VI PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION

clerecl presumptuous in referring to a System of teaching the French language which I hâve adopted after many years' constant and extensive practice ; nor am I less desirous to avoid ail appearance of dictating to my confrères, many of wliom are nsing the most praiseworthy endeavours to raise the profession, and to simplify the daily improving art of teaching living languages. I am well aware that a sound Knowledge of the language has been aequirecl under masters who profess to instruct by meihods apparently very opposite in their character, yet perhaps equally efficient under the able and zealous management of their promoters. u Quant à la critique de mes devanciers en fait de système, je n'ai qu'un mot à dire : c'est que tout professeur qui a des lumières, du raisonnement et du goût, sait se créer un système à lui, convenablement approprié à la tournure de son esprit et aux intelligences qu il dirige." (Dupont*.) It is therefore with every déférence to the views of other professors that I ofFer a few observations upon the subject.

If we consider the means necessary to be used for acquiring a knowledge of language, we find them to vary according to the nature of the language itself. Thus the same means could not be indifferently used in the study of a dead and of a living tongue. The latter has its spoken existence as a model for the learner, the former is only to be found in books. A dead language only exists in writing, but with a living language the characters in which it may be written only represent the sounds of which it is composed. The most effectuai mode of acquiring a living language is the same as that in which nature has taught us to acquire our mother tongue, viz. by imitating sounds, which are the immediate représentatives of ideas. Therefore a good ear for

* The works of this author are publishedby Bossange and Co., Great Marlborough- street, London.