Washington City
Georgia
Baltimore

Vicksburg, Mississippi
South Carolina
South Carolina

PAYMENT TO VOLUME IV.

.New York Stevenson, John W.......... Vicksburg, Mississippi

Subscriptions $5 per annum, payable, in all cases, in advance.

Subscriptions cannot be received for less than one year, and must commence with the beginning of some one volume. Five new subscribers, by sending their names and $20 at one time to the Proprietor, will receive five copies for one year. An omission to notify the Proprietor of a discontinuance before the commencement of a volume succeeding that for which subacription has been made, will be considered a continuance of subscription.

The risk of transmitting subscriptions by mail will be assumed by the Proprietor. But every subscriber thus transmitting pay ment is requested (besides taking proper evidence of the fact and date of mailing) to retain a memorandum of the number and particular marks of the note sent.

VOL. III.

RICHMOND, MARCH, 1837.

T. W. WHITE, Editor and Proprietor.

REMARKS

No. III.

$5 PER ANNUM.

these practical objects, and that it has been found by long, manyfold and repeated experience that the introOn some subjects of comparative Philology, and the importance duction of too specific and practical branches of knowof the study of Foreign Languages especially of the Classic ledge into common school education is nugatory in a Tongues-In a letter to the Honorable Albert Gallatin, by high degree, causing only loss of time. For while the Francis Lieber, Professor of History in South Carolina Col-mind is but little developped by them, that knowledge

lege.

which is actually acquired in these practical branches My Dear Sir:-When, a few years ago, I had the is rarely of a kind that can be applied at a future pepleasure of rendering you some service in the pursuit riod, without unlearning a considerable part of it. I of your ethnographic researches—a trivial service, in-appeal to all educators here and in any country, whedeed, for it consisted in nothing more, than making some translations and extracts from German manuscripts on Indian languages written by early missionaries to Pennsylvania-I communicated to you a few of my views on the origin of languages, which appeared to be not entirely void of interest to you. This fact was brought again to my mind, when I happened to read an article on the study of classic languages in one of the late numbers of the Southern Literary Messenger; it made me reflect on one of my favorite subjects, and, by a natural association of ideas, caused me to recollect my conversation with you. This is the reason why I have taken the liberty of inscribing this letter to you; there is no intrinsic reason, I own, but why should I not be permitted to direct my communication as I have done, were it only as an acknowledgment of my esteem for your labors in the field of comparative philology.

In the remarks which I mentioned above as being con tained in the Southern Literary Messenger, and which are not favorable to the study of classic languages, as a branch of general education, nothing surprising will be found by any one who is acquainted with the objections which have been made from time to time, against the general study of Greek and Latin, ever since the modern languages arrived at independence; by which I mean a settled character and a distinct literature of their own. There was but one assertion, which I had not met with before; namely, that there exists in the United States a mania with regard to the idioms of classic antiquity. I confess, that my experience has lead me to believe the contrary. The utilitarian tendency has communicated itself most signally, I think, to our education, and it is a mistake but too common in our whole country, that the importance of a branch of education, and especially of school-education depends upon the degree of its utility, by which, very frequently, nothing more is understood than its applicability to the common concerns of life. Yet all individuals as well as nations, distinguished for mature reflection on education or experience in matters belonging to this most important subject, are long agreed that the greatest possible development of the intellectual and moral powers forms the true aim of all education, that many subjects useful for practical life, are far from being conducive to this end, and that if this main object be obtained it is easy for the individual to apply himself to the different specific branches, required for each career of practical life; nay, that this is the only safe way of obtaining in the most effectual and briefest manner

ther they will not bear me out in this assertion; nor would it be difficult in confirmation of my position, to load this letter with quotations from all the first writers on education in Germany, France and, I believe I am not mistaken, if I say, from the most prominent English writers. I should have to mention many names of works and authors, not generally known here, and thus give to my remarks the appearance of an essay or a dissertation, rather than of hints which only give some of my views, and which I desire to have read by many reflecting individuals, not by educators by profession only. Did I not hope to be able to offer a few original remarks or to present the subject in some new point of view, I would not have attempted to write them down. But, it may be asked, is it really possible to say any thing on the subject of the classical languages, which has not been said before-on a topic which has been discussed by so many people, in so many countries, for so many years?-Antiquity, and with it, its two most perfect idioms, forms a phenomenon of such magnitude, of such endless and variegated effects upon the most civilized race, that it is a subject of endless inquiry too. Will nature ever be an exhausted subject for the poet or the naturalist? Still less antiquity, in which the greatest object in the creation-man, has developed himself in the greatest variety, in a high degree, in a most peculiar character, and under a very peculiar combination of the rarest circumstances. The importance of the study of Greek and Latin in the present times is of a very different kind, indeed, from what it was when sciences first revived. Whether it be still important at all, we shall see in the sequel of these observations. Before I proceed, however, I must state, what in fact I have indicated already, that I shall offer a few remarks only. My chief object is to show on what I conceive the advantage of the study of the classics to rest. If this be well understood, it will be easier to settle how general this study ought to be.

If I begin apparently at a great distance from the subject before us, I hope it will finally be found that the observations were not irrelevant, nor can I believe that they will be considered without a degree of interest in themselves.

Objects, which strike our mind, and which it endeavors to name, to express, do not strike us in an analytic manner, that is to say, by their different qualities, effects, &c., but the impression they make on us, their image which our senses carry to the mind, is one and entire. If I see a young black horse, I do not receive VOL. III.-21

the impressions of youth, blackness and an amimal be- | analyzing and combining. We have to separate certain longing to the genus horse, separately, but the young impressions from the total impression; we have to disblack horse stands before me as one whole thing, and sect, which some minds will do skilfully, some not; so my mind receives but one whole impression. The na- will some whole tribes analyze more skilfully, more tural consequence, therefore, would be that the mind successfully than others. In the above instance, we strives to express as one, entire whole, that which is, in separate the idea of youth from the whole impression, fact, but one entire thing; in other words, it would be that of black color, and that of a horse. As soon, hownatural to have one single word expressive of a young, ever, as we have separated these impressions from the black horse. But the impression made on the mind is total impressions, we have gained general or generic not only a young black horse, it extended farther.ideas-we generalize; for not all horses which are My eyes saw and my mind thought, in one moment, at once and not successively, a young black horse standing on a turf near an oak tree, his head bent so or so, one of his feet lifted in this or that way, his tail at rest or not, his ears pricked or not, looking toward the door of a neighboring house. This house, again, appeared to my eyes at once, with all the different marks which make it this single specific house of so many millions of houses in the world-in short the young black horse makes the impression on my mind with the combination of all the countless marks which designate it as this specific individual, in this specific situation. The mind receives an image not a list of certain qualities in the shape of words, however rapid the process of the mind in transforming the entire impression, made by an entire thing, into separate impressions and in classifying them under certain general heads, may be with us, accustomed as we are from our earliest youth to an analytic language.

It is evident that if we possessed the faculty of making a word for each specific impression, therefore, to retain the above example, not only one word for a young black horse, but also for this specific young black horse in this specific situation, with these other specific marks, which together make it to my eyes and to my mind this very horse in this very moment, language would be at an end; for we would have a separate word for each thing in each particular moment. Each word would signify but one single thing in one single situation at one single moment. But how can the individual to whom we speak know that specific thing in that specific situation? Language is the representation, by the combination of known things (words), of unknown things (the thoughts of him who speaks). In this case, however, the word would be as unknown as the thing, for the specific thing to be named being unknown, the word, which designates but this one specific thing, necessarily must be so likewise. Language would amount to 0, for it would not designate any thing.

We have a word for sitting, another, the word squatting, for a peculiar kind of sitting; there might, likewise, very well exist a separate word for sitting with one leg over the other. This posture is common with all nations, which use chairs, and it would thus designate a certain species of sitting. Suppose, however, that there was a specific word for every possible sitting posture, how would we know what the word meant? The specific case can exist but once, and if we do not select from it that which occurs in it, indeed, but which occurs in other cases likewise, we should be unable to convey any idea by our words.

The mind then is obliged to resort to that process, which forms one half of its whole activity-to analysis; for the mind is forever, and without interruption as long as we are awake, occupied in two operations

black, are young; not all young horses are black; not all black, young animals are horses; not all black animals are young, and not all young animals are black. We have gained general ideas, which we may differently combine to designate different other objects. The question now arises where is this analysis and consequent generalization to stop? We have the words to go, to walk, to march, to run, to ride, to drive, to waddle, &c. They signify general ideas in as much as they do not signify who goes, walks, marches-where he goes, walks, marches, &c. On the other hand, they signify ideas which are capable of further analysis or dissection. They all mean movements from one place to another; to march, means to move from one place to another on foot, but foot itself is comparatively a very specific word; for it means the lower extremity of our body; but extremity and body, again, can be brought under more general heads, for extremity is the most outer part of a longitudinally extended thing; again longitudinal, and extended can be brought under still more general heads. To be brief, it is clear that if we continue infinitely this process of analysis and generalization, we again reduce language to 0. As in the first case of entire individualization we should have as many words as things, so we should find ourselves obliged in the second case to use momentarily all words of the language to designate one specific fact; or, if we can imagine an infinite analysis and generalization, we should, as a matter of course, at last have but one single word. Where, then, are the limits of individualization and generalization? The English have a distinct word for moving from one place to another on the back of a horse, or at least on the back of any animal, i. e. to ride. The French have no such specifying word, but have analyzed the idea of riding, into two, i. e. se promener or aller and cheval. As I have said already that promener might have been dissolved further, and so cheval. Where then are we to stop? The answer is, that different languages incline more to the one or to the other process, and the intrinsic beauty of any idiom depends mainly on a just proportion of individualizing and generalized words, and upon its faculty of still continuing these processes. We shall resume this thread; for the present we have to turn, once more, to the process of analysis or dissection.

the

After an object has made an impression upon mind, whole and entire, or after the mind has received an image of something that exists, and which we shall call a phenomenon, taking the word in its true, philoso phical and comprehensive sense, it becomes necessary, as we have seen, that we should analyze the phenomenon, separate parts of it, and imagine, (consequently, name) them, separately. The dissection can be done in different ways. The phenomenon used as an instance above was a young black horse. It strikes the