[ [7] ] I reproduce the note which had "helped" the boy:
["Renaud dans les jardins d'Armida," the enchanted gardens of Armida ("Jerusalem Delivered," Tasso), figuratively, in the hands of an enchantress.]
VII.
English Boys on French Etymologies. — Why "Silence" is the only French Noun, ending in "ence," that is of the masculine gender. — A Valuable Service rendered by the Author to his Land of Adoption. — Learned Etymologies. — Return to Old Philological Methods. — Remarkable Questions. — Written and Oral Examinations. — A Kind Examiner. — How Long would it take the Moon to Fall to the Earth? — How Many Yards of Cloth it takes to Cover an Ass. — I Examine in German.
French boys, and only of late, are made to go through a course of French philology during their last two years at school; but English school-boys, who are seldom taught to speak French, and who would find it just as difficult to make themselves understood in Paris as they would in Pekin, are made to study the "rudiments" of French philology, that is to say, the origin of words they are unable to put together so as to make French sentences of them.
I might take this opportunity for discussing whether English school-boys should not leave alone all this nonsense, and devote the little spare time they have to learning how to put French words together with a decent pronunciation; but I have promised myself to discuss nothing in this little volume of personal recollections, and I will keep my word.
After all, what Englishmen want to be able to do is to write a letter in French, and to ask for a steak or a mutton-chop in a French restaurant, without having to low or bleat to make the waiter understand that it is beef or mutton they want.
I did not go to England to make reforms; I accept things as I see them, and I generally wait to give my advice until I am asked for it.
So French philology is taught. A hundred exercises, which I have under my eyes, show me the results of the philological teaching of French in England.