to learning the truth, to study and learn the measure of the instrument by which we learn it; that is the human mind. Hence his immortal treatise on the Human Understanding. It is a part of the progress and normal development of all sensitive and intellectual organisms, to constantly advance in a knowledge of themselves, their powers, and functions. All living constitutions of human societies keep alive by an ever-advancing process of self-understanding and self-exposition. This is true of the constitutions of England and the United States. They are constantly defining themselves in judicial exposition. As fast as old questions are determined respecting the powers of the government in its different departments and officers, others come to the surface which press for adjudication. It is so in the church. It is still a vexed question, what is the province of the General Assembly, as respects propounding doctrinal dogmas, or terms of communion, not explicitly set forth in our standards; or, if it propound them, how far they have more than the mere moral force belonging to the declarations of such a body of men-how far, in short, they have authority which binds the church, and subjects non-compliance with them to church discipline and censure. This has nothing to do with the binding authority of the Assembly, in respect to the bounds of presbyteries and synods, the constitution and regulation of its own boards and officers, and the usual orders to inferior courts. Nor is it the question, whether it must interpret and apply the standards in all cases judicially brought before it. Of this there is no doubt. But the question is, whether it has authority to make declarations of doctrine or practice, which, without the constitutional sanction of presbyteries, have the binding force of law in the church? Take this very question: Would its declaration, that Romish baptism is invalid, and that sessions must require re-baptism in such cases, as a condition of admission to the Lord's table, be binding, like the prescription in regard to adult baptism, if unsanctioned by the presbyteries, so that non-compliance would subject to church discipline?

Take the requirements made by the O. S. Assembly, at Pittsburgh, in 1865, in regard to the conditions of the reception of Southern ministers and Christians to our own presbyteries and churches; were they binding like "constitutional rules?"

L. H. A.

By THEODORE W. HUNT, Adjunct Professor of History in Princeton College.

IN a very instructive article upon "The German Gymnasium," in the January number of The New Englander, Doctor Keep makes the following pertinent statement as to the study of German: "No part of the plan of studies is more carefully elaborated than that according to which the native language is taught." "The department," he adds, by way of comparison, "is made more interesting and profitable to German youth than the study of the English language and literature in our schools and colleges." The substantial correctness of this comparison must be admitted. There is no question but that our institutions are seriously at fault in this particular, and that they are called upon by every consideration to place the study of English upon a better basis. The question, therefore, as to the position and nature of the difficulty, becomes a question of practical moment.

We have before us the catalogues of a large number of our colleges-enough, indeed, to justify us in making a general inference as to the precise position of this department. While noting the important fact, that some of our less prominent institutions are, as to this special study, in advance of those more widely known, we observe that the course mapped out in the various colleges, as to the time allotted it, the area it covers, and the results it contemplates, is substantially the same. It is true that different colleges professedly give distinction to separate divisions of the study. In many of them we note the absence of any attention to the primitive periods of our language. The substantial similarity of their courses is, however, a noticeable feature. Further than this, there is a general acknowledgment of the growing importance of the study in our systems of education. In some of the exhibits it is presented under the head of "Special Features." As far as we can gather, the department has its fair apportionment of time in our crowded curricula, and not a little zeal is manifested in the furtherance of its interests. What, then, is the diffi

culty? We answer, that it lies mainly in the application of an erroneous method in its study and teaching. The remedy lies, therefore, in the immediate adoption of a better way. It is to this that we call attention.

By the term, "English," as used in the present connection, we mean the English department in its completeness. It may be said to include the three grand divisions of—

English Language.
English Literature.

English Composition and Criticism.

As to the expression, Philosophical Method, our meaning, we trust, will be sufficiently clear as we proceed.

Suffice it here to say, that, negatively, it is the reverse of the formal or verbal method. It stands opposed, moreover, to what might be called the textual method, as well as to the historical method, in the more superficial sense of that term. Positively, it is a method dealing mainly with principles, and in which facts are valuable only as the ground of large inductions. It enters into the foundations, causes, and governing laws of things, rather than being content to dwell among things external and minute. It is the Baconian method applied to English study. We shall examine this method as applied, in turn, to each of the three sub-divisions specified:

I. ENGLISH LANGUAGE.-The study of our language in the higher method would include what Earle calls "The Philology of the English Tongue." If we use the term philology as a preeminent scholar uses it, meaning "the grammatical study of the phenomena of single languages," then the knowledge of English grammar is all important, holding an essential place in the most advanced stages of linguistic study. If this be true, the method adopted is of vital moment. The formal study of grammar, as presented in our simple manuals, is one thing, and valuable in its place; the grammatical study of linguistic phenomena is quite another. The difference between Brown and Latham is largely a difference of method. With the one, philology is reduced to the study of formal grammar; with the other, grammar is but the basis on which philology builds a broader and better work. We have no objection to calling philology a study of the forms of language, a gram

matical study, if the terms employed are made to assume their higher and not their lower meaning. Still further: this study has often been designated the study of words, and not unfrequently by way of reproach. Now it is in place to remark, that such a reproach is possible only upon the utter misconception of what is meant in reality by the study of words. Here, again, the difficulty is found to exist in the province of method. If English philology, or that of any tongue, is no advance upon the study of roots and affixes; if it be but the discovery and emphasis of forced distinctions; if, in fine, the study be purely verbal, then is such a reproach justified. This was the error of many of the older linguists, devoting their time, as has been said, to the "architecture," and not to the "chemistry," of words. . It must here be confessed, that far too many of our modern philologists are open to such criticism. They have either magnified the word above the thought behind it, or, in the line of pure speculation upon etymologies, transpositions, and combinations, have so passed beyond a discreet limit as to bring the whole department into opprobrium, If, however, our conception of what philology is is the higher one, and words are to us as they were to Bacon, "the footsteps and prints of reason," then will our definitions be significant. Whether we call it the study of grammatical forms, or words, or whatever be the phrase, the philosophic aspects will be prominent, and its relations as an educating study to all our work as thinkers will at once be discernible. Philology, in fine, is a science, and as such, is established, formulated, and applied as other sciences. In studying language, therefore, we investigate its origin, history, and structure; the principles that underlie it, and the processes by which it works. We study its capacity as a medium for the expression of our thought; its points of strength and weakness in this particular. We note the forms and reasons of its successive variations, its periods of progress and decline, and its varied relations to all that national and individual life, of which it is the best exponent. The study is thus, in the highest sense, scientific, and so far philosophic. It is thus that Farrar ably argues, with reference to its late assumption of a scientific form, that it is recent just because it is scientific, requiring time for the accumulation and comparison of facts. Müller and Maetzner in Europe, and

March and Whitney in America, appear before us, in their respective works, as philosophers and scientists in language.

2. ENGLISH LITERATURE. English Literature is the collected written expression of the English mind in English forms. The inherent value of such a study and its important bearings upon the entire mental life of the student need no discussion. It has been for a long time known and still is one of the wellgrounded criticisms upon this study, as taught in our colleges, that it is presented in its lower aspects. By not a few, it is treated as polite literature only-the Belles Lettres of the French schools. The aesthetic element is thus dominant. Literature is but the embodiment of the beautiful. Form is made conspicuous above content; poetry tends to usurp the place of classical prose, while even in poetry itself the lighter forms of the lyric and the narrative prevail.

What may be called the historical method proper, is also prevalent, and though an advance upon the æsthetic is by nomeans satisfactory: it is the annalistic method. It furnishes us with the dates of different periods, presents entertaining biographical sketches of successive authors, with the times of the composition and publication of their various works. Such a literary survey would be similar to what is known in civil history as the chronological method. It follows the course of the centuries in regular order, making the temporal transitions mark the transition of thought. Still another method, and an objectionable one, is what we may call the textual or extreme critical method. It borders very closely upon the hyper-critical. It is essentially grammatical and verbal, rather than literary. It would make the language of Lear more important than the character, and an anachronism an unpardonable sin. Has not such an order of criticism already overreached itself in the interpretation of the drama to our collegiate classes?

The desirable method, then, is the philosophic one, in the application of which the best features of all the other methods. are seen to appear in strict subordination. The mind and the emotions are addressed as superior to the taste; the limits of literary periods are determined by the course of thought, while criticism yields at every point to literary inspiration. The method is suggestive and analytic, rather than exhaustive-the