not give the critical etymology of the words knife, limb, cut? Surely the great ends of life are not to stand still for want of knowledge of scholastic roots? It would be superfluous to point out, in a more elaborate manner, how very overstrained, and inapplicable to general experience, Mr. Tytler’s argument is.
As very apposite to the subject under consideration, we beg to submit an extract or two from a forcible article by the late Dr. Duncan, jun., on Medical Education, which was published in the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal for 1827. “The knowledge of languages, in itself, derives its chief utility from its facilitating the acquisition of useful knowledge; and, therefore, as the mind may be nearly equally disciplined during the acquisition of any one language as of any other, their utility is directly proportional to the value of the information contained in the books written in them.” Tried by this test, how utterly mispent must be the time devoted by the native medical student to the study of Arabic, Sanscrit, and Persian! ”It is argued,” continues the article quoted, “in favour of the study of the Greek language, that it is the language of the fathers of physic; and that the terms of medical art have been almost all borrowed from it and the Latin; and that it seems impossible to understand properly their meaning, without possessing some knowledge of the sources from which they have been derived.” The first argument would be nearly equally conclusive in favour of the Arabic, that physicians might read Avicenna and Rhazes in the original; and with regard to the last, we shall reply, on the authority of Dugald Stewart. “It is in many cases a fortunate circumstance when the words we employ have lost their pedigree, or (what amounts nearly to the same thing,) when it can be traced by those alone who are skilled in ancient and modern languages. Such words have in their favour the sanction of immemorial usage, and
