tendered an expeditious and unlaborious task, it would be presumptuous to expect.
But it may be reasonably hoped, that, in the progressive improvement of human experience, new methods of instructions may be introduced, in this as well as in other sciences, which may afford additional facilities to learning, and clear away many obstacles to improvement which former ages were unable to remove.
It is quote obvious that the difficulty in acquiring a foreign language consists in the constitutional difference of out our native tonight, and that which we propose to learn. If the grammatical properties of the two languages were similar, the were obtaining of a copia verborum would be an undertaking of no great difficulty. But how considerable a labour it is to obtain a perfect knowledge even of the genders and declensions of nouns, the conjugation of verbs, and other matters which are the very initials of language, any one who has had the least experience of the drudgery of teaching can well testify.
It would seem, then, that one of the most extensive facilities which can be afforded in this matter, is to point out the affinities of different languages—to systematise, as far as can be, their similarities; and, where it is practicable, to trace and notify their variances. In other words,
