Note 197 — XIX. HERBERT SPENCER.[185]

A class of boys whom I once took in Latin Delectus denied, with the utmost confidence, when I questioned them on the subject, that there were any such things in English as verbs and substantives. On another occasion, I saw a poor boy of nine or ten caned, because, when he had said that proficiscor was a deponent verb, he could not say what a deponent verb was. Even if he had remembered the inaccurate grammar definition expected of him, “A deponent verb is a verb with a passive form and an active meaning,” his comprehension of proficiscor would have been no greater. It is worth observing that, even when offending grievously in great matters against the principle of connecting fresh knowledge with the old, teachers are sometimes driven to it in small. They find that it is better for boys to see that lignum is like regnum, and laudare like amare, than simply to learn that lignum is of the Second Declension, and laudare of the First Conjugation. If boys had to learn by a mere effort of memory the particular declension or conjugation of Latin words before they were taught anything about declensions and conjugations, this would be as sensible as the method adopted in some other instances, and the teachers might urge, as usual, that the information would come in useful afterwards.