tongue from its rise till the present day to instruct our youth in the speech and Literature of their country. To some this may seem an easy task, if it be so easy I would it were done, but perhaps it is harder than many think; in my opinion a man who could teach English with comfort to himself and profit to his hearers — a man in short who will earnestly do his days-work and not make a job of it — should have a thorough knowledge of Anglo Saxon, and Anglo Norman, of our Old, Middle, and New English, beside a considerable proficiency in the Old Norse, and early German tongues. There are men in England capable of doing this, but as yet they are few and far between.
But though the sum of our English instruction amounts to zero, or less, there are some signs which show that the night of our forgetfulness is far spent, and the dawn at hand; by the praiseworthy efforts of isolated students the results worked out in the School of German Philology founded by Grimm are becoming more and more known among us. The Anglo Saxon Grammar of the Author of this work has been excellently translated by Mr. Thorpe, and has tended not a little towards awakening a taste for that tongue long so
