We will now examine that extraordinary argument by which Mr. Carey attempts to prove that too much time is consumed in the study of languages, even in those few cases in which he would tolerate them at all. Here it is. “That lads of moderate capacity, and no very extraordinary application, frequently acquire the French language in twelve or eighteen months,” &c. Again—“That the Latin language is not more difficult than the French—indeed I believe not so difficult.” From these _petitiones pricipii_, he draws the _non sequitur_ conclusion, “that it's an error to consume three, four, five or six years in the attainment of the Latin.” Now every person at all acquainted with Philology, knows that foreign language to be easiest to himself which bears the greatest resemblance to his vernacular tongue in its structure, syntax, the sequence of its words in sentences, and the identity or similarity of many of its terms with corresponding ones in his own language. It will be evident to any individual, that in these particulars the French resembles our language much more than the Latin. If he will only reflect, the whole intricate machinery of declensions and conjugations, which constitutes one of the greatest difficulties of ancient languages, is almost entirely wanting in the French, and indeed in all modern languages. Here I cannot do better than to quote the words of that elegant rhetorician, Dr. Blair. “There is no doubt that in abolishing cases, we have rendered the structure of modern languages more simple. We have disembarrassed it of the intricacy which arose from the different forms of declension. We have thereby rendered modern languages more easy to be acquired, and less subject to the perplexity of rules.” Again, in a subsequent chapter, he says, “Language (modern) has undergone a change in conjugation perfectly similar to that which I showed it underwent with respect to declension; the consequence was the same as that of abolishing declensions; it rendered language (modern) more simple and easy.” But the proof of the pudding is in the eating; so the universal practice among teachers of giving much longer French than Latin lessons, to be prepared in the same given time, is conclusive of the more easy attainment of the former. Most opportunely for the tenability of our argument, while we were preparing this article, an intelligent student of the University stated to us that he found he was making very little progress in French, and could assign no reason for it, unless it was because French is so easy that it does not take hold upon and engage the mind. But Mr. Carey would not only limit the time during which the ancient languages ought to be studied; he goes a good deal farther in his hostility to them, by advising that they should be studied even during the short period of twelve or eighteen months through the medium of translations. Now simply to