Note 93 — XI. THE GENTLEMEN OF PORT-ROYAL.[88]

Lancelot’s “New way of easily learning Latin (Nouvelle Méthode pour apprendre facilement la langue Latine)” was published in 1644, his method for Greek in 1655. This was followed in 1657 by his “Garden of Greek Roots (Jardin des racines grecques)” (see Cadet, pp. 15 ff.)

The Port-Royalists seem to me in some respects far behind Comenius, but they were right in rejecting him as a methodiser in language-learning. Lancelot in the preface to his “Garden of Greek Roots,” says that the Janua of Comenius is totally wanting in method. “It would need,” says he, “an extraordinary memory; and from my experience I should say that few children could learn this book, for it is long and difficult; and as the words in it are not repeated, those at the beginning would be forgotten before the learner reached the end. So he would feel a constant discouragement, because he would always find himself in a new country where he would recognize nothing. And the book is full of all sorts of uncommon and difficult words, and the first chapters throw no light on those which follow.” To this well-grounded criticism he adds: “The entrances to the Tongues, to deserve its name, should be nothing but a short and simple way leading us as soon as possible to read the best books in the language, so that we might not only acquire the words we are in need of, but also all that is most characteristic in the idiom and pure in the phraseology, which make up the most difficult and most important part of every language.” (Quoted by Cadet, p. 17).