dy of language. If any
course can be marked out to shorten the time tediously spent in the
acquisition of what is rarely attained--a thoro knowledge of language--a
great benefit will result to the community; children will save months
and years to engage in other useful attainments, and the high
aspirations of the mind for truth and knowledge will not be curbed in
its first efforts to improve by a set of technical and arbitrary rules.
They will acquire a habit of thinking, of deep reflection; and never
adopt, for fact, what appears unreasonable or inconsistent, merely
because great or good men have said it is so. They will feel an
independence of their own, and adopt a course of investigation which
cannot fail of the most important consequences. It is not the saving of
time, however, for which we propose a change in the system of teaching
language. In this respect, it is the study of one's life. New facts are
constantly developing themselves, new combinations of ideas and words
are discovered, and new beauties presented at every advancing step. It
is to acquire a knowledge of correct principles, to induce a habit of
correct thinking, a freedom of investigation, and at that age when the
character and language of life are forming. It is, in short, to exhibit
before you truth of the greatest practical importance, not only to you,
but to generations yet unborn, in the most essential affairs of human
life, that I have broached the hated subject of grammar, and undertaken
to reflect light upon this hitherto dark and disagreeable subject.

With a brief sketch of the outlines of language, as based on the fixed
laws of nature, and the agreement of those who employ it, I shall
conclude the present lecture.

We shall consider all language as governed by the invariable laws of
nature, and as depending on the conventional regulations of men.

Words are the signs of ideas. Ideas are the impressions of things.
Hence, in all our attempts to investigate the important principles of
language, we shall employ the sign as the means of coming at the thing
signified.

Language has usually been considered under four divisions, viz.:
Orthography, Etymology, Syntax, and Prosody.

Orthography is _right spelling_; the combination of certain letters into
words in such a manner as to agree with the spoken words used to denote
an idea. We shall not labor this point, altho we conceive a great
improvement might be effected in this department of lea