On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
political institutions , by wealth , by profession , or education , to rank with the more influential classes of society , should be enabled to exercise that influence by free communication with their inferiors in their own language , or should be separated by this impassable gulf from those whom they might admonish , advise , instruct in the things which minister both to their temporal and eternal welfare . That such should be in any degree the relative
condition of the higher and lower classes , we certainly consider as a very great evil , p lacing a thousand formidable impediments in the way of the political and moral improvement of the people . But the idea of removing this evil , by extirpating one prevalent language and substituting another , by inducing four millions of people to unlearn their mother tongue , the vehicle in which they have been accustomed to think , and to convey not only their ideas , but their sentiments , emotions , and affections , in order to adopt the speech of a race whom they habitually regard as strangers and intruders , not
to say oppressors , is altogether visionary , and is discountenanced by the whole history of mankind . The pertinacity with which a nation under such circumstances adhere to its primitive language , as this writer very justly observes , is illustrated by no example more remarkably than by the history of the English language itself . After the Norman conquest , the idiom of our Saxon ancestors for three centuries lay in a sort of disgrace , neglected and despised as a barbarous jargon by the learned and the great .
Norman-French was the language of the court , of the law , of all the privileged orders , while English was spoken chiefly by the mechanic , the peasant , and the slave . But continuing to be the dialect of the great mass of the people , it finally prevailed against its rival , and made its way even into the courts of justice and the halls of the nobility . With this example derived from their own history before their eyes , it seems strange that any enlightened and reflecting man should seriously recommend such a scheme as that of putting
down by legal enactments and other artificial means the language of a whole people . Yet this appears to have been the policy of the rulers of Ireland for a course of centuries . The means adopted have in general been worthy of the end , and the success such as might have been expected . Education has been recommended , and schools have been established ; but they have been exclusively English schools , whose main object seems to be to communicate just so much English as shall suffice for the ordinary transactions
of every-day life . The consequence has been , not that they have learned English , but that they have remained uninstructed . Beyond all question , if the object be to improve the intellectual condition of a people , the proper method is to commence with instruction in their native tongue . The establishment of Irish schools , however , has been not only neglected , but discouraged by all possible means . During the whole of the eighteenth
century , not one edition appeared of the Scriptures in the Irish language ! and though the Bible Society have recently directed their attention to this point , what has yet been done is but little in proportion to the immense magnitude of the object . It is scarcely necessary to add , that an elementary literature adapted to the wants and circumstances of the Irish people , remains to be created .
Mr . Anderson argues ingeniously , and we think not unplausibly , to shew that even if the object be to promote among the native Irish the use of the English tongue , still the proper course to pursue will be to begin by instruction in Irish . By this , if well and judiciously conducted , you impart a thirst for knowledge , which , certainly at present , and most probably under any circumstances that are likely to arise in Ireland , can be gratified only by
Untitled Article
252 Anderson * 8 Historical Sketches of the Native Irish .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1831, page 252, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2596/page/36/
-