By what means then should the English language be taught? The grammars commonly in use are feeble adaptations of the old Latin grammar, mere dilutions of Lindley Murray, which only confuse and vulgarise the subject, loading the memory with a pedantic enumeration of technical rules, unsuited to the genius of the English language. Something has been done towards providing the middle classes with really English grammars by Dr. Latham, by Mr. Thring, and by Mr. M'Leod.
Should Farmers learn Latin?
But the right way of teaching English depends on the answer to another question, namely, whether there is any use in teaching Latin where it cannot be taught thoroughly—I mean so as to be remembered and used with facility through life.
Great changes have taken place in the public mind on this subject. In old times Latin was supposed to be the introduction to all learning above that of reading, writing, and ciphering. Grammar-schools taught the classic s almost exclusively. Against this the English mind, especially in the middle classes, rebelled. Attempts were made to compel an alteration in the old methods of grammar schools and universities, and to exchange classics for metaphysics at one time, and for physical science at another. These attempts having failed, other institutions sprung up by the side of the old ones. The London University and the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge established the claims of physical science to a share at least in the formation of the English mind.
But the older institutions had life in them yet; and the original stocks, after a little pruning, have proved strong enough to throw