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    positions and conjunctions , and the aggregate of all the terms will hardly amount to ten thousand . Here , then , we discover the grossest imposture . Reduce the repetition of every word , and the variety of terminations under which each appears , to one , and the ten thousand dwindle down to a few hundreds . The Iliad and Odyssey of | Homer exceed siwty thousand verses ; each of these on an average contains six words . All the words in these poems then amount to three hundred and sixty thousand ; and at the rate of ten

    thousand in ten lessons , or one thousand in one lesson , a pupil of Mr . Hamilton will learn three hundred and sixty thousand words in three hundred and sixty lessons or three hundred and sixty hours ! " This immense volume of words must be learnt by mere dint of memory , without any aid from the understanding , unassisted by analogy or any general principle whatever : and yet ^ for the honour of his consistency , Mr . Hamilton asserts that nothing is learnt by rote in , his establishment ! I" .... " But after the pupil has made some progress in the knowledge of words , f a grammar , ' says Mr . Hamilton , containing the declensions and

    conjugations , and printed specially for my classes , is then put into the pupil ' s hands , ( not to be got by heart , —nothing is ever got by rote on this system , ) but that he may comprehend more readily his teacher onr grammar generally , but especially on the verbs / This paragraph , if it contain any truth , is a tacit acknowledgment that his own system turns out impracticable , and he is obliged , after abusing the confidence and misappl y ing the talents of his pupils , to return to the established method of learning the grammar , He finds his scholars sinking on one hand under the difficulty of retaining in their minds a mass of words half learnt and half barbarous , and incapable on the other of

    mastering the still greater mass that lies before them , and he slily retreats with the pupils in his train to teach that at last which he ought to have taught from the beginning , —the inflexions of nouns and verbs . These inflexions after all are not to be got by heart , —nothing is to be got b y rote on this system ; no , a knowledge of a comparatively few terminations which would reduce a million of words into a few thousands , and of thousands into a few hundreds , is not to be got by heart . This is said in the same breath where the pupils are said to have learnt ten thousand words , and that by the exertion of the memory .

    What drudgery can be more painful than this ? What abuse of time , what trouble on the part of well-disposed young men can be more gross and more fruitless ? And what more stupid , more wanton and inconsistent on the side of the master ? " A child in his fifth year learns the names , figures and powers of the letters , puts them together so as to form syllables , and is thus enabled to read . A person starts up and professes to have invented a system which supersedes all this trouble , and he teaches to read without the necessity of learning the

    alphabet . He takes a child for his pupil yet not knowing his letters , and he points his attention to some such sentence as the following : * The God who made me is great and good . ' The master puts his pencil on the first word , directing him to look at it , ^ wnd teaching him to utter the sound the . This he repeats in connexion with the figure , till the child can distinguish and enunciate it , wherever he discovers it in the page . He leads his pupil through the same process in regard to the succeeding words , till he acquires the whole sentence : in the course of a fortnight he extends , by continued attention , the acquisition of his little scholar over several pages . The master then takes the

    child to his parents ; and he fills them with surprise and delight . Unable to contain the important discovery , they tell their neighbours of a wonderful art invented by a certain clever man , of reading without the trouble of learning the alphabet . He again resumes his charge ; but , as he proceeds , he finas the task increasing in difficulty , till it becomes impracticable . He returns , therefore ,, to the first elements ; and his pupil , after much labour lost , and after being raised in his own conceit far above the letters , has now the mortification to find that he must after all learn them . The cheat is then discovered ,

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    Review . —Hamiltonian System . \ 13

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1827, page 113, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1793/page/33/