, the most valuable
gift of the Divinity, has been sacrificed to the acquirement
of what never constituted real learning, and which con
stitutes it now less than ever ; and to the contemptible
vanity of being supposed a classical scholar, often without
the shadow of a title to it. That this picture is not
charged , I would appeal to the experience of almost every
man capable of understanding me,—to every man whose
position in society has given him an opportunity of knowing
those who compose it : I would appeal to the minister of
the Gospel, the physician, the lawyer, the gentleman. I
would entreat every parent to inquire into its truth , before
it be too late to prevent its baneful effects upon his
offspring
READING is, then , of ten thousand-fold the importance
of anyother science, because it is the mother of them all ;
and as it must not be sacrificed to Greek or Latin, so
neither should it be sacrificed to any thing else. Nothing
can , in any case, be substituted for it : it is the milk of the
 40
intellectual child ; it is the solid nourishment of the grown
man ; it is the wine of old age . It must not, therefore , be
sacrificed in childhood to spelling, to endeavouring to re
cite , to speak, or to read with propriety ; because, to read
with propriety before we have acquired a considerable
fund of knowledge and experience of life, is impossible
and useless . Neither should it be sacrificed to grammar
or composition , nor to getting by heart any thing whatever;
because these are utterly unattainable before we have read
a great deal ; nor to writing, for years, large hand, in
order to be able to write small ; to arithmetic , at an age
when it is wholly useless ; nor to the thousand other con
trivances which it would seem that the enemy of mankind
could alone have put into the heads of school-masters, to
prevent the child from READING, that is , from learning any
thing, and thus keep him , like another Sisyphus , the whole
time of his scholastic life, rolling up the stone of science
all the day, to see it roll down every night, and then be
obliged every morning to renew the disgusting task.
As reading is the source of all real instruction , as is
self -evident to any man who seflects on the subject, so it is
also the sole-the only means by which the words of a
dead language can be acquired. It is inconceivable that
those persons , whose business is the instruction of others
in the languages, should not have found out this obvious
truth, that to speak or write a language , we must know it
by heart ; and that so far as we know it in this manner, so
far reaches the copiousness, harmony, and variety of our
style in speaking or in writing, and no farther !
The man who has not learned to read , knows only those
words which he has learned in conversation ; his vocabu
lary is smaller than can well be imagined, still, however,
proportioned and analogous to the company he has kept.
But to write and speak with any pretensions to purity, or
 41
elegance, or variety of style, we must have read-read a
great deal, and good authors. The first book a man reads
impresses on his mind and memory a number of words he
either knew not before, or knew so imperfectly that he did
not dare to use them ; every succeeding book augments
this number, and with it forms gradually his judgment as
to their fitness, singly or collectively . No man has ever
yet become a critic with regard to language--no man has
ever written or spoken with elegance and propriety, by any
other means .
Now if this be correct with regard to our own language ,
how much more demonstrably correct is it with regard to a
foreign idiom , in which we derive no assistance from con
versation ? Here reading must do the whole; and here
precisely it is that we are prevented from reading by our
masters, and directed to obtain a knowledge of the lan
guage by grammatical rules , by philological criticisms,
in the study of which we remain occupied till we have no
longer time to study at all ; till we are called to take an
active part in the duties of life. I am conscious that I
shall be thought verbose and diffuse on this subject: “ It
is ridiculous, ” exclaims the critic, “ to tell us so much of
the utility of READING ; we all feel and know it.”. I beg
your pardon, sir, not one in a thousand of those for whom I
write, know or feel that the words of a language are to be
got by reading only : if they did, they would practise it for
themselves and prescribe it to others, instead of giving
them a dictionary for that purpose .
Still, I have admitted the absolute necessity of acquiring
the Greek and Latin languages , and the Greek and Latin
languages are the cause of all the evil : how are we to get
over this difficulty ? how remedy the evil without putting
away the cause ? for, if we study them as we have hitherto
D 2
 42
done, there is no time for reading - what, then , is to be done ?
STUDY THEM ON A DIFFERENT PLAN, if such a plan exists ;
and if it does not, seek and find one . BUT IT DOES EXIST :
its existence is demonstrated by evidence as clear as light ;
it can be denied by none ; it can be doubted only by the
man who has never inquired. Yes , the Latin and Greek
languages, instead of occupying eight or ten years' disgust
ing labour, may be acquired without difficulty , nay, with
interest and delight, and with them a fund of that infor
mation which I have above signalized as more valuable
than they, from the reading of the authors in every brunch
of literature found in these languages ,-all may , I say , be
acquired with infallible certainty in eighteen months or
two years ; and will thus , instead of being a hinderance to
real and useful information , constitute in themselves the
most important and useful portion of it. The knowledge
of them , instead of being confined to the Fellows of Col
leges , will be found , where they ought to be found , in the
study of the Lawyer, the Physician , and the Apothecary, in
the counting-house of the Merchant, in the parlour of every
private Gentleman : every man of Education will possess
them really, instead of possessing, as is now usually the
case, the unmerited reputation of knowing them .
I shall now enter into the details of the easy and pleasing
system I propose : in doing this, it will not be required of
methat I should enter into the proof of every fact I ad
vance .
The Hamiltonian System has been now before the
public for many years ; its Author has not been content
with explaining it in every city of the United Kingdom, but
has tạught many thousands of pupils, and proclaimed their
progress to the world ; every where inviting the investiga
tion of its friends, and defying the scrutiny of its enemies ;
every where appealing to the testimony of his pupils, whose
 43
patronage alone he has ever sought or obtained. His
books have now an extensive circulation. They are known
on the Continent of Europe under the name of “ Systême
Naturel ; " they are used in Calcutta, the United States ,
and the West Indies , and they have been counterfeited in
England by numbers, who imagined they were writing on
the Hamiltonian System , when they were only taking the
pupil back to the justly-scouted translations of Locke, of
Clarke , of Stirling, and, in our own days, of the followers
of Dumarsais ; who, not perceiving the difference between
interlinear and analytical translations , have given false
and incorrect translations interlineally. They have, at
least, rendered homage to the merits of that system which
they attempted thus to appropriate to themselves. But I
come to my exposition, and ask pardon for this long intro
duction .
It has been supposed that there are in the Greek and
Latin, if not in all other languages , certain fixed stamina,
certain fundamental rules or principles , the preliminary
knowledge of which is absolutely necessary to the acquire
ment of the langage itself. These soi-disant fundamental
rules and principles are collected into what is called a
Grammar (a book, I believe, utterly unknown to the Greeks
and Romans) , and put into the hands of every student (not,
indeed, to study or to comprehend , that would be ime 1

possible) , but. to get by heart, before he is permitted to

translate ; at first sight, it appears the most inconceivable
folly, to study the rules by which the words of a language
are connected , with their derivation and declension , before
we know their meaning. But the object of getting the
Grammar by heart is not , as is usually supposed, to give
the student a critical, a grammatical knowledge of the
language; such an idea, at the outset of his la bours, would
 44
be altogether preposterous , but it is—TO ENABLE HIM TO
LOOK FOR HIS WORDS IN THE DICTIONARY ! Thus, if the
boy was put to translate the words da mihi panem, without
this preliminary knowledge, as the Dictionary only contains
the root of each of these words, do, ego, and panis, he
would not be able to find them. He must first know how
to conjugate the verb, do, that is , to use it in all its moods ,
tenses, and persons , and to decline the pronoun ego and the
noun panis, that is, to use them in all their cases, before
he can look for their meaning.
He has thus really to learn the language twice - first,
etymologically, in order to be able to use his Dictionary ;
and, secondly, by the help of his Dictionary, to learn the
meaning of words . The first is a Herculean labour, and such
as assuredly no ancient Greek or Roman ever attempted .
The latter is rendered inconceivably tedious and difficult,
by the use he is obliged to make of this Dictionary, in which
a number (often from ten to thirty) of implied , forced, or
figurative meanings are mixed up with the one true and
literal meaning of the word , among which the inexperienced
student is ordered to find or guess at the right; to this, add
the difficulty of the ordo of this foreign idiom , the necessity
imposed on him of parsing every word, that is , shewing its
accordance with rules, and exceptions to rules, of which
neither Homer nor Virgil ever heard, and that seem in
vented only to vex and torment, and prevent the progress
of the unhappy pupil.
I wish not to hurt the feelings of any man , much less to
satirize one of the most useful and respectable professions
in society, in thus describing the process of acquiring these
languages . The heads of schools know this account to be
exact, and every man who has learned, or at least studied,
these languages knows it to be exact. But the present
 45

teachers are not the authors of the present system of the

school : they teach as thousands of the best and wisest of
mankind have taught before them , and as they were taught
themselves : many have already adopted , in whole or in
part, the Hamiltonian System , and many are yet unac
quainted with it. Let us wait to condemn till they refuse
to adopt a better mode, fairly demonstrated to be truly
such . Meantime, I appeal to their testimony, that the
pupil is occupied many months, and sometimes years, not
in studying, but in learning to study ; in acquiring not the
words of the language, but the power of acquiring them.
And when , at length, he has acquired that power, the mode
in which he is obliged to use it is arduous in the extreme ;
and if we add to this , the idea of coercion , the non - percep
tion of his progress, and the disgust arising from such an
apparently useless and endless labour, we ought not to be
surprised that so many years are thus spent in the acquire
ment of a very imperfect knowledge of six or seven authors ;
and that it then rarely happens that the pupil would be
able to read with pleasure, or to understand without con
siderable labour and the help of a dictionary, an author
which he had not thus previously fagged over for many
months . The above is the chief hinderance to the success
of our Education . See the easy and effectual process by
which it is obviated .
Give the pupil, instead of a Grammar and Dictionary
on the common plan , a Dictionary for every Book he reads,
comprehending not simply the roots of the words , but every
word ; let such a Dictionary point out the mood, tense ,
and person of every verb, the case of every noun , furnish
a perfect analysis of the phrase and of every word in it, so
that the pupil shall not only be able to translate his book
 46

with infallible certainty in the tenth part of the time

hitherto requisite, but be able, at the same time, to parse
it, that is, to have a perfect koowledge of its Grammar,
also. Now this Dictionary is precisely a Hamiltonian
Translation !-take the following examples :

ST. MATTHEW , Chapter viii.

5. Εισελθόντι δε αυτώ εις Καπερναούμ , προσήλθεν αυτώ εκατόνταρχος
παρακαλών αυτών .
6. Και λίγων: Κύριε , ο παίς μου βεβληται εν τη οικία παραλυτικός ,
δεινώς βασανιζόμενος .

7. Και λέγει αυτώ ο Ιησούς: 'Εγω έλθων θεραπεύσω αυτόν.

5.
Δε αυτό εισελθόντι (2. aor. ) είς Καπερναούμ ,
And to him entering into Capernaum ,
εκατόνταρχος προσήλθεν ( 2. α.) αυτώ, παρακαλών αυτόν.
a centurion came to him , praying him.

6.
Και λέγων , Κύριε, και παίς μου βεβληται
And saying, O Lord, the child of me has been cast
εν τη οικία παραλυτικός, δεινώς βασανιζόμενος.
in the house paralytic, dreadfully tormented .
Και ο Ιησούς λέγει αυτο 'Εγω έλθουν (2. α.)
7 . And the Jesus coming
says to him , I

θεραπεύσω αυτόν.
will heal him.
 47

FABLE XI of ASOP.
JACTATOR .

Vir quidam peregrinatus, deinde in suam patriam re

versus, aliaque multa in diversis viriliter gessisse locis
jactabat, atque etiam Rhodi saltâsse saltum , quem nullus
ejus loci potuerit saltare ; ad hoc et testes , qui ibi inter
fuerunt, dicebat se habere . Quidam autem ex iis , qui
aděrant, respondens ait ; Heus tu, si verum hoc est , non
est tibi opus testíbus : In Rhodus ; en et saltus .
AFFABULATIO .

Fabủla significat, nisi prompta rei demonstratỉo sit,

omnem sermonem supervacìum esse.
JACTATOR .

The Boaster.
QUIDAM vir peregrinatus , deinde
A certain man having travelled -abroad , afterwards
reversus in suam
patriam, jactabat que
having returned into his own country , did boast both
gessisse multa alia viriliter in
to have performed many other (things) manfully in
diversis locis, atque etiam saltâsse (saltavisse)
different places, and to have leaped
also
saltum Rhodi , quem nullus ejus loci
a leap of (at) Rhodes, which no -one of that place
potuerit saltare ; et dicebat se

may have been able to leap ; he did say himself

and
habere testes ad hoc , qui interfuerunt
to have witnesses to this, (those) who were present
ibi . Autem quidam ex iis qui aderant,
there . Butsome-one out of those who were present,
respondens ait,, Heus ! tu , si hoc est verum ,
answering says, Ho ! thou , if this is true ,
 48

est non opus tibi testibus : en

(there) is not need to thee with witnesses : behold
Rhodus : en et saltus.
Rhodes : behold and (also) the leap .
APPLICATION.
significat,
Fabŭla nisi prompta demonstratio
The Fable signifies, unless a ready demonstration
rei sit , omnem sermonem esse supervacŭum .
of a thing may be, every speech to be superfluous.
ROBINSON CRUSOE IN GERMAN.
Es war einmahl eine zahlreiche Familie , die aus kleinen
und grossen Leuten bestand . Diese waren theils durch
die Bande der Natur , theils durch wechselseitige Liebe
genau vereiniget . Der Hausvater and die Hausmutter
liebten Alle , wie ihre eigenen Kinder , ungeachtet nur
Lotte, die kleinste von Allen , ihre leibliche Tochter war ;
und zwei Freunde des Hauses, R- und B—, thaten das- ,
selbe. Ihr Aufenthalt war auf dem Lande, nahe vor den
Thoren von Hamburg.
Es war einmahl eine zahlreiche Familie ,
There was once a numerous family ,
die bestand kleinen und grossen
aus Leuten .
which consisted out of little and great people.
Diese waren genau vereiniget , theils durch die
These were closely united, partly through the
Bande der Natur , theils durch wechselseitige
bands of the nature, partly through mutual
Liebe. Der Hausvater und die Hausmutter liebten
love. The housefather and the housemother loved
alle , wie ihre eigenen Kinder, ungeachet ' nur
all, as their own children , although only
Lotte , die kleinste von Allen war ihre leibliche
Charlotte , the least of all was their bodily
 49
Tochter, und zwei Freunde des Hauses, R- und
daughter, and two friends of the house, R- and
B- , thaten dasselbe . Ihr Aufenthalt war auf
B-, did the same . Their residence was upon
dem Lande , nahe vor den Thoren von
to the country , near before to the gates of
Hamburg
Hamburg
FAVOLA XXII.
IL PESCATORE ED IL PICCOLO PESCE .

Un Pescatore avendo preso in mare un picciolo pesce,

esso lo voleva persuadere che gli desse libertà , dicendo :
Io sono or sì piccolo ch' io ti farò poco pro ; ma se tu mi
lasci andare, io crescerò, e tu mi prenderai poi quando io
sarò grande, e così di me avrai maggior frutto. A cui il
pescatore disse : io sarei ben pazzo, se quel guadagno ch'
io ho presentemente nelle mani , avvegna che sia piccolo,
io il lasciassi per isperanza di guadagno futuro , ancor che
fosse grande .
IL PESCATORE E IL PICCOLO PESCE .
The Fisher and the little Fish .
UN Pescatore avendo preso in mare un picciolo pesce,
A Fisher having taken in sea a little fish ,
esso voleva persuadere lo che desse
he did will to persuade him that he might give
gli libertà , dicendo ; Io sono ora sì piccolo che io
to him liberty , saying ; I am now so lit !le that I
farò ti poco pro ; ma se tu lasci mi
shall do to thee little profit ; but if thou lettest me
andare, io crescerò, e tu prenderai mi poi
to go , I shall increase , and thou wilt take me their
quando io sarò grande, e così avrai
when I shall be big, and thus thou wilt have
maggiore frutto di me. A cui il pescatore disse ;
greater fruit of me. To whom the fisher said ;
E
 50
io sarei bene-pazzo, Bé quel guadagno che
I should be very- foolish , if that gain which
io ho presentemente in le mani , avvegnache
I at -present
have in the hands, although
sia piccolo , io lasciassi il per speranza di
it may be little, I might leave it for hope of
futuro guadagno, ancorache fosse grande.
future gain, although it might be great
PERRIN'S FABLES - FABLE LXXXI.
LE CHAMPIGNON ET LE GLAND .
Un gland, tombé d'un chêne, vit à ses côtés un cham
pignon . Faquin , lui dit-il, quelle est ta hardiesse d'ap
procher si près de tes supérieurs ? Race de fumier ! com
ment oses-tu lever la tête dans une place ennoblie par mes
ancêtres depuis tant de générations ? Ne sais-tu pas qui
je suis ? Illustre seigneur, dit le champignon , je vous con
nois parfaitement bien , et vos ancêtres aussi : je ne pre
tends pas vous disputer l'honneur de votre naissance, ni la
comparer avec la mienne ; au contraire , j'avoue que je
sais à peine d'où je suis venu ; mais j'ai des qualités que
vous n'avez pas ; je fatte le palais des hommes, et je donne
un fumet délicieux aux viandes les plus exquises et les
plas délicates : au lieu que vous , avec tout l'orgueil de vos
ancêtres et de votre extraction , vous n'êtes propre qu'à en
graisser des cochons .
APPLICATION.
On a souvent reproché à l'auteur du systême Hamilto
nien son defaut de titres -il n'est ni reverend , ni docteur ,
ni professeur ! il n'est rien !-d'accord — mais ses traduc
tions sont bonnes - servons nous en.
LE CHAMPIGNON ET LE GLAND .
The Mushroom and the Acorn .
Un gland, tombé d'un chêne, vit à ses côtés
An acorn , fallen from an oak, saw to his sides
 51
un champignon. Faquin , dit- il lui, quelle est ta
a mushroom. Scoundrel, said he to him, what is thy
hardiesse d'approcher si prês de tes supérieurs ?
boldness of to approach 80 near of thy superiors ?
Race de fumier ! comment oses-tu lever la tête
Race of dunghill! how darest thou to raise the head
dans une place ennoblie par mes ancêtres depuis
in a place ennobled by my ancestors since
tant de générations ? Sais- tu qui je suis ?
80 many of generations ? Knowest thou who I am ?
Illustre seigneur, dit le
le champignon, je connois
Illustrious lord , said the mushroom , I kngw
vous parfaitement bien, et VOS ancêtres aussi : je
you perfectly well, and your ancestors also : I
prétends ne-pas disputer vous l'honneur de votre
pretend not to dispute to you the honour of your
naissance , ni comparer la avec la mienne ; au
birth , nor to compare it with the mine ; to the
contraire, j'avoue que je sais d -peine d'où je
contrary, I confess that I know scarcely whence I
suis -venu ; mais j'ai des qualités que vous avez
have come ; but I have of the qualities that you have
n'pas ; je flatte le palais des hommes , et je donne
not ; I fatter the palate of the men , and I give
un délicieux fumet aux viandes les plus exquises
a delicious flavour to the meats the most exquisite
et les plus délicates, au lieu que vous , avec
and the most delicate, to the place that you, with
tout 1 orgueil de VOS ancêtres et de votre
all the pride of your ancestors and of your
extraction , vous êtes propre ne-qu'à engraisser des
extraction, you are proper but to fatten of the
cochons .
hogs.
APPLICATION .

On souvent
a reproché à l'1 auteur du
One has often reproached to the author of the
 52

Hamiltonien Systême son defaut de titres— il est n'

Hamiltonian System his want of titles - he is not
ni reverend, ni docteur, ni professeur - il est n'rien !
nor reverend, nor doctor, nor professor - he is nothing !
d'accord ! mais ses traductions sont bonnes . Servons
agreed ! but his translations are good. Let us serve
nous en .
ourselves of them.
Now, as far as translation goes , I would ask what can
the student possibly wish for more than he has here -the
precise (not implied, not forced , not figurative) meaning of
each word, so that he shall know that meaning wherever
he may hereafter meet it, and however connected ; the ordo
or order pointing out the grammatical analysis of the
phrase, the case of every noun and adjective ; the mood ,
tense, and person of every verb by appropriate and un
changing signs ?-I repeat my question : as far as a perfect
translation goes, what more can be required or wished for
than is here given ? The experience of twelve years , and as
many thousand pupils , enable me to reply triumphantly,
“ Nothing." But for the Latin, the Gospel of St. John ,
the Epitome Historiæ Sacræ, the Fables of Æsop, Eutro
pius, Aurelius Victor, Phædrus, each perfect, with analy
tical translations , at four shillings each ; Cornelius Nepos,
six shillings and sixpence ; Commentaries of Cæsar, seven
shillings and sixpence ; Selectæ e Profanis, 2 vols.thirteen
shillings ; Sallust, seven shillings and sixpence ; the Me
tamorphoses of Ovid, seven shillings and sixpence ; and
six books of Virgil , are already published, and some of
them have passed through several editions ; in all thirteen
volumes , a greater number than are ever read (even in
part ) in schools . But, it will be asked, are not several of
these authors nearly of the same facility, and may not
 53
some of them be omitted without loss ? Those who make
this inquiry have forgotten all I have said of the neces
sity of reading : every one of them should be read ; and I
would have published still more of them, did I not know
that the student who has a perfect knowledge of these
thirteen volumes will be able to read with facility and
pleasure-Cicero , Seneca, Horace, Terence, Livy, or any
other classical author ; but I would not answer for his
being able to do so before he shall have read them all. All
the above authors have the penultima marked when it is
short ; when it is not marked , it is long ; and thus, by this
easy contrivance, the practical, and consequently useful
part of prosody, is acquired, without costing the pupil a
moment's study, and without fear of his making a false
quantity in reading. Each of these volumes can (with de
light and interest) be acquired by the pupil in four or five
weeks , and even sooner, if it be thought necessary that he
should devote his whole time to this study. In fifteen
months he will be able to take up any one of them and read
it with ease and pleasure , and a perfect intelligence of
every word. And to accomplish this unspeakably happy
revolution no effort is required on the part of the teacher, --
the constitution of his school remains the same ; he has no
more trouble, nay, infinitely less, than he had before. He
prescribes a task as before, but a pleasing and an intelli
gible one ; the pupil acquires it with facility,-not a dozen
or twenty lines, but from five to ten pages. The master is
now no longer dreaded and treated as an enemy ; he is
loved and cherished as a friend . Here is no need of coer.
cion ; what is so easy to be acquired, is acquired by the
pupil from the desire to fulfil his duty, or at least to avoid
being thought stupid or idle by his fellows. This will leave
him time for every other useful and pleasing study ; espe
E 2
 54

cially READING in his own language, or in some other mo

dern language-the French , Italian , or German , for which
books are prepared on the same plan , and which the pupil
may learn to read in a few months with as much pleasure
as English. Here then is the plan which conciliates and
renders rational the study of Latin and Greek, because on
this plan alone is the success certain , and the time devoted
to it not extravagant.
But there are two objections to this improvement : first,
this mode will not teach him grammar ! Those who make
this objection cannot see the wood for trees ! to analyze a
phrase word for word, to translate it by corresponding
parts of speech , and to point out the grammatical construc
tion of the phrase-the mutual dependance of all the
words of a sentence on each other , is not this the very
essence of grammar ? Could Horace or Virgil do more ?
Ay, but the rules ? Horace and Virgil knew none of these
rules . But the examiners at the University do , and insist
on the knowledge of them , though they do not insist on an
extensive knowledge of the meaning of words . I am sorry
for it ; but let us see if we cannot satisfy them : when the
pupil has read with that degree of accuracy which consti
tutes the very essence of the Hamiltonian System, the thir
teen volumes above-mentioned , or even half of them, give
him an Eton Grammar, let him read it over with attention ;
give him Clarke's Introduction to the making of Latin ;
let him read the rules in both with attention , and let his
master prescribe the study which may be necessary for him
to satisfy his superiors ; a few days will abundantly suffice .
for the purpose. I would , however, guard him against the
positive errors of both - the futility of several of Clarke's
rules, the extreme complexity of others . I would caution
him against the signs of the tenses given in the Eton Gram
1

55
mar, of which scarcely one is right. Take an example of
one grossly wrong : the sign of the potential mood is may
or can ; now I defy the most learned friend of this csta
blishment to form a single phrase in English in which the
word can is the sign of a time. But all this is straying
from my subject: I meant to shew that when the boy can
read and understand a Latin author with facility, the mas
ter will be at liberty to make him as profound a gramma
rian as the author of the Hermes , if he please, and that
without the expence of more than one week.
The second objection is, the translation is in bad Eng
lish, following the idiom of the Latin language , and not
that of his own ; the pupil will therefore contract the
habit of speaking bad English : an objection as rational as
the former. To speak or write good English, we must con
verse with those, whether living or dead, who speak or
write it well : if we do this (and we must do it in order to
have any just pretensions to a liberal education), there is
no fear that, in common discourse or writing , we shall sub
stitute the barbarisms of a foreign idiom for that purity of
diction and style which is acquired by reading the classical
authors of our own country. There has hitherto been no
instance of such an anomaly , and never will while the world
lasts .
But there is one more objection, and though last, not,
perhaps, the least important : will not the introduction of
this system destroy our schools ? If fifteen months suffice
for the Latin , how can the teacher count, as at present, on
keeping the pupil four or five years ? The time for the
reception of instruction , as marked out by nature, cannot
be changed by any change in the mode of communicating
that instruction ; the difference will be, that the student
will quit his school an accomplished scholar and a well
 56
informed gentleman ; and that the certainty of arriving at
this desired point (a certainty which never before existed)
will induce thousands to give their children a classical
education (because it will be as cheap as any other), who
on the present system would never have thought of it ; so
that the adoption of this system will fill the schools in
stead of emptying them, will double the number of pupils
instead of lessening it.
The opposition this system has every where met with
from school-masters , so singularly contrasted with its en .
thusiastic reception from all those who have had an op
portunity of witnessing its effects, can only arise either
from the fears to which I have above alluded, that its in
troduction would prove injurious to their schools, or from
the idea that its advantages are really chimerical-- that I
really do not teach Grammar ; that Grammar is inconsistent
with the System . To this I think I have already given a
sufficient answer . But though experience and reflection
have taught me thus to judge of Grammar, I do not pretend
that other men should see with my eyes . I think that the
theory of Grammar should be taught only when the pupil
can read the language , and understand at least an easy
book in it. Thousands more learned than I, think it should
precede the study of the language. Well , let those who
are of the former opinion teach as I do, and those who are
of the latter, make the boy study his Grammar three or
six months. But after this suffer him to use a translation ,
not such as has often been scouted from our schools, but
& grammatical - an analytical translation , the loss then
will only be the first six months , if even that, and the re
maining progress of the pupil such as I have here described
it - it will be such as to be practically and really useful to
the boy - fulfilling really the designs of the parent,
 57

Before I conclude this lecture, let me entreat the School

master to reflect whether it may not be his interest to
adopt the mode of tuition here proposed to him voluntarily ,
rather than have it forced on him by the unanimous
voice of society - for indubitably one of these things must
be the necessary and immediate result of the impulse now
given to Education throughout the civilized world . Man
kind are anxious for real knowledge, and will not much
longer put up with the shadow of it. Either the Teacher
will find out a mode of communicating a knowledge of the
learned languages in a shorter time and more efficaciously
than has been hitherto done, or the study of these lan
guages will be relinquished altogether. If another mode
be not taken to acquire Latin and Greek, our new Univer
sities will be of no avail . This mode is here offered - it
has been proved by above 20,000 examples . Its theory is
as rational as its practice is successful. The Classical
Teacher has already made a sufficient stand for the cus
toms of his forefathers. It is time to yield to the united
voice of reason , truth, and nature—of good sense and com
mon honesty - for I will ask the Clergyman , the honest,
conscientious Schoolmaster, if he can continue to make his
pupil wade through Grammars , Exercise Books , and Dic
tionaries for years , for the attainment of what I have here
proved may be obtained by a far easier, more certain , more
effectual, more pleasing mode, in a few months ? The an
swer is obvious — it will be that of an honest man , he will
try the Hamiltonian System -and , in trying it, will give it
fair play, and use , not the books of disingenuous and igno
rant interlopers , but those of the author of the system.
Thus have acted the heads of the highly respectable
schools of Hazelwood and Bruce Castle, which I have had
pleasure in recommending to those who have done me the
 58

honour of consulting me on this subject. Thus has acted

the Rev. W. Stevens, of Maidstone , whose pamphlet on the
success of the experiments made on this system, in his
Establishment, will be read with interest and pleasure by
all who are in earnest for the diffusion of knowledge.

After I had given this pamphlet to the press , the West

minster Review for April has appeared , with a long and
able article on this system . The writer appears to have
had a better opportunity of witnessing its effects than the
writer in the Edinburgh Review. He analyses it with
talent and interest, and proves, by a strict philosophical
anatomy of its principles, first, “ that there is power
enough in the system to produce all the effects which are
said to be accomplished by it" -and , secondly, “ that
there is evidence enough to prove that these results are
actually effected by it."
It is not a little singular that these eloquent friends of
the Hamiltonian System condemn alike the mode in which
it has been offered to the British public ; and, apparently,
on account of that mode, which they , however, acknowledge
was unavoidable, and without the slightest personal know
ledge of me, think it useful to their argument to speak of
me with the least possible degree of courtesy that one
gentleman (if they will allow me that title) can speak of
another. This good , however, results from this, it will not
be thought that these articles were written to please me
far less that I paid for them. This writer thinks it ne
cessary to intimate that he thinks my talents, whether
natural or acquired, of a very humble order. But is not
this a singular reproach to the author of a system which ,
he signalizes with so much talent, as " being a most ex
 59

traordinary improvement on any plan which the ingenuity

of the human mind had hitherto devised?" Is it not, I say,
a singular reproach to make, that I have done it without
talent?" You have won the battle , routed the enemy, and,
after a twelve years' struggle, silenced your adversaries ,
and put a successful end to thewar ; but you have no claim
to personal respect or consideration -- we are under no
obligation to you, as you never commanded more than a
few thousand men ! Might I not thus successfully retort ?
-without talent, without learning, without wealth, without
namé, an obscure individual, as these gentlemen are pleased
to represent me ; after having passed five and twenty
years, not in my study, but in my counting-house, I have
accomplished what Locke and Milton, and Dumarsais, anil
a number of other wise and good men, have acknowledgeil
and deplored the want of, for centuries ; namely , a
rational and efficient System of Education , which they
have attempted to supply, and failed in doing and I have
accomplished this without being indebted to these writers
or any other for a single principle of my system , for a
single idea. Go, you gentlemen of wealth and learning,
you men of connexions and talents, you men who have your
rulers for your patrons, and can wield all the influence of
the Edinburgh and Westminster Reviews , go and do some
thing great and good and useful, in proportion to the
magnitude of your means when compared with mine ; and,
in the mean time, while you render a service to your gene
ration , and I trust to every succeeding one, in pointing out
the utility of the Hamiltonian System to teachers and
parents, do not point the finger of scorn at the author, or
deprive him of the merit, as well as the profit, of his in
vention- do not neutralize all you have said of good and
useful in the system, by giving your countenance to books
utterly at variance with that system - contemptible, in a
 60

literary point of view, false and incorrect as Hamiltonian,

and which, by the most disingenuous manquvres, have been
sold in every part of the kingdom as the production of the
author of the Hamiltonian System . I do not believe there
was any intention of this kind in the mind of the writer
of the article in question ; but as it mentions but few of the
books published by me, the series of which constitute the
very essence of the system when applied to schools, his re
marks may do the same mischief that those of the Edin
burgh Review effected, by dividing the attention of the
Teacher, and leading him to believe that any other book
may do as well as mine, and that he may deviate widely
from the system with impunity. This idea, and the wish
to amalgamate other systems with it, has not hitherto
given the system fair play, especially in the hands of inex
perienced persons, who have not condescended to consult
the author himself, upon whom , however , falls infallibly
the blame of failure in every experiment made , whether
on the Hamiltonian System , or in opposition to all its
dictates and principles .
Upon the whole, I think the system much indebted to
the writer of this article. He has not only generally given
a faithful analysis of the system and its necessary results,
but he has actually forestalled, as my readers will perceive,
much of what I have here written ; which he was enabled to
do by his having in his hands the second edition of the essay
written in New York , to introduce my mode of teaching, as
detailed in the beginning of this pamphlet, an advantage
which I had not myself. The writer is, therefore, entitled
to the homage of my gratitude, which I most sincerely and
respectfully offer him , with the reserve, however, of one
or two passages, to which I think it necessary briefly to
reply.
Five persons are by no means the best possible number
 61
for a class. A man totally inept in the mode of teaching
on this system could alone have given such information to
this writer. I have never had better classes , public or
private, than those which counted from fifty to one hundred
members ; never had any whose exercises were more in
teresting and pleasing to each particular member , nor in
which a better progress has been made ; while, at the same
time, the incorrigibly idle, the really occupied, those
obliged frequently to be absent, can get a fund of useful
instruction without being exposed to the criticism of a pri
vate class, because they may be silent. It is truly wonder
ful that this enlightened critic should have overlooked one
of the greatest advantages of the system-that which de
cides more distinctly than any other its superiority over the
Lancasterian System ,—that here, monitors are super
fluous ; instead of a dozen boyish and ignorant teachers,
one able professor teaches the whole teaches with the
same facility as many as can conveniently hear him.
The Reviewer does me injustice, though I hope and
believe involuntarily , when he remarks, that, “ when Mr.
Hamilton speaks of a language being to be acquired in so
many hours , the number stated by him is not the true
number required to be a proficient in the tongue ; to these
must, in all fairness, be added the number spent in reading
in private." -- Now , I have never used such language as is
here mp uted to me . I have never , either in my lectures
or advertisements , asserted that a language was to be
learnt in any number of hours, nor used any phrase cor
responding to it ; nor ever held out such an idea to my
pupils or the public. I have, on the contrary , in every
public lecture, without , I believe, one exception , made use
of language tantamount to this " Ladies and gentlemen ,
if you will do me the honour to become my pupils, I will
F
 62

guarantee that you shall be able to read a French book

with facility in two or three sections ; but if, when you
have acquired that faculty, you should not be disposed to
read, then do not come to me for the two latter sections ,
for I can neither teach you to write nor speak." --I appeal
to every pupil I have ever taught for the correctness of this
statement , and whether I have not constantly held the
same language ; and yet, strange to say, I begin to doubt
-I fear to mention it, before the thing has been fully au
thenticated by repeated experiments ,-I say I fear to
mention the possibility of teaching a person to write and
speak who may have read only my three class books, the
Gospel of St. John, Perrin , and the Recueil Choisi ; but
the continuance of the improvement in speaking and
writing of several members of my public class at present
in Manchester, who, I know, have never read more than
those books , and perhaps not all those, becomes every day
more striking and astonishing. To read, is, as I have so
often said, the secret to know all things ; and among them ,
it is , above all, the only secret to acquire the words of a
language : but if the class be rightly and diligently exer
cised in the use of the verbs, as I have already mentioned ,
after the knowledge only of the class books , I believe it an
indubitable and pleasing truth that he may get the use of
the smallest possible vocabulary in writing and speaking.
But this vocabulary can only be acquired by the use of the
books in question , for they alone give the precise meaning
of the word ; nor would a vocabulary acquired on the com
mon plan ever produce such a result.
To conclude.—The Hamiltonian System has now passed
through as severe an ordeal to test its practicability and
usefulness, as perhaps any other invention which can be
mentioned . Opposed step by step , during twelve years ,
 63

by those who might justly be supposed the best qualified

to judge of its merits , it has triamphed over all opposers ,
and diffuses its benign and genial influence gradually
through the minds of those who once opposed it with
violence. It may, therefore, be now used in schools or private
teaching, in the same manner as any other system which
preceded it, without subjecting the teacher to those rules
which the author thought necessary to prescribe to himself.
Let, then, the teacher apply the system diligently and
honestly ; but having done so, he ought not to be obliged to
guarantee any thing. The pupil who will attend, who will
read, will not the less make the utmost progress that the
system is capable of producing ; while the teacher will no
longer be the victim of his confidence in the reality of its
powers, by the incorrigible dulness or idleness of his pupil,
whether child or adult.
The course may be given quarterly or monthly, with as
much advantage as by sections , which were established for
the sole purpose of pointing out to the pupil the exact
quantum of knowledge guaranteed to him in a certain
number of lessons . While this progress was considered
impracticable, it was necessary , in my opinion , to guarantee
it to the pupil , in order to convince him there was no de
lusion ; but as this fear can no longer exist, the division
into sections is by no means of indispensable necessity in
the system. Nevertheless, I think this mode of ascertaining
the progress of the pupil preferable. But I would advise
the Hamiltonian teacher to do with all languages as I have
myself done with the Latin and Greek ; not to stipulate an
absolute proficiency in any fixed number of sections , but
continue to give instructions until the pupil is satisfied he
possesses as much as his teacher can communicate. This
arrangement will render its adoption easy to every profes
 64

sor of languages, and will prevent the discontent of those

who, having neglected their class, are, on the plan hitherto
adopted, without a remedy.

Almost every literary publication of respectability in

the United Kingdom has spoken favourably of the Hamil.
tonian System ; the following extracts, expressive of the
sentiments of a few of them , did not appear in the first
edition of this pamphlet :
Extract from the Atlas of March 18th , 1827 : - “ The
plan of teaching languages according to the system
named after Mr. Hamilton , has been the subject of much
controversy. The writers have scribbled about it and
about it, but do not appear to have satisfied either the
public or themselves. It is , in fact, a question of experi
ment. All the reasoning in the world could not settle it ;
but the application of a little judgment and good sense
may enable the experimentalist to conduct his investiga
tion in the shortest and safest manner, and to draw from
it sound and practical inferences. The mode of teaching
languages by grammar is this:-alanguage is first resolved
into its component parts , and by examining the relations
of each class of words to one another, general rules are
thence drawn for the reconstruction and rearrangement of
them . When these rules are reduced to their most general
form , they constitute , with the addition of a few definitions
and axioms relative to language fundamentally considered ,
what is called a grammar . A child is taught to remember
these abstract rules for the composition of words . When
it is supposed he has acquired a sufficient stock of them , a
piece of language in its constructed state is put into his
hands, which it is required of him to submit to two pro
vesses- the first is to learn the value of each word sepa
 65
rately, and the next to learn their mutual relations, and
thus ascertain the value of the whole as connected . The
first process is performed with the aid of a dictionary ; the
second with the aid of the grammar, either bodily, or as its
rules are remembered. By a constant use of the dictionary,
the student in time acquires a vocabulary; by a rigorous
application of the general abstract rules, he learns to
apply them to particular cases . Take the following simple
instance :-It is given to the student to extract the mean
ing out of the following sentence : Do tibi librum . The
dictionary gives him the words, and the grammar shews
him that verbs “ of giving ” govern two cases -- an accusa
tive of the thing given , and a dative of the person to whom
the thing is given ; he gathers,therefore,that the sentence
means, “ I give you a book . ” If he meets with the verb
do again , he expects two cases after it , looks, and probably
finds them ; if he finds the same words again, he may re
collect their meaning. An assiduous practice of this exer
cise makes a boy, if he is quick and attentive, a tolerably
good Latin scholar in about seven years .
“ The Hamiltonian plan is nearly the reverse of this. A
piece of compusition is put into the student's hands in its
entire state. He is supplied with the exact value of each
word as it stands. By continuing this comparison a suffi
ciently long time, he acquires a vocabulary without the aid
of dictionary and grammar. This vocabulary is of a pecu
liar kind it embraces dictionary, grammar, and phrase
book. For not only is the word given as to meaning in one
form , but in all forms. Not only is it found in do, “ I
give ,” but dare, “ to give , " and dant, “ they give ;" not
only ego, “ 1, " but tibi, “ to thee," and te , “ thee." Now,
as words are continually occurring , and as a man really
stands in need of no very large suppellex verborum in order
F 2
 66

to read many books and hold much conversation , there

seems little doubt but that these purposes are more rapidly
answered by the latter system : if it were desirable to make
a perfect master of a language-if it were desirable that
each student of Latin should prove a Quintilian -- and a
life was not considered too much to devote to the object,
then the plan pursued in our public schools would un
doubtedly be the best. For the ordinary purposes, how
ever, for which Latin is learned in this country, the Hamil
tonian plan is certainly the most rapid, and the most effi
cient, and it quickly enables the learner to read the ordi
nary books ; and if he is inclined to carry his investigations
deeper, there is nothing to prevent him. In the case of all
modern languages , we think there is even less doubt of its
superiority. If a person were to visit Germany and learn
German, as Mr. Coleridge describes himself to have done,
without a master , without a grammar, and solely by expe
rience , this would be the Hamiltonian plan - which is, in
short, the mother's plan with her child. In the infant's
case, things are interpreted by corresponding words ; in
the case of two languages, the thing is a word , which is ex
plained by a corresponding word . The Hamiltonian plan
has another advantage ; it is the readiest way of acquiring
the idiom of another language . This is done by the con
trast between the perfect foreign phrase , and the very im
perfect English phrase . Suppose the Italian phrase to be
thus interpreted :
innanzi ai piedi
before to -the 1 feet
The very awkwardness of the English expression impresses
the difference on the memory almost indelibly.
Extract from Atlas of May 10th, 1829 :- “ The diffi
culty of establishing a new system that goes fundamentally
 67

to uproot our preconceived notions and confirmed habits >

is much greater than people generally suppose ; there are

old prejudices to be conqnered, settled principles to be set
aside, and popular modes to be unlearned. Improvements
are frequently of so startling a kind , that they are received
as innovations , and the inventor or introducer of novel
theories has not only to struggle against predilections, but
to argue the age out of its scepticism. “ It were good ,
therefore,' says Lord Bacon, ' that men , in their innova
tions, would follow the example of time itself, which in
deed innovateth greatly, but quietly, and by degrees scarce
to be perceived ; for otherwise, whatsoever is new is un
looked for ; and ever it mends some , and pairs others ; and
he that is holpen takes it for a fortune , and thanks the time;
and he that is hurt , for a wrong, and imputeth it to the
author.' It is for these reasons that a necessity yet exists
for a further and repeated elucidation of the Hamiltonian
system , which has been long enough before the world to
spread the knowledge of its peculiar merits, and which has
excited more discussion than any other plan for the teach
ing of languages that has ever been promulgated. If it have
not crept into the confidence of the majority of thinking
people, the source of its failure must not, prima facie, be
attributed to its internal imperfections, but rather to the
obstacles that impede conversion . Few persons are willing
to acknowledge that they have been all their lives in the
wrong ; and the natural tendency to defend , even at the
expense of judgment, those opinions which they wanted
sagacity to controvert themselves, operate to prevent them
from admitting the fallacies that have been exposed by
others .
“ In the pamphlet before us, Mr. HAMILTON again pro
pounds his system, with a slight sketch of the history of its
 68
progress. This little history furnishes so many instances
of the resistance offered to his scheme by those who were
impressed with the paramount “ wisdom of our ancestors, "
that we are induced to present our readers with a few illus
trative passages. The first suggestion of the system is thus
candidly related by Mr. Hamilton . "
After having made some extracts from the first edition ,
of this pamphlet the Reviewer proceeds :
“ At first the progress of his pupils was slow, and he
discovered that the general (D'Angeli's ) plan of parsing
as well as translating would do only with linguists ; this
discovery revealed to him , for the first time , that principle
which forms a distinctive and remarkable feature in his
system , the postponement of grammar until his pupils had
accomplished half their reading course, during which the
inflexions of the verbs , and the changes of the other decli
nable parts of speech were rendered familiar, and became
practically fixed in their minds. The success of the stu.
dents spread his fame; and , continues Mr. Hamilton ,
I had in the first short year about seventy pupils who
paid me twenty - four dollars each, for half a course , and
thus confirmed me a teacher for life .' From New York he
proceeded to Philadelphia, where his success was still more
flattering, and where he perceived that his mode of transla
tion was , in fact, a strict analyzation of grammar ; a prin
ciple which he is surprised should have escaped the genius
1

of Milton , Locke, Clarke, aud Dumarsais. As he pro

gressed in practice new lights broke upon him ; and , at
last, after a long experience , he was enabled to bring his
various principles into a more regular form , and to pro
duce that system which properly bears his name.
• The opposition given to Mr. Hamilton while his sys
tem was in course of development , was the natural re
 69
sult of that scepticism with which all novel theories are
received ; and it is well for the interests of education that
an inquisition so uncompromising should have sat upon so
important an innovation ; for we sincerely believe that it
has fully established the utmost promise which even the
sanguine teacher anticipated. Some of the objections
taken to harass Mr. Hamilton were unworthy of literary
men ; he was repeatedly taunted with his mode of adver
tising, which it was asserted bore too much the appear
ance of quackery. To this taunt there are two answers ;
first, that his mode of advertising, whether judicious or in
judicious, had nothing to do with the intrinsic value of his
system , which, in fairness, should have been tried upon
its own internal merits alone ; second, that he possessed
no other means of making the world acquainted with his
system , except by giving it publicity in the usual way. All
the errors, too , of these professors, who , adopting a part
of the Hamiltonian system, and retaining a portion of their
own , had endeavoured to create a motley scheme of in
struction less decisive than either, were charged upon him
as proofs of the deficiencies and inconveniences of his plan .
Against numerous equally fallacious and superficial objec
tions he had to contend ; the practical results exhibit the
individual and his labours in the most favourable point of
view. He has no reason to complain of resistance, since
it has produced such convincing evidence of his strength.
“ It is unnecessary to discuss this system in detail. We
believe the public are very generally acquainted with it ;
but we are anxious to close our notice with a few short
observations in elucidation of those prominent points that
appear to distinguish it from all others that have been
hitherto brought into operation . Perhaps the first pecu
liarity that strikes the inquirer is, that Mr. Hamilton
 . 70
teaches languages first and grammar after. This is a com
plete inversion of the old mode ; but it is more consistent
with nature. Grammar is undoubtedly founded upon lan
guage, and not language upon grammar. Language
existed first, and grammar arose afterwards as a conven .
tional harmonizer and assistant . The obvious course ,
therefore, is to obtain some acquaintance with the charac
ter of a language before we study the method of using it
correctly. It is evidently absurd to teach the nomencla
ture and government of a science, of the component mate
rials of which we are wholly ignorant. Schoolmasters for
merly made pupils get a grammar by rote in Latin before
they knew one word of Latin. To substitute a real for a
mechanical progress seems to be the object of this new,
but simple principle. The next feature of novelty is the
literal and analytical translation adopted by Mr. Hamil
ton . Words are rendered strictly by corresponding parts
. of speech , preserving accurately the cases , moods , tenses,
and persons of the original. Thus, although some inele
gancies and barbarisms of necessity creep into the trans
lation, the pupil is taught the exact value and relation of
each word ; and learns insensibly , by a close analysis as he
proceeds, the whole grammatical construction of the lan
guage he studies . Much labour, much time, much per
plexity, is saved by this process , which smoothes all the
difficulties and embarrassments in the way of acquiring
profound philological knowledge. In all former systems
the pupil was disgusted by being forced to labour over
tasks he did not understand ; in this system he compre
hends every word as he goes on, and by interesting his un
derstanding, his attention is fixed , and his curiosity ex
cited. The association of the mind and memory is culti.
vated ; the learner easily recollects that which is thoroughly
 71

clear to his sense ; and finding that at every step he gains

a portion of knowledge familiarly and quickly, he will re.
quire no further incitement to persevere than the pleasure
he receives in increasing his intellectual resources without
toil or delay. In the pronunciation , also , of foreign lan
guages, Mr. Hamilton has cleared away the old impedi
ments . He has discovered - if that can be called a disco
very which is merely the assertion of a truth that had been
long manifest to people who reflected on the subject
that the simple sounds of all languages are the same, the
signs only by which they are represented differing. The
admission of that fundamental principle gets rid of a
world of pains-taking ; if people can be taught to pro
nounce pour as if it were spelt poor, mais as if it were
spelt may , &c. , they would perceive that a true pronuncia
tion is much simpler than it seems . Two advantages be
long to the system that deserve to be noticed. As many
pupils may be taught at the same moment as can be col
lected in an apartment together ; for the instruction that
guides and corrects one is equally applicable to all who
are within hearing ; and the labour of the pupil is trans
ferred to the teacher, who , as Mr. Hamilton quaintly ex
presses it, teaches , instead of ordering to learn .' These
advantages are important and worthy of more extensive
consideration than we can afford to give them ; however,
we may have sufficiently discharged our duty, by keeping
before the public a system that is equally honourable to
the age, and to the man who had the firmness to persevere
in its production. Our opinions are not lightly delivered ;
we have examined all ' Mr. Hamilton's books , we have ob
served his mode of instruction in full operation , and we are
fully impressed with the practicability and utility of his
 72
plan . It abbreviates the period of study, reduces the
amount of labour , and increases, beyond all other systems,
the actual acquirements of the pupil."
Extract from the Atlas of May 30th , 1830 : — “ There is
a strong resemblance between the systems of Hamilton and
Jacotot. They both teach language by gradation and na
tural means . But it is in the main feature of difference
between the two systems that our difficulty lies. The Ha
miltonian system seems to rely less upon the process by
which it produces its effects, and more upon the taking
advantage of the effects when they become visible. It
reaches the memory through the understanding, impressing
its instructions mainly by the force of conviction . It in
stils into the mind a clear notion of the nature of things,
rather than their conventional types and agents. It works
less by the association of ideas -which, after all, must be
involuntary--than by the ideas themselves. On the other
hand, the system of Jacotot is vigilant and severe in its
means , depending for its effects upon the immediate rigour
of its progress rather than its general influence. It re
verses , or nearly so, the Hamiltonian doctrine, and ad
dresses the understanding through the memory, by first
making its impressions deeply , and then relying upon the
mysterious operations of the mind for the classification and
application of the knowledge thus tattoed upon the reten
tion . It is so minute and painful in its details , that the
probabilities are, that the pupil, in his extreme watchful
ness of the forms and representatives of wisdom, will hardly
become wise ,
“ In throwing out these hints , we have no desire either
to encourage a useless controversy, or unnecessarily impugn
a system that is so largely applauded by some of the lite
 73
rary men of the continent. In the discharge of our critical
office , it becomes us to state truly our opinions . If they be
erroneous, we are open to conversion."
Extract from an article on “ the Hamiltonian System
of teaching Languages," in the Academic Review for
Sept. 1827.- " The Hamiltonian system, like many other
things , has been much talked about, and written abouto
and very little understood. The subject is interesting and
important ; and as we have had an extensive practical ac
quaintance with that and other methods of teaching, and
have no interests to serve, or predilections to indulge , ex
cept such as are suggested by intrinsic merit and general
utility, we feel entitled to have our say upon the subject,
and to receive all the attention which our readers may
think proper to bestow upon us .
“ Mr. Hamilton, like all other innovators , has had a
great deal of opposition and that not of the most liberal
kind to contend with : he has been reviled, and his sys
bem condemned, by those who admitted they knew nothing
of the man, and who proved, by their writings , that they
were quite as unacquainted with his system : but he has
no reason to be dissatisfied with the result.
“ That Mr. Hamilton laid himself open to the charge of
quackery, when he first solicited the attention of the public
in this country, we are not inclined to deny. And who
that presumes to deviate from the beaten track of custom,
and ' wisdom of ancestors,' can hope to do himself justice
and avoid that imputation ? The monkish manufacturers
of missals and breviaries denounced Faustus as a dealer
with the devil ! Galileo, who maintained that the earth
went round the sun, was obliged to eat his words."
After detailing the process by which words and practical
grammar are communicated, and its astonishing effects on
G
 74

two of his young friends who attended one of Mr. Hamil

ton's classes , the writer continues :
“ Our more learned readers will pardon us if we explain
what is meant by an interlinear translation . It is simply
that every word is translated, and its exact meaning in
English placed beneath it , between the lines of the origi
nal : so that the foreign word always presents itself to the
eye in immediate conjunction with its signification in Eng
lish. But it is not by the medium of the eye only that
this system produces its effect ; the continual oral repeti
tion of the words by the teacher and pupils makes an im
pression through the ear which is not easily obliterated.
And this repetition produces no tedium , because the words
are arranged in sentences, and connected with ideas.
Would not any one rather read “ L'Echa et le Hibou ,' or,
" La Guenon et sa Guenuche,' than two or three columns
of words in a dictionary ? The principle is exemplified
every hour in common conversation : we repeat the com
monest words of our native tongue a hundred times a day,
and are never tired . "

The following statement (which did not appear in the

first edition of this History) was addressed to the Editor 9

of the Monthly Repository (Vol. II, new Series) , by the

Rev. W. STEVENS ; it has since been published in the form
of a pamphlet :
“ HAMILTONIAN EXPERIMENT.
TO THE EDITOR .

66 SIR , “ Maidstone, Sept. 15, 1828.

“ YOUR Reviewer of the late Dr. Jones's Exposure of
the Hamiltonian Method of Teaching Languages , ( N. S. , I,
p. 109), while he joins in the censure of it when used alone ,
 75
at the same time suggests that it may probably be con
nected with the method adopted in most of our schools
with considerable advantage. I had certainly been more
favourably impressed with its intrinsic merits than he ap
pears to have been, having had an opportunity of observ
ing it in operation for several months with adult classes in
the German and Italian languages, under the direction of
a gentleman alike distinguished for his intelligence and
philanthropy, as well as acquaintance from experience,
both as a learner and a teacher, with the working of the
system. Still I was of opinion that something would be
found wanting when applied to the ancient languages,
where the classes would be composed of boys , who would
not be under the influence of the same motives as adults ;
something which should insure a more grammatical know
ledge of these languages than it appeared probably they
would acquire from Mr. Hamilton's method only ; and
which deficiency I supposed might be supplied by such a
union as your Reviewer suggests. I have been permitted
to put this principle to proof in experiments upon some of
my own pupils , which have been carried through one com
plete year ; and if you should consider a statement of the
results not inappropriate to the design of the Repository ,
or to possess any interest to your readers, many of whom
are engaged in education , I should feel a pleasure in seeing
it inserted .
“ The first Latin class consisted of four boys , of from
twelve to fourteen years of age, selected, not on account of
their possessing any remarkable aptitude to learn lan
guages, or any unusual habits of application ; but, because
their previous acquirements were similar, and they were
nearly of the same age, and of what I judged a very suit
able age . Three of them had made a little progress in the
 76

language previously , having read the prose of Valpy's De

lectus, and possessing the acquaintance with grammar
usual at that stage of advancement ; but the fourth , and
one of the elder, had never made any attempt to acquire
any other than his native tongue, and his education in
every respect had been much neglected . At the commence
ment of the Christmas vacation , 1826, they had translated
Hamilton's first book, the Gospel of John. At the same
period of the following year, 1827, they had read the fol
lowing :-- L'Homond's Epitome Historiæ Sacræ ; fourteen
of the first lives of Nepos ; five books of Cæsar's Gallic
War ; Sallust's Jugurthine and Catiline Wars ; five plays
of Terence ; first book of Livy .
“ An experiment of the success of this combination of
the two methods when applied to the Greek language was
begun at the same time with the two younger of this class ;
but on account of the removal of one, it could not be car
ried through a more extended period than about five
months. Within that time, though previously they were
unacquainted even with the Greek character, they had
translated the Gospel of John, of Matthew, the half of
Mark, and the half of the įprose of Dalzel's Analecta Mi
nora*. In the two last -mentioned they had no assistance
from a literal translation .
The second Latin class , if it may be so termed , consisted
of two brothers of the ages of eight and a half and ten
years. Their previous education had been more carefully
superintended than that of the first class, and their talents
were respectable , but not rare. I consider them , there
fore, as affording a fair example of what may be effected
* This work has since been published with an analytical translation,
executed under Mr. Hamilton's direction . - Note of the Editor of Mr.
Hamilton's Works.
 77

by this method of teaching languages with boys who have

had the advantage of a judicious and enlightened treatment
in their previous instruction , such as is possessed by most
of those in whose education a knowledge of Greek and
Latin is considered to be a necessary part. Previously to
the commencement of the experiment with them, they had
read Evans's ' First Lessons ,' and possessed a tolerably
familiar acquaintance with the inflections of nouns, verbs,
&c. Within the period of fourteen months, including two
!
vacations, they had translated the whole of the following,
21
with the exception only of a few of the fables of Phædrus,
and about half of the last book of Cæsar's Civil War :
-
the Gospel of John ; Epitome Historiæ Sacræ ; Phædrus ;
Nepos ; Cæsar's Gallic and Civil Wars ; Sallust's Jugur
thine and Catiline Wars ; Livy, half the first book ; Ovid ,
2,300 verses ; and Virgil, the first book.
5
“ Upon an average, they had not devoted more than two
1
hours and a half per day to the Latin language, including
TC
the time they were so occupied with their teacher ; so that
11
it will not be supposed that more was exacted of them
than ought to be required of children of so tender an age ,
of
7.
or more than is required where the old plan alone is
adopted.
“ Many of your readers will perceive that this is consi
derably more than is usually accomplished within the same
time, and by children of the same age : and nothing, I
imagine, will oppose their unqualified assent to the great
advantage that would be gained by the adoption of such a
method, unless it be an apprehension which they may
have , in common with the late Dr. Jones, that the pupil
learns his lesson superficially ; that if he may be said to
know the words , he knows them only so far as he recollects
the drift of the whole ; and that , as the whole cannot be
G 2
 78
long retained , the meaning of every term is effaced with
it*.' To remove all doubt of the efficacy of this method
* My own testimony with respect to this might not be regarded as suffi
ciently impartial and unprejudiced ; but I am permitted to give that,
contained in the following letter, of an individual well known to most of
your readers ( Dr. Morell, of Brighton ), who was much interested in
observing the results of these experiments, and frequently examined
each of the classes at different stages of their progress ; and whose ta
lents, attainments, and long experience in teaching in the usual manner
will be considered to give great authority to his opinion :
Brighton, July 30, 1828 .
**** “ On every account I should be glad to see a well- attested
statement of the result of your experience in the method of verbal trans
lation made public. None who have never made or witnessed the expe
riment can suppose that young children will be able to do so much, and that
so well, as you have found to be possible, and even easy and pleasant to
themselves, by this improvement on the customary method of teaching the
languages of antiquity. I believe the great majority of boys who had
read Nepos, Cæsar, and Sallust, in the usual way, would be unable to
translate them off-hand in any part, at the pleasure of the examiner, with
as much accuracy and readiness as was done by the M ' s for me ;
and they not only construed better, but shewed greater grammatical ac
curacy in parsing than is commonly done at the end of three or four years
by boys several years older. What had been done by F-- at a
later age was quite satisfactory in proof of the working of the present
plan ; and Fam s gave good proof of its effect in Greek as well as
Joatin.
“ The result of what I have seen in these cases, and of what I have
experienced in others, is an entire conviction, that by combining the use
of exact literal translations with the study of the grammar and the prac
tice of parsing, from the age of nine to eleven, so much may be acquired
both in Latin and Greek as will make the future progress easy and cer
tain ; and what is of the greatest importance, this can be effected, not
without labour and attention on the part of the child, but without any of
that waste of strength in hopeless endeavours to overcome unconquerable
difficulty, which often and naturally produce an utter hatred of all learn
ing in young children .
J. MORELL .”
 79
as far as possible, and to shew to those who may be dis
posed to make a similar experiment, in what manner the
same results may be brought out, I will explain it as it was
pursued with the younger class ; and I hope I may be par
doned the minuteness that will be necessary to make the
statement either satisfactory or useful.
“ Whatever may be the objection to the Gospel of John
as a preliminary work, it must be remembered that a per
son wishing to make an experiment of the Hamiltonian sys
tem has no choice ; for it is the only book prepared on this
plan in which the construction of the sentences is suffi
ciently simple, and the same words occur with sufficient
frequency. This was, therefore, first placed in their
hands ; but as they had already made some progress in
the language, that part of the method of Mr. Hamilton
which requires the teacher to read each verse himself in a
distinct and audible manner, subjoining the English of
every word as he proceeds, and then to direct it to be read
by two , three, or more boys , till it is supposed that all are
able to translate it with facility, could in this instance be
dispensed with. The interlinear translation , called a
6
key,' was sufficient assistance to enable them to prepare
daily as much as conducted them through this first book
within three weeks ; but a previous reading in class be.
came necessary in some parts of the Epitome Historiæ
Sacræ , in which each passage was translated at least by
one of the pupils, the teacher assisting him only occa
sionally, presenting him with the English of any word
with which he was unacquainted, and with the order where
it was too inverted , and correcting his pronunciation where
it was inaccurate. Invariabły, however, when a lesson was
read in class in this manner for the first time , it was re
quired to be repeated the following day with readiness and
 80
precision . This was a slight departure from Mr. Hamil
ton's method, and was found to be necessary on account of
the difference of character between his classes, which I have
been informed are composed chiefly of adults, and that
upon which this experiment was made. He, perhaps, may
safely calculate on their giving the requisite attention and
industry ; but a teacher cannot satisfy himself of this
where his pupils are children, unless in some manner re
sembling the abovementioned. There must, or ought to
be, in every lesson many words with which the pupil is un
acquainted : it is his business to impress their signification
upon his mind. He has a certain portion of time set apart
for this purpose ; and it should be the teacher's care to
see that the time is devoted to its proper object, or he will,
in all probability , be disappointed in his pupil's progress .
Two octavo pages was the quantity required of them daily,
and the task was accomplished with perfect ease.
. " The sentences of Nepos being longer and more in
volved, the teacher, at the commencement with it, himself
read each sentence first, requiring it to be read by the
pupils once, twice, and sometimes oftener, when there was
difficulty in the construction, or many words occurred that
were entirely new ; but the number of repetitions of each
sentence was gradually diminished till they could translate,
with the occasional assistance only of the teacher ; and
after a short time they had acquired so much facility in
the translation of their author, that the previous reading
became unnecessary. From this time to the end, they
prepared with ease two closely-printed duodecimo pages
daily. At the conclusion of Nepos they were in posses
sion of a very considerable store of words, and acquaint
ance with Latin construction ; and the manner in which
they immediately translated Cesar, shewed the advantage
 81
of the method of study which they had pursued , and the
Ihar
excellence of the last author as a preparative for those that
followed ; for they were now thrown more upon their own
energies ; they had no longer any strictly literal transla
tions to assist them ; what they failed to carry away with
them on the first reading, they had no other help to supply
It
them with than their dictionary and grammar ; and yet
after the first five or six lessons, in which the same plan
UB
was adopted as in the commencement of the preceding
103
author, they could of themselves, without a previous read
ing, without a translation of any kind, with no other help
to
than their dictionary and grammar, prepare at first two,
then three, and latterly, at their own request, four pages
♡
of Dymock's Cæsar daily. If, however, they met with a
passage of unusual difficulty, they were encouraged to ask
assistance of their teacher rather than be allowed to ex
haust their patience and their energies upon what it was
not probable they would discover without help. But it
did not frequently happen that their own ingenuity and
knowledge of words did not enable them readily to deter
mine the sense of their author with accuracy. The fol.
lowing instance, proving that the general fear that a Ha
miltonian pupil's knowledge of a language will be super
ficial, and that he will be acquainted with the signification
of words only so far as he recollects the drift of the sub
1
ject, is without foundation , may probably be as satisfac
tory as it is novel in children of their age and standing in
=). the language. When they had translated the greater part
2S
of Cæsar, they were asked, how long a time they required
to translate a page of a part they had never before seen.
to
The answer of the elder brother was, that he could read it
generally as fast as he could English. The younger, as
51 though he felt himself unable adequately to express the
 82
Jittle time and labour it cost him , replied , that he did not
require more than · half a minute.' None will suppose it
probable that either of the answers could be strictly cor
rect ; yet they both shew that the children felt themselves
masters of their author. The reality of their progress
was frequently put to the test in a variety of ways ; and
tậc fluency and even freedom with which both classes ,
when at this point of advancement, would give an English
version of passages of considerable length, without taking
up the Latin in the usual manner of construing , though
called upon unexpectedly ; the precision with which at the
instant they would render oblique cases or derived tenses
in an entirely new connexion ; the familiar acquaintance
they manifested with the peculiarities of Latin construc
tion and phraseology , in the ease with which they would
translate, off -hand, passages they had never before seen ,
and in the rapidity with which the eye would pass over from
the nominative case to its verb , although it lay the dis
tance of several lines, have often given me indescribable
pleasure.
“ In reading* Sallust, Livy, and Ovid , the same method
was pursued as in the abovementioned, except that they
had the assistance of the best translations that could be
procured . These, though not strictly literal, were suffi
ciently so to be of great service . But especial care was
taken to avoid the evil complained of in the use of such
translations ; and therefore, in reading to their teacher ,
they were required to give as literal a verson as possible,
without sacrificing the English idiom ( for they now pos
sessed a sufficient acquaintance with the language to allow
* Sallust, Ovid, Virgil, and several other authors, have been published
by Mr. Hamilton since the period alluded to. - Note of the Editor of Mr.
Hamilton's Works.
 83

of their attention to this without injury) ; and if at any

time their taste led them to adopt the secondary significa
tion in preference, they were instantly questioned respect
ing the primary, that it might be ascertained that they
had not depended upon the aid of the translation more than
would have been profitable ; and, to be assured of this with
still more certainty, they were required to read to their
teacher from an edition without either translation or note .
The Jugurthine and Catiline Wars of Sallust, in addition
to their parsing and other lessons , engaged them exactly
six weeks .
6. To conduct the pupil through so many authors in so
short a time, without encroaching too much upon the
hours that should be devoted to other studies , and without
tiring his patience by a too long -continued application to
one pursuit, it was found necessary that the teacher should
avail himself of every facility, and be most economical of
the time devoted to this part of learning. The results
that were brought out in both these experiments I consider
to have depended very much on the strict observance of the
following rules :-1. To require the fixed attention of the
pupil while the class is engaged with their teacher. His
progress is incomparably greater than when he is listless,
and much more agreeable to himself : but the time should
not exceed half an hour. 2. On no account to suffer an in
dolent and hesitating habit of translating in the pupil, but
to urge him on with the greatest rapidity consistent with a
distinct pronunciation. It infuses animation into the
exercise, and is a constant excitement to attention. 3. If
he cannot readily bring to his recollection the correspond
ing English of any word, rather than be allowed to guess
at its signification , the teacher should promptly furnish
him with it ; and in the same manner with the order, if
 84
he should be mistaking it, rather than consume the time
by leading him to discover it himself, by asking him to
point out the nominative case, the verb which agrees
with it, & c. The advantage to himself, if any, is over
balanced by the interruption of the attention of the rest of
the class. He will have too much pride to allow himself
frequently to be assisted in this manner, and especially if
others of the class shew a greater readiness. It will, there
fore, be an inducement to industry and attention on his
part, and is a great saving of time. 4. The teacher should
on no account, except when any thing very remarkable oc
1
curs, suffer himself to be led into any conversation while
the class is before him. In the Hamiltonian lesson, the
pupil's chief object is to acquire the knowledge of words ;
and that fixed attention which is necessary to gain his end
should not be suffered to be interrupted for a moment.
There is sufficient exercise of his other faculties in his pars
ing lesson. Explanations even of peculiarities of gram
mar are better deferred till the conclusion , as more is lost
by the interruption of attention than is gained by the im
mediate explanation . 5. As early as the Epitome Hist.
Sac., but especially in Cæsar and Sallust, the teacher may
find many passages in which the construction is so simple ,
and with the words of which the pupil is so familiar, that
he can translate as rapidly as he can utter words. In these
the teacher should require only an English version of them ,
to be as expeditiously given as possible, without taking up
the original in the usual manner. It imparts interest to
the pupil, as the progress he is making is manifest to him
self ; he acquires the habit of translating in an easy and
agreeable manner ; the teacher has the best evidence pos
sible that his pupil understands his author ; and it is a
saving of half the time.
 85

“ But it is essentially requisite that the pupil should be

capable of reading his native language with fluency ; and
if this circumstance be not attended to by those who may
be disposed to make an experiment for themselves of the
merits of this mode of instruction, disappointment will
certainly follow . I have applied it in several instances to
little boys who have not acquired this talent, but their pro
gress has been slow when compared with that of others of
the same age who have received a more careful previous
education . This is not to be attributed to any defect in
the system ; for they are pupils who will of necessity be
slow in acquiring a foreign language, in whatever manner
they are instructed .
6. The two methods have been carried on in constant
and daily connexion with each other, and the time appor
tioned to the study of Latin has been nearly equally di
vided between them. The manner in which the Hamilto
nian System has been applied has been fully explained. I
know of no - material difference in my mode of using the
common plan from that which is generally adopted , unless,
perhaps , a somewhat greater minuteness in parsing has
been introduced than is usual. Grammar , construing, and
parsing, formed a part of the daily business, and occa «
sionally'exercises ; but to be assured that the pupils'
knowledge of the language should be well grounded, and
to guard against the danger of their passing over words, if
they occurred in any of the oblique cases or derived tenses ,
without a knowledge of their precise signification, and the
syntactical peculiarities of goverpment, they were expected
to be able not only to answer any question on any of the
latter that might occur in their parsing lesson , and to give
the rules on which such peculiarities depend , but an exact
account also of every word in the first six or eight lines .
H
 86
An example will best illustrate the method pursued. Sup
pose the following sentence is to be parsed ,-Optimum
erit pueris dari præceptores vitiorum expertes. The
teacher asks , What is optimum ? The pupil replies , It is
a superlative adjective of three terminations , declining like
durus (declines it through both numbers) , sing. num . neu.
gen . nom. case , agreeing with its substantive negotium ,
understood . (Repeats the rule for the agreement of the
adj . and sub ). T. Frit ? P. It is a verb derived from
Sum ; Sum , fui, esse , futurus. T. Form the verb . P. Sum ,
eram , ero , fui, fueram , fuero* ; Es , esto ; Sim , essem vel
forem ; fuerim, fuissem ; Esse, futurum esse , fuisse , futu
rum fuisse, futurus. Erit is in the indicative mood , fut.
imp . tense, third per. sing. num .: Ero, eris , erit, erimus ,
eritis , erunt . Its nominative case is the remainder of the
sentence. (Repeats the rule) . T. Pueris ? P. It is a
noun of the second declension , forming like liber (declines
it through both numbers ) , plur . num. mas. gen . dat. case ,
governed by dari. (Gives the rule) . T. Dari ? P. It is
a pass. verb, derived from Dor. Dor, dari, datus sum vel
fui. T. Form the verb. P. Dor , dạbar, dabor, datus sum
vel fui, datus eram vel fueram , datus ero vel fuero ; Dare,
dator ; Der , darer , datus sim vel fuerim , datus essem vel
fuissem ; Dari , datum iri, datum esse vel fuisse, dandum
fuisse, datus, datu, dandus. Dari is the infinitive mood ,
pres . tense. T. Præceptores ? P. It is a noun of the third
declension , forming like honor (declines it) , pl. num. mas .
gen. acc. case, before the infinitive Dari . ( Gives the rule) .
T. 'Vitiorum ? P. It is a noun of the second declension ,
forming like liber (declines it) , neu. gen ., (therefore the
nom . acc. and voc. cases are alike in both numbers , and in
* This is Dr. Valpy's arrangement, whose Grammar was adopted for
the sake of its English syntax .
 87
the plural they all end in a), pl. num. gen . case, governed
by expertes. (Repeats the rule) . T. Expertes ? P. It is
an adj. of two terminations, forming like tristis (declines
it), pl . num . mas. gen. acc. case, agreeing with præcep
tores. (Repeats the rule) . The practice of forming every
verb in the manner here illustrated may appear to be one
which would consume an undue proportion of time, but by
habit the pupil performs it with very great rapidity ; and
he soon shews so intimate an acquaintance with his gram
mar by this exercise, that the teacher may pass over many
words , and thus abridge the labour, in full confidence that,
if called upon, the pupil would be able to give a most ac
curate account of them. The great utility of it must be
obvious to every one.
“ The list of authors that have been read within the
above-stated time will shew that the two systems may be
combined with the advantage of a great saving of time ;
and the account of the method that has been pursued , and
which I have endeavoured to make as explicit as possible ,
will, I hope, be considered satisfactory evidence that that
advantage is obtained without the sacrifice of any other,
and without furnishing any reasonable ground for the ap
prehension that a boy so instructed can never become a
scholar, or rise to eminence in any of the learned profes
sions. I will conclude this paper with a few other obser
vations made during the course of these experiments ,
“ The union of the two plans , while it compels a boy to
labour, and furnishes him with sufficient exercise for all his
mental faculties, appears to divest the study of language
of every thing that wearies and disgusts ; and if I might
not be thought to eulogize it with a partiality that con
ceals every defect from my observation, I would say that
it renders it one of the most agreeable branches of study.
 88

A boy whose education , as it has been before mentioned,

had been much neglected in every respect, is a remarkable
proof of this. He had never made any attempt at learn
ing a foreign language , and was unacquainted with the
principles of the grammar of his own ; his talents were cer
tainly rather below than above mediocrity ; his previous
acquirements of any kind were very small ; he had no
habit of application ; and school, either from the injudi
cious treatment of the master , or some other cause , had
become his abhorrence, as a place of uninteresting toil and
drudgery. He joined the first Latin class ; and the inte
rest which the study excited in him appeared to effect im
mediately an entire change in his character and habits.
From the commencement it seemed to form his delight :
he was rarely seen from his desk, but at the entreaty of
his schoolfellows ; his books were his almost constant
companions : he had entered upon the task voluntarily ,
and there was nothing to prevent his abandoning it, when
ever he had so pleased ; but he never manifested the least
desire to relinquish the undertaking. At the expiration of
the first year he read Terence and Livy in a very intelli
gent and gratifying manner : and as a further proofofthe
interest which he felt in this kind of study, and his eager.
ness to make himself master of the language, some weeks
before the conclusion of the year he had read, for his own
pleasure and amusement, without the knowledge of his
teacher, and in addition to his daily employment, the
whole of Nepos , within the space of seventeen days*.
One of the peculiarities of Mr. Hamilton's method, ex
* Although in the first class, who are said to have read fourteen Lives
of Nepos, yet as it formed their parsing lesson , to which at that time he
was unequal, he did not read it with them, but Phædrus in its stead, the
parsing lesson of the second class,
 89
pressed in his own words, is, “ that each word is trans
lated by its sole, undeviating meaning, assuming as an in
controvertible principle in all languages, that, with very
few exceptions, each word has one meaning only, and can
usually be rendered into another by one word only, which
one word should serve for its representative at all times
and all occasions." This principle has formed a very
great objection with many persons, and, among others,
with the late Dr. Jones ; although it might not have been
unreasonably expected that it would have met with his
approbation rather than censure * ; for that on which he
has formed his Analogice Latinæ , as well as his Greek
Lexicon, if not the same, is something very nearly resem
bling it. His former work he hopes, “ will be useful to
all those who wish either to teach or to learn Latin with
expedition and accuracy. The simple or primitive word is
first laid down, and is followed by its compounds ; and
thus one leads to the knowledge of many, as a cluster of
leaves or flowers is acquired by only seizing the stem on
which they standt.” At the head of a list of forty -four
derivatives and compounds, for instance,standsAgo, which

* The Doctor designates the principle of Mr. Hamilton a strange doc

trine, and expresses dissatisfaction that critical justice should not have
been dispensed by the Edinburgh Reviewer, to a 66
man who could ad
vance a position so absurd.” It was not without surprise that, since the
above pages were written, the author met with the following passage in
the preface to Dr. Jones's Greek Lexicon, asserting the same principle,
and scarcely differing in phraseology : “ It is a common notion that many
words in all languages convey a variety of significations. But in strict
propriety it has but one sense, or at most two,-- a literal, and an analo.
gical sense. Every word on every occasion presents the same idea ; and
it conveys different ideas only because it stands in different connexions.".
Pref. iv. S 46.
+ Preface to Anal. Lat.
H2
 90

he says, signifies, ' I lead , do ,' whilst Ainsworth enume

rates twenty distinct significations to the word. He would
have wished his pupils to remember that ago bears only
these two distinct senses, that whenever they meet with
it, or any of its derivatives or compounds, they might
readily recall its equivalent in English. In this manner
they would • learn Latin with expedition and accuracy .
The only difference between him and Mr. Hamilton ap
pears to be, that the former gives the word two distinct
meanings, whilst the latter would generally represent it
by one and the same word oply. The extract also which
he gives from his Greek Lexicon to shew the folly and ab
surdity of this principle of Mr. Hamilton , I cannot help
considering as a beautiful illustration of the correctness
of that which he is endeavouring to explode . ' Arouw ,'
he observes, ' means literally, I loose from , or simply
loose. Suppose this verb to occur in different places, with
the representatives of such nouns as accusation , assembly ,
army, disease , captive, labour, obligation, desire, argument.
An acquaintance with Greek authors will prove this sup
position to be fact. The original and simple meaning of
• I loose from ,' combining successively with each noun as
its object, becomes a compound idea, and requires to be
expressed by a new verb in English, if at all adeqaately
expressed. Thus, I loose from accusation , I acquit ; loose
an assembly , dismiss ; loose an army, disband ; loose from
disease, heal ; loose a captive, release ; loose from labour,
exonerate ; loose from obligation, forgive, cancel ; loose
desire, gratify, satisfy; loose an argument, refute * .' Let
6
it be observed , atcauw means literally, I loose from , or
simply, I loose. This is precisely what Mr. Hamilton
would say and would wish his pupils to bear in mind, that
* “ Exposure of the Ham . Sys."
 91

whenever they meet with the word , they may easily recall
the primary signification. The boy must be dull indeed
who does not perceive that when the word is found in con
nexion with another signifying accusation , assembly, army,
&c. , it is equivalent to acquit, dismiss , disband , &c. The
assertion may be ventured, that a boy consulting Dr.
Jones's Lexicon on that word , would neither remember nor
think it necessary to burthen his memory with more than its
primary signification. If at any time the word should oc
cur in such a connexion that this conveyed no idea to his
mind , he would then again refer to his Lexicon . And such
an instance as this Mr. Hamilton , I doubt not, wonld con
sider as among his exceptions, and in such cases would
present his pupil with the secondary rather than the literal
meaning. Numerous instances might be selected from his
literal translations in which he has so done. But what
ever may be the apprehensions of others, I have very rarely
found the smallest inconvenience from the adoption of this
principle. Though the translation may sound harshly,
yet if a boy has been required to put it into more elegant
English, he has generally shewn that he has had a very
exact comprehension of his author ; and this is all that is
required. However , after he has met with any word so
frequently that its literal signification is never likely to
escape from his memory , a rigid adherence to this prin
ciple becomes unnecessary . It may be relaxed , not only
without injury, but with profit. The first book of Mr.
Hamilton by no means furnishes a correct specimen of the
manner in which a boy translates at the end of the first
year : at this period he will be found to have exchanged
the stiff and uncouth style there apparent for one that is
easy and agreeable ; and the literal method he at first
 92
adopted enables him to do this with an accuracy that
would scarcely be expected.
“ The translations of Mr.Hamilton's introductory books
have been severely censured for the barbarisms he has in
troduced into them . That they are to be found in abund
ance cannot be disputed. But it must not be supposed
that the translations of a boy instructed in the usual man
ner, are entirely free from them . I feel assured , that
every person experienced in tuition will agree with me, that
nothing can well be more awkward than the English versions
of young beginners, whose education is directed in this man
ner .
If they have judicious teachers, they will require a
translation very nearly as literal as Mr. Hamilton's, al
though they may require also a more elegant version after
wards, when they have satisfied themselves that their
pupils have a just acquaintance with the precise value of
every word in the passage they have read . They will con
sider such a minute attention to every word as indispen
sably necessary to success . Still I am of opinion that he
might have made his translations a little less objectionable
on this ground, and with positive advantage to the pupil* .
Why may not an ellipsis in the original be supplied in the
translation ? It might be so marked as that the pupil
should be in no danger of mistaking it for the original.
The teacher is frequently compelled to supply it ; it could
do the pupil no harm to see what it is thought useful he
should hear ; and where the sense is obscure without it, it
appears to be necessary. A few other alterations might
perhaps be made with advantage, and without doubt will
occur to Mr. Hamilton in the course of his xperience

* This, with other improvements, will be found in the new editions of

the Hamiltonian publications. - Note of the Editor of Mr. Hamilton's
works.
 93

The revision that some of his works have undergone in a

second edition , shews that he is not so absurd as to consider
his first attempts as unimprovable . But whatever may
be the imperfections of this nature , they do not affect the
merits of the system ; and if, either alone or when com
bined with others , it contributes in any degree to facilitate
the attainment of the ancient languages, its author is en
titled to gratitude and respect for his zeal in bringing it
before the notice of the public.
“ WILLIAM STEVENS."
1
P
1
1
5

1
 MR. HAMILTON'S PUBLICATIONS.
Besides the books mentioned for the Latin" ( for which others are in
preparation), the following have been published by Mr. HAMILTON , and
may be had of J. Souter , Bookseller, 73, St. Paul's Churchyard ; W.
White and Co. , Edinburgh ; and all other Booksellers .
GREEK .
For this language, the Gospels of St. John and St. Matthew , the Fables
of Æsop, and the Analecta Minora, have been already published.
GERMAN .
For this language the Gospel of St. John, four shillings, and Campe's
Robinson Crusoe, in two volumes (one of the best works in the German
language) , have been published.
ITALIAN .
For this language the Gospel of St. John, four shillings, and a copious
Racolta, from different authors, five shillings and sixpence, and a small
Grammar, have been published.
FRENCH .
For this language, the most generally required, the Gospel has been
published (four shillings bound ), and gone through nine editions ; the
Fables of Perrin (five shillings), and the Recueil Choisi (seven shillings
and sixpence) : I have invariably found, that, when these three books
are perfectly known, the pupil can, without difficulty, and with little assist
ance from a dictionary, read an easy French author. What I mostly
recommend is the Theatre of Picard, twelve volumes : less should not
be read, in order to speak and write it ; for the man who thinks he can
acquire a foreign language, so as to speak and write it with fluency and
elegance, without having read a number of books in that language, is a
madman ; and the different schemes which are given to the public, to
speak this language without learning to read it, or, at least, without ac
tually reading it, are the product of imposture or ignorance.
To demonstrate the utility of beginning the study of this, as well as
every other language , with the Gospel of St.John, I need only state, that
the first book printed for the Latin was the Historia Sacra. It was found
that two full sections were absolutely necessary, to know it perfectly,
The Gospel of St. John was afterwards published, and put into the
pupil's hands for the first section , after which it was found he could
readily master the Epitome in another.-No man will suppose I use the
Gospel of St. John with any theological motive : the words of it are the
most simple in every language. The Gospel was preached to the poor :
this is the language of the poor-the first words which we require to
speak a language, be it what it may ; and these words are repeated
almost ad infinitum ; so that the student has got an immense number of
 72
them by heart by the time he has gone through it ; while the general fa
miliarity of almost every reader with the book , renders it more easy to
recollect the words of any given verse. Still, if there are persons who
object to this book, they will find, for the French language, the Fables
of Perrin, now the second section, perfectly well adapted for the first,
but the teacher must not hope to teach it in less than two sections. The
same may be said for the other languages; in all which, the book serving
I for the second section is perfectly adapted for the first, only it will neither
be so easy to the pupil , nor so convenient ( from the division into verses )
as the Testament, and two sections will be found necessary to acquire a
perfect knowledge of it.

Now published, in 3 vols. 12mo, bound in cloth ; or in 12 Nos.

at 2s. 6d . each,
The Eight Books of CELSUS DE MEDICINA, with an interlineal
and literal Translation , by J. W. Underwood ( Son - in -law, and several
years partner of Mr. Hamilton ). The quantity of the Penultimate Syllable
is marked both in the Text and Key, so that the Student will find in this
Edition almost all the advantages to be derived from the viva voce in
struction of an experienced Teacher. - The 1st and 3d Books (the sub
ject of examination for the present year) are contained in the first five
numbers.
“ Mr. Underwood's Translation having been correctly executed upon
the interlineal or Hamiltonian principle, will prove highly acceptable to the
pupil, but more especially to those unfortunate young men , who, at the age
of fifteen or sixteen, were required to relinquish the instructive lessons of
their Latin Grammar for the discordant jingle of the pestle and mortar."
- Lancet, Dec. 12, 1829.
Extract from the Athenæum , No. 113.-— “ Just at a time when they
( medical students) have other far more important subjects for their at
tention, they are obliged to cram the dead languages into brains which are
bewildered with half a dozen sciences to be learnt in as many months,
and an art or two to boot. Under such circumstances, unquestionably
the shorter the method is the better ; and the Hamiltonian System is, per
haps, more adapted for this than any other. We approve much of Mr.
Underwood's performance, which we beg strongly to recommend to the
notice of non - latinized medical disciples .”
ALSO , BY THE SAME AUTHOR ,
Nos. I and II ( including to the end of the 10th Chapterof
) GRE
GORY'S CONSPECTUS MEDICINÆ THEORETICÆ, on the
plan of CELSUS.
Now published , in 1 vol. 12mo, handsomely bound in cloth, price 9s.,
dedicated to Dr. Elliotson ,
The APHORISMS of HIPPOCRATES, containing the original
Greek, with an interlineal and literal Trauslation , followed by a free
Version and Notes, by J. W. UNDERWOOD.
Published by J. SOUTER, 73, St. Paul's Churchyard ; and may also
be had at Mr. UNDERWOOD's Hamiltonian Establishment for Teaching
the Ancient and Modern Languages , 250, Regent Street.
Compton & Ritchie , Printers, Middle Street , Cloth Fair , London .

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