The learning of a third language will present less difficulties. If the language is German we can, by a few simple etymological laws, get command of a copious vocabulary in a short time. The declensions offer some difficulty at the outset, chiefly on account of the adjectives. But the phonetic change is made in order to avoid the repetition of the harsh sound s, m, r, and therefore when this occurs in a preceding pronominal adjective, it is dropped or softened in the second adjective; thus the ear guides, and we have not to think about the forms; one has only to notice that in the oblique cases it is weakened to n, and in the plural it is always n.
The order of words offers difficulties too, and we have a complicated construction. We have to fix our attention on the functions of words, as we did not in a simpler language, for a whole row of words goes to make up an adjective, and dependent sentences are constantly taking the place of simple words. Insight there must be to see what are dependent sentences, and then the whole paraphernalia of rules about certain conjunctions which require the verb to be sent to the end vanish too and we move freely.
Another difficulty is the different uses of prepositions. In English we go “through” the street, in German “on”. We go “through” a town, the Germans “over”. Let the difference of the conception be realised, and the prepositions will come right.
Literature.It is a great pleasure to those approaching maturity to study a language made for metaphysics. We cannot read German without finding everywhere fossil poetry and philosophy, and the rolling periods and the grand verse stir our soul like a trumpet, and we know that we hear the voice of an heroic people, who speak a language and think thoughts akin to our own.
Latin does not attract perhaps in the same way; the military precision of the Latin classics has its charm. I feel strongly that Latin should, however, properly come after German, specially for girls. There is a pestilential atmosphere in the Campania, and one needs to have one’s moral fibre braced by the poetry of the Hebrews and of England and Germany, if one would remain unaffected by writings saturated with heathen thought.
Those who are able to spare time and strength for Greek, and love poetry in all its forms, will delight indeed in the “Wine of Hellas,” and with the enthusiasm which they will bring to a new study they will surmount in a short time obstacles which would have delayed them for months, when they had less knowledge of co-ordinate forms, less taste, less insight, less joy in wrestling with problems and searching into mysteries. If there is not time nor talent nor inclination for all, then I would say prefer Greek to Latin.
The chief thing for the teacher to do is so to teach that the pupil shall enjoy the work. I do not mean that the pupil should be spared hard work and drudgery, or be always expecting to find honey on Hymettus; but do we not all know that the labour of making our way over rotten glaciers and up stony moraines is forgotten when we stand on the crest, and that all the way we go, we think of the joy set before us, when we shall attain to some lofty peak, whence we can see the outstretched heavens and the sunlit earth? For this we must throw ourselves in each language upon literature—the forms of grammar will be the ladder whereby we mount.
And then we shall return to our own native poets and thinkers, with minds enriched by foreign travel, and Milton will be the interpreter of the poetry of the world—of ancient and modern times, Spenser of the mediæval romances, Chaucer of the world of nature, Wordsworth and Coleridge of spiritual philosophy, and we shall feel that we must be worthy of so great an inheritance, and not trample under our feet the pearls, the precious jewels of speech.
Do I seem unpractical? It is just these ideas that are practical, which we must get our children to see and to feel, and then the burden of earnest, thoughtful labour will seem light, and our English tongue will not be degraded by slovenly pronunciation or the use of vulgar and inappropriate words.