Take the Grammar of any modern language, and read the dialogues in it,
till you are acquainted with the common connecting words, and know the
principal parts of speech by sight. Then look at the declensions and
the verbs—you will already have learnt something of their inflections,
and may now commit them to memory, or write them down. Read those
lessons, which you ought to read daily—in a bible of this language,
having the English bible open beside it. Your daily task will soon be
either to learn the vocabulary, or to write exercises, or simply to
read, according to the use which you mean to make of your new
acquirement. You must learn _memoriter_, and exercise yourself in
writing if you wish to educate your ear and your tongue for foreign
service; but all that is necessary for your own instruction and
delight at home may be acquired by the eye alone.
_Qui mihi Discipulus es—cupis atque doceri,_
try this method for ten minutes a day, perseveringly, and you will
soon be surprised at your own progress.
_Quod tibi deest, à te ipso mutuare,_—
it is Cato's advice.
Ten minutes you can bestow upon a modern language, however closely you
may be engaged in pursuits of immediate necessity; even tho' you
should be in a public office from which Joseph Hume, or some of his
worthy compeers, has moved for voluminous returns. (Never work at
extra hours upon such returns, unless extra pay is allowed for the
additional labor and confinement to the desk, as in justice it ought
to be. But if you are required to do so by the superiors who ought to
protect you from such injustice, send petition after petition to
Parliament, praying that when the abolition or mitigation of slavery
shall be taken into consideration, your case may be considered also.)
Any man who will, may command ten minutes. _Exercet philosophia regnum
suum_, says Seneca; _dat tempus, non accipit. Non est res subcisiva,
ordinaria est, domina est; adest, et jubet._ Ten minutes the Under
Graduate who reads this may bestow upon German even though he should
be in training for the University races. Ten minutes he can bestow
upon German, which I recommend because it is a master-key for many
doors both of language and of knowledge. His mind will be refreshed
even by this brief change of scene and atmosphere. In a few weeks (I
repeat) he will wonder at his own progress: and in a few years, if he
is good for anything—if the seed has not been sown upon a stony place,
nor among thorns, he will bless me his unknown benefactor, for showing
him by what small savings of time, a man may become rich in mind. “And
so I end my counsel, beseeching thee to begin to follow it.”[1]
[Footnote 1: EUPHUES, A. M.]
But not unto me be the praise! O Doctor, O my guide, philosopher and
friend!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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