Repetition, as it is called, or "learning by heart great parcels of the authors which are taught," is unreservedly condemned as being of "no use at all, unless it be to baulk young lads in the way to learning languages, which, in my opinion, should be made as easy and pleasant as may be." "Languages are to be learned only by reading and talking, and not by scraps of authors got by heart; which when a man's head is stuffed with, he has got the just furniture of a pedant, than which there is nothing less becoming a gentleman." This unqualified condemnation of the practice of committing to memory the choicer pieces of classical authors, whether in the ancient or modern languages, would hardly be adopted by the educational reformers of our own day. To tax the memory of a child or a boy with long strings of words, ill understood or not understood at all, is about as cruel and senseless a practice as can well be conceived. It is one of the strange devices, invented by perverse pedagogues and tolerated by ignorant parents, through which literature and all that is connected with books has been made so repulsive to many generations of young Englishmen. But if the tastes and interests of the pupil are skilfully consulted, and the understanding is called into action as well as the memory, a store of well-selected passages learnt by rote will not only do much to familiarize him with the genius of the language, but will also supply constant solace and occupation in those moments of depression and vacuity which are only too sure to occur in every man's life.