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DISCUSSION. 
| 261 
anderstood, puts one in possession of an instrument or tool whereby he is able to convey 
;0 another his knowledge and feeling and volition. . What is true under this category 
of reading and writing is manifestly just as true of drawing. That is an art and 
not a study, properly so-called ; certainly not a content study. Not only so, but I will 
add to that category, if you please, number, because number properly understood is 
not a science. Manifestly arithmetic, notation, and numeration are arts which we 
ise in the prosecution of studies. 
Now, it appears to me that what has been said by way of characterizing these arts, 
and by way of discriminating them from the studies proper, is not without certain 
practical advantages. It seems to me if we could induce the educational people of the 
zountry, and especially the teachers of the country, to look upon these studies so-called 
as being arts, and could induce them to handle them as such, there are certain points of 
advantage which we should gain. 'I shall illustrate my meaning by reference to the 
subject of language. We were told, and very properly, that language is an art. Iam 
20t unaware of the fact that grammar and philology, under all the various divisions into 
which we divide language considered as a science, are content studies, and that they are 
proper sciences ; but that language considered as a medium of thought is palpably an 
art to be acquired, to be mastered, and to be used for communication in the first place 
srally, and afterward in written form of one’s thought, feeling, and volition. 
There has been much discussion in the educational journals of the country as to the 
study of what we call technically grammar. I take it; for the most part, the distinction 
to which I have called your attention will enable us to answer the questions upon this 
subject. Technical grammar is a science. It is not an art. It is not a tool or instru- 
ment. I know full well that Lindley Murray, the father of English grammarians, 
defined English grammar as the art of using the English language. It is nothing of 
the kind’; and how so great a scholar ever could have conceived it as being such is one 
of the things that I have not been able to understand. Whatever grammar of any kind 
may be, it is certainly not the art of using language. One acquires the art of using a 
.anguage by using it; one learns to speak by speaking, to write by writing, to talk by 
salking, as he learns to think by thinking. Of course, there comes a time when the 
-eflective or scientific and grammatical study of language may, in a subordinate sense, 
se a benefit to one in respect to his handling or mastery of language. What I mean is 
‘his : When I came to acquire certain formal rules of grammar, it proved of advantage 
to me in enabling me to eliminate from my speech certain inaccuracies and solecisms 
into which I had fallen, through what we call use and want. Inever would have learned 
to speak it, had it not been for use and want. That person who is not allowed to acquire 
the mastery of language until he shall have learned it in a reflective sense, that is, 
trom the grammatical side, will never acquire it at all, because the acquirement of all 
arts must come before the scientific or reflective or self-conscious stage of the handling 
of its topics. That is where the practical use of grammar comes in. The rules and pre- 
cepts of formal grammar in process of time may become a second nature, but they are 
sever the first. All of this I think confirms and strengthens the proposition that in the 
first place we are to consider language as an art. 
The facts that I have stated explain two things that some people think very curious, 
which are not curious at all. I have heard men make fine speeches, using good language, 
who never studied a grammar lesson in their lives. I have known men who could write 
a fine letter, a good newspaper article, and possibly a good book, who had no knowl- 
sedge of technical or formal grammar. I have known plenty of people who worked for 
months, and I might say for years, over technical or formal grammar, who could neither 
make a good speech, nor write a good letter, nor talk with ordinary decency. What con- 
clusions follow from these two facts ? First, that language, no matter whether oral or 
written. in the first instance is an art, as we have been told ; and secondly, considered