CHAPTER VIII.
USE OF LANGUAGE.
1. Two things preëminently distinguish men from brutes,—reason and speech.[1] Man needs the former on his own account, the latter for the sake of his neighbor. Both, therefore, equally demand our care, so that man may have his mind and tongue equally trained, and exercised as well as possible. We now, therefore, add something respecting instruction in language, such as when and how the principles of grammar, rhetoric, and poetry ought to be propounded. The beginnings of grammar appear in certain children as early as their first half-year; generally, however, towards the end of the year, when certain letters in their language begin to be formed, such as a, e, i; or even syllables, such as ba, ma, ta, etc. But in the following year complete syllables begin to be formed, when they try to pronounce whole words. It is usual to propose to them the easier words to be pronounced, such as tata, mama, papa, and nana; and there is need to do this, for nature herself impels them to begin with easier words, since the man-
- ↑ Comenius was the first of the great reformers to recognize the need of training in the mother-tongue and to separate the infant from the Latin schools. “The schools have failed,” he wrote, “and instead of keeping to the true object of education, they have neglected even the mother-tongue and confined themselves to the teaching of Latin.”
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