The argument for Languages may, no doubt, take a bolder flight, and go so far as to maintain that the teacher does not need to turn aside from his plain path to secure these secondary ends--now the only valuable ends. The contention may be that in the close and rigorous attention to mere interpretation, just as if interpretation were still the living use, these other purposes are inevitably secured--good English, universal grammar, logic, taste, &c. I think, however, that this is too far from the fact to be very confidently maintained. Of course, were it correct, the teacher should never have departed from it, as the best teachers continually do, and glory in doing. On the face of the thing, it must seem an unworkable position to surrender the value of a language, as a language, and keep it up for something else. The teaching must always be guided by the original, although defunct, use; this is the natural, the easy, course to follow; for the mass of teachers at all times it is the broad way. Whatever the necessities of argument may drive a man to say, yet in his teaching he cannot help postulating to himself, as an indispensable fiction, that his pupils are some day or other to hear, to read, to speak, or to write the language. The intense conservatism in the matter of Languages--the alacrity to prescribe languages on all sides, without inquiring whether they are likely to be turned to account--may be referred to various causes. For one thing--although the remark may seem ungracious and invidious--many minds, not always of the highest force, are absorbed and intoxicated by languages. But apart from this, languages are, by comparison, easy to teach, and easy to examine upon. Now, if there is any motive in education more powerful than another, it is ease in the work itself. We are all, as teachers, copyists of that Irish celebrity who, when he came to a good bit of road, paced it to and fro a number of times before going forward to his destination on the rougher footing. So far I may seem to be arguing against the teaching of language at all, or, at any rate, the languages expressively called dead. I am not, however, pressing this point farther than as an illustration. I do not ask anyone to give an opinion against Classics as a subject of instruction; although, undoubtedly, if this opinion were prevalent, my principal task would be very much lightened. I have merely analysed the utilities ascribed to the ancient and the modern languages, with a view to settling their place in competitive examinations. * * * * * [LANGUAGES NOT PROPER FOR THE COMPETITION.] My thesis, then, is, that languages are not a proper subject for competition with a view to professional appointments. The explanation falls under two heads.