rather than to the enlargement of our vocabulary. Any reading that is necessary can be got through quickly out of school-hours without tedious explanations or attempts at imitation; since the time thus spent could be better employed in the study of nature.
46. Exercises in reading and writing should always be combined. Even when scholars are learning their alphabet, they should be made to master the letters by writing them; since it is impossible to find a more agreeable method or one that will give them a greater incentive to work. For, since all children have a natural desire to draw, this exercise will give them pleasure, and the imagination will be excited by the twofold action of the senses. Later on, when they can read with ease, they should be made to exercise their powers on subject-matter that would in any case have to be learned, that is to say, something calculated to give them practical information or to instil morality or piety. The same plan may be adopted when they learn to read Latin, Greek, or Hebrew. It will be of great advantage to read and copy the declensions and conjugations over and over again, until, by this means, reading, writing, the meaning of the words, and the formation of the case-endings, have been thoroughly learned. In this case we have a fourfold result from a single exercise. A system of concentration that is of such vital importance should be applied to all branches of study, in order that, as Seneca says, what is learned by reading may be given form by writing, or that, as St. Augustine says of himself, we may write while we make progress and make progress while we write.
47. As a rule, no care is shown in the choice of the subjects that are given as exercises in style, and there is no connection between the successive subjects. The result is that they are exercises in style and nothing else, and have very little influence on the reasoning powers; indeed it frequently happens that, after much time and study have been devoted to them, they prove absolutely worthless and of no use for the business of life. Literary taste should therefore be taught by means of the subject-
