Afterwards, when some of the nations of Europe wisely set about the cultivation of their native tongues, in proportion as they grew more perfect, the Latin fell into disuse; till at last it was reduced to its former state of a dead language, and confined chiefly to books. But whilst the Italians, French, and Spaniards were vying with each other, in the improvements of their several tongues, by giving all manner of encouragement to so useful a work, by establishing several societies and academies for the purpose, from whose joint labours excellent grammars and dictionaries were produced; by the assistance of which, and the instruction of masters, not only natives, but foreigners might acquire the most accurate knowlege of those tongues with ease; the English alone remained in the old track, and never to this hour, either by public or private encouragement, have taken one step towards regulating or ascertaining theirs. And yet this seems to have been a point of much more moment to them, and to which they were in a more peculiar manner, and much earlier called upon to give their attention, as the church service, upon the reformation, was performed in their own tongue, which is not the case to this day in those countries, where Latin still maintains that post. The refiners of those living languages justly gave great attention to sound and pronunciation, in the regulations which they established; the English, who from the nature of their constitution and public worship, had infinitely more occasion for the refinement and regulation of their tongue in that respect, left theirs wholly to chance. Nor are we to wonder at this, when we consider that we have made no alteration in our institutions, with the alteration of times and circumstances. Our establishments for training youth, pursue invariably the same plan, and inculcate only the same studies, which they did before the reformation, when Latin was the universal language; nor has any change been made since the English came into general use. At that time there was no necessity to apply to the study of it; and the barbarous structure of its words could afford no inducement to try what might be done in it, by the power of sounds. Accordingly those who taught English, were amongst the most ignorant of mankind. Their whole business was only to teach pupils the letters, to spell, and read words, no matter with what kind of tones, so as they were well acquainted with the characters, in order to fit them for the Latin school; where the learned languages only being the object of attention, their farther progress in English was neglected. Is not this the case at this day? Are not the rudiments of English now taught by low and ignorant masters, for wretched stipends, and for the same ends? Is it afterwards any-where _regularly taught_? Does not Latin still continue to be the chief language taught in schools, in the same manner as when it was the chief