modern science admirable for their profundity of research, and strength of argument, but clothed in a style not only devoid of all elegance, but deformed with gross inaccuracies. Great is the love of learning which urges the reader on through the perplexing grammatical blunders, and heavy uncouth periods of such authors. Doubtless many are driven back in disgust; they prefer ignorance to knowledge at such a price.

And are not the poverty and deformity of much of our modern literature owing to a superficial acquaintance with our language? How often do we see, in the prose and poetry of this day, really great vigor and comprehension of mind, and lofty genius, trammelled and besoiled by their own scanty and mean habiliments. Familiarity with the classics of their mother tongue would have taught these writers to avoid their faults, and imitate their excellencies, and press forward with a purer ardor toward perfection. But with too little of the good of former authorship, they exhibit more than all of its defects. Such men of letters do much to corrupt and change the language; but they contribute little to improve and fix it.

And does not the wide diffusion of our language tend to corrupt it? It bids fair to be the universal tongue. "It is," says a recent traveller, "the predominant language among all those whose society travellers fall into from the Rhine to Norway." Indeed it is spoken quite extensively in every civilized nation, and has -been planted among nearly every barbarous people. The commercial and christian enterprise of England and the United States has carried their speech to the very ends of the earth. It has thus encompassed the globe, and is rapidly diffusing itself in all directions.

2

But as our language recedes from its great centres-England and the United States-its danger of foreign admixture increases; and the continual tendency of these corruptions is to flow back and taint the fountains themselves.

Now in what other way can we counteract this evil and protect ourselves, than by keeping the springs pure, and continually sending forth streams of unadulterated English through every channel of communication? If this be not done, instead of subduing all nations to our tongue, it will itself be overwhelmed and lost amid the floods which are setting in upon us from every quarter.*.

* A devoted missionary now laboring in Hindostan, begins the biography of his wife recently deceased, with an expression of his fears lest his English should have become so much affected by his long residence among a people of another speech, as to be unpleasant to his readers. But if it be so with one thoroughly trained in our literary institutions, and sent abroad with all the high attainments and fixed habits of a professional man, how must it be with his children, claiming this as their country and our language as their own, and yet born in a foreign land, and from their earliest years in the daily habit of conversing in another tongue?

Many extraneous terms and phrases-along indeed with much valuable information

The tendency of the immense immigration from all parts of the world into our country, is too obvious to need remark. It has excited the anxious attention of the patriot, as imperilling our free institutions; and of the christian, as dangerous to the pure principles of the gospel and the morals of our people; but have we been duly careful to prevent its corrupting influence upon our language? Ought we not to discourage every attempt, however apparently benevolent, to keep up the use of foreign languages in our country? And ought we not to do all we can to make the crowds of emigrants who are flocking to our shores thoroughly AMERICAN, not only in heart, but in tongue? Indeed the former never can be accomplished without the latter. They will ever remain foreigners among us, and exert an influence more or less adverse upon our institutions, if we do not so prize our language, as not only to guard it from every admixture, but to be zealous for its acquisition by all who come among us.

*

We may draw an argument also from Greece and Rome. These nations loved their language. In their schools it was the object of their fondest and most persevering attention. Many of the very amusements of the Greeks tended to enlarge their knowledge of their tongue, and purify their literary taste. The assembled nation were the critics of their finest writers. It was at the Olympic games that Herodotus recited his history, and received the enthusiastic admiration of his countrymen. *

And Cicero in writing to his son, then a student at Athens, while he enjoins upon him to prosecute vigorously his philosophical pursuits under the renowned Cratippus, and to make the best use of all the advantages which that celebrated seat of learning afforded him, urges upon him, with peculiar earnestness, to "join Latin with his Greek." The prince of Roman orators did not undervalue the language, the literature, or the philosophy of Greece; far from this, he ardently admired and diligently studied them, and ascribed to them much of his success as a speaker and an author; but he loved his own language more and would have his son also, in whatever else he might excel, become a master in this. "Your improvement in Latin," says he, "is what I chiefly desire."+

must reach us in the correspondence and other writings of these our countrymen abroad. The tendency of this is, sometimes to enrich, but generally to corrupt our language. * On this occasion, Olorus, with his son Thucydides, then a youth of fifteen years old, was present. The boy listened to the history of Herodotus with deep attention, till unable any longer to suppress his feelings, he burst into tears. The historian noticing his emotion exclaimed to the father—" οργα ή φυσις του ύιου σου προς τα μαθήματα —the heart of thy son is inflamed with the love of learning! How truly the Father of History judged none need be told. But it should not be forgotten that the Greeks were not satisfied with applause; they bestowed, by a popular decree, ten talents upon Herodotus.

† Cicero De Officiis, Lib. 1. Cap. 1.

It is not wonderful, therefore, that these people so refined and perfected their speech, and have left us such noble monuments in history, poetry, and eloquence. And if we would have our own language excel that of Rome in vigor and varied beauty, and emulate the Greek in fullness, flexibility, and expressiveness, we must prize it more, and we must faithfully study its excellencies and defects, that we may labor to remove the one and perfect the other. When we have in our halls of education, as they had in theirs,* multitudes of eminent and cherished professors of our own language and literature; and when parents, with enlarged and liberal views of all that is excellent in education, can yet say, with Cicero, that their chief solicitude is for the improvement of their sons in their own tongue; may we not expect to see our language rapidly advancing to a maturity in those powers and graces which merit while they ensure stability to it?

Further, the tendency of the department which we are now adyocating, would be to

II. Encourage the more general, thorough, and practical study of the Greek and Roman classics.

There is, from a variety of causes, in the minds of many persons, a prejudice against classical learning, and consequently an indisposition to encourage its pursuit. With only one class of these objectors are we now particularly concerned. It is those who suppose that proficiency in Latin and Greek must be at the expense of English; that to be masters of those languages, we must necessarily be ignorant of our own. Hence they argue, that as scholarship in the vernacular is essential to the business of life, so the less the dead languages are meddled with the better.

But precisely the opposite to this, is the truth. And it is only because such persons are so slenderly versed in their own tongue, that they have fallen into this mistake. A very little research into the history, structure and criticism of the English, will make one feel his need of Latin and Greek. He will find difficulties besetting his path, and clouds resting upon it, which nothing but the faithful study of the ancient classics can clear away.

It is a trite remark, that things are best known by comparison.

* The study of Philology was introduced into Rome from Greece, hence the term semigraeci" was applied to the first professors. The pursuit soon found abundant encouragement.

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Whoever would see a very curious account of these "clari professores," as Suetonius calls the grammatici, or teachers of Philology, may consult the latter part of his Lives of the Emperors. It seems that their instructions were not attended merely by the youth, but by the most distinguished men in the state, with whom also they were on the most intimate terms, and in whose palaces they frequently taught. M. Antonius Grippo-docuit primum in Divi Julii domo.—Scholam ejus claros quoque viros frequentasse aiunt; in his M. Ciceronem, etiam quum praetura fungeretur.-Quare ab Augusto quoque nepotibus ejus preceptor electus, (Verrius Flaceus) transiit in Palatium cum tota schola." See also Cicero pro Archia.

And this holds true in nothing more than in the case of languages. Hence it may be safely affirmed, that he has yet much to learn of his own language, who has never compared it with another. A flood of light is shed over the English, when viewed side by side with the Greek or Latin. We mention these in particular, because, with the exception of the Anglo-Saxon, our tongue is most indebted to them.

Again, much of the beauty of our standard poetry is lost upon the mere English reader; and the finest turns of our most distinguished orators not unfrequently derive nearly their whole force and elegance from their classical allusion. Neither Milton nor Burke can be justly appreciated without an acquaintance with the literature of Greece and Rome; and the more familiar we are with the latter, with the higher relish will we hang over the pages of the great English poet and orator.

It is not merely incident and illustration we derive from the store house of classical learning, but many of our most forcible phrases and delicate forms of expression, and very much of our beautiful imagery, are borrowed from the same rich treasury.* The energy and exquisite elegance of these will be best seen and felt by one who has traced them from their source, and viewed them in those varied lights in which they will be presented to such a reader.

So obviously true are the foregoing remarks, that we have never conversed with an individual who had attempted to penetrate to the depths of English learning, that was not induced to take up the Greek and Latin; or who did not, at least, lament his inability to undertake the study of them. Such persons quickly discover, and never fail to acknowledge, the immense advantages which a classical education must give to its possessor. In this way, then, a closer attention to the English language and literature, cannot fail to promote the more general and thorough study of those of Greece and Rome.

But this is not all-such attention to our own tongue will make. the study of the ancient classics more practical, also. The instructer will lead onward the pupil in Latin and Greek, not so much for their sake, as their subserviency to the English. He will keep this idea continually before the mind of the learner. Hence he will earefully trace the analogies between these languages

Let those who would see how largely our best English poets are indebted to the ancients, examine Wharton's edition of Pope. They will there see on every page, line after line, traced back to the Iliad, Odyssey, Æneid, Pharsalia, &c.

-But has any of our poets ever appropriated Horace's beautiful description of the echo? "Cujus recinet jocosa

Nomen imago, (vocis,)

The sportive image of a voice."

Carm. Lib. 1 c. 12.

and his own, mark their differences, shew wherein we have been indebted to them, and how this obligation might be advantageously increased. In a word, the classical teacher will strive to improve those many opportunities which his course of instruction gives him, to advance the pupil in the knowledge of the origin, structure, and peculiar excellencies of his own tongue, and the means of benefitting it. And hence, just in proportion as the latter attainment is an object of desire with the preceptor and pupil, will they be induced to a more practical study of the Greek and Latin Classics.

III. A department of English Philology, faithfully carried out, would do much to wipe off reproach from our Colleges.

It is often regretted that there is not a more deep and general interest on the subject of a college education; though there is cheering evidence that this interest is increasing. We say cheering, for to any one who seriously reflects upon the political institutions of our country, it must be abundantly manifest, that such education more extensively diffused is absolutely essential, not merely to their prosperity, but to their very stability.

It becomes, then, a question of the deepest moment to the patriotic and the good, whence this indifference? and how may it be removed?

It is

Doubtless there are many causes of this want of general interest, but only to one will our inquiry be, at present,.directed. because the public so frequently see those who have not had the advantages of a liberal education-mere English scholars-do so much better than many graduates, that they become careless of a college course. They begin to ask what is the use of so many years spent in the pursuit of that, which, after all, may leave its possessor in the rear of those who have it not?.

But do not these comparatively unfavorable instances of college training, clearly show the cause of the popular indifference to such training? Had the college student, in every case, paid as much attention to what the mass of the people could appreciate, and what most nearly concerns the business and success of life- -we mean English education-how much brighter might his prospects have been than those of the mere English scholar! We do not find fault with the ardor of the collegian in his pursuit of classical literature, nor with his industry in the exact sciences; on the contrary, we care not how much he increases in these, provided he never lose sight of his indispensable need of a thorough acquaintance with his own tongue. We have known such graduates rejected when candidates for the situation of a common school instructer. Whatever their attainments may have been in the Classics, Mathematics, and Philosophy, it was manifest that they were very deficient in the ordinary branches of education. To such students might be appropriately addressed the language of inspired reproof,