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ment which we have hourly occasion for, and the want of which is so easily discovered. Other languages, particularly those of ancient Greece and Rome, have undoubted claims to our regard. They should be treated with the politeness and respect due to well-bred foreigners, sojourning in our country; but our own language must be cherished as a bosom friend, whose agreeable intercourse, whose conftant and faithful services we ought to repay with the strongest proofs of our cordial affection and partiality.

As to the best method of teaching English Grammar, it will be enough to make boys commit to memory the, definitions and principal rules in LowTH's Introduction, a work so justly admired for its clearness, simplicity, precision, and elegance. But the whole must be read with great care; and though I am not an advocate for diffuse interpretations, yet MURRAY's paraphrase of LowTH may lessen a part of the Tutor's labor. The next object is to exercise the pupils frequently in parsing, that is, shewing the construction, agreement, and dependence of the several words that compose any sentence assumed at pleasure. After this, you are to put to the proof their discernment of the smallest inaccuracies, by accustoming them to correct every day pieces of bad English drawn up for the purpose; and MURRAY'S Exercises, which are well adapted to his Grammar, will save you a great deal of trouble in this respect. Laftly, every scholar should be obliged to produce twice a week some little composition of his own, in the form of a letter, a short story, a fable, or a theme, according to his age and state of improvement.

CHAP

CHAP. II.

OF RHETORIC.

WE are now advancing one step higher in the scale of

liberal improvement; and I am convinced that it will be taken by the pupil with ease and pleasure, if his grammatical studies have been conducted in the manner which I have ventured to point out. He will pass with eagerness from the art of employing words correctly to that of employing them persuasively; and the facility of the transition will afford the best proof of the excellence or alluring judiciousness of the preparatory plan. "The liberal Arts and Sciences," says Sir RICHARD STEELE," are all beautiful as the Graces; nor has Grammar, the severe Mother of all, so frightful a face of her own: it is the vizard put upon it that scares children. She is made to speak hard words, which to them sound like conjuring. Let her talk intelligibly and they will listen to her." This remark may be applied with still greater force and justness to Rhetoric, of all arts and sciences the most susceptible of flowers and of engaging attractions, yet often rendered more repulsive than any of them by the harshness of technical language, and the intricacy of rules which are far beyond the comprehension of the youthful mind, and which, instead of smoothing the road to Eloquence, encumber it with much useless and offensive rubbish.

Having long observed the bad effects of the books of Rhetoric which are commonly taught in schools, it some

times occurred to me, that the art of speaking well and pursuasively would be greatly facilitated, if those books were to be burned, and such of CHESTERFIELD's Letters as relate to this subject introduced in their stead. The following letter alone appears to me to contain more useful information, and a ftronger incentive to the study of Eloquence, than all the long strings of tropes and figures, the divisions and subdivisions, the jargon and absurdities, with which the minds of ingenuous youth have been pestered from the days of ARISTOTLE to the present time.

In a former letter, Lord CHESTERFIELD had told his son, that he believed him to be the first boy, to whom, under the age of eight years, one had ever ventured to mention the subject of Rhetoric. "But," continues he, "I am of opinion that we cannot begin to think too young; and that the art which teaches us how to persuade the mind, and touch the heart, must surely deserve the earliest attention." After some remarks in the same letter on purity of language, grammatical correctness, and the careful perusal of good authors, he passes in a few subsequent letters to other subjects, and then resumes his favorite topic thus:

"DEAR BOY,

"Let us return to Oratory, or the art of speaking well, which should never be entirely out of your thoughts, since it, is so useful in every part of life, and so absolutely necessary in most. A man can make no figure without it in Parliament, in the Church, or in the Law; and even in common conversation, a man that has acquired an easy and habitual eloquence, who speaks properly and accurately, will have a great advantage over those who speak incorrectly and inelegantly.

"The

"The business of Oratory, as I have told you before, is to persuade people; and you easily feel, that to please people is a great step towards persuading them. You must then, consequently, be sensible how advantageous it is for a man who speaks in public, whether it be in Parliament, in the Pulpit, or at the Bar (that is, in the Courts of Law) to please his hearers so much as to gain their attention; which he can never do without the help of Oratory. It is not enough to speak the language, he speaks in, in its utmost purity, and according to the rules of Grammar; but he muft speak it elegantly, that is, he must choose the best and most expressive words, and put them in the beft order. He should likewise adorn what

he says by proper metaphors, similes, and other figures of Rhetoric; and he should enliven it, if he can, by quick and sprightly turns of wit. For example: suppose you had a mind to persuade Mr. MATTAIRE† to give you a holyday, would you bluntly say to him, Give me a holyday? That would certainly not be the way to persuade him to it. But you should endeavour first to please him, and gain his attention, by telling him, that your experience of his goodness and indulgence encouraged you to ask a favor of him; that, if he should not think proper to grant it, at least you hoped he would not take it ill that you asked it. Then you should tell him what it was that you wanted; that it was a holyday; for which you should give your reasons, as that you had such or such a thing to do, or such a place to go to. Then you might urge some arguments why he should not refuse you; as that you have seldom asked that favor, and that you seldom will; and that the mind may sometimes require a little rest from labor, as well as the body. This you may

il

His Lordship had explained the nature of those figures of Rhetoric in

a former letter, which the Editor of the Collection could not find.

The child's Tutor.

lustrate

lustrate by a simile; and say, that, as the bow is the stronger for being sometimes unstrung and unbent, so the mind will be capable of more attention, for being now and then easy and relaxed.

"This is a little Oration, fit for such a little Orator as you; but, however, it will make you understand what is meant by Oratory and Eloquence; which is, to persuade. I hope you will have that talent hereafter in great matters."

It requires but little experience in the practice of teaching to be convinced that such a mode of communicating instruction must always prove the most effectual and impressive. Nothing gives so much vigour to application in any pursuit, as a lively sense of the pleasure or advantage to be derived from it. Boys are idle and inattentive at school, only because the benefit expected from what they are ordered to learn is often too remote, and of a nature which they cannot comprehend. Let them but once feel its immediate utility, or rather subserviency to their gratification, and from that moment they are restless till they become masters of it. Shew them the irresistible powers of persuasive language and of a graceful address, in obtaining any favor from their teachers or their friends; and you will find them ready to crowd about you when giving lessons on oratory, provided your precepts are few, very simple, very concise, and well illustrated, as in the above instance, by examples suited to their capacity, taste, and character.

As changes in any established system will have less prejudices to combat, if we can bring them about by degrees, I would retain a few of the most familiar terms of art, as well as the general heads to which precepts in Rhetoric have been usually referred; but would carefully retrench the endless subdivisions, and, above all, the vocabulary of hard names given not only to the real orna

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