ifling: grammar is not, like arithmetic, a science consisting of
several distinct departments, some of which may be dispensed with: it is
a whole, and the whole must be learned, or no part is learned. The
subject is abstruse: it demands much reflection and much patience: but,
when once the task is performed, it is performed _for life_, and in
every day of that life it will be found to be, in a greater or less
degree, a source of pleasure or of profit or of both together. And, what
is the labour? It consists of no bodily exertion; it exposes the student
to no cold, no hunger, no suffering of any sort. The study need subtract
from the hours of no business, nor, indeed, from the hours of necessary
exercise: the hours usually spent on the tea and coffee slops and in the
mere gossip which accompany them; those wasted hours of only _one year_,
employed in the study of English grammar, would make you a correct
speaker and writer for the rest of your life. You want no school, no
room to study in, no expenses, and no troublesome circumstances of any
sort. I learned grammar when I was a private soldier on the pay of
sixpence a day. The edge of my berth, or that of the guard-bed, was my
seat to study in; my knapsack was my book-case; a bit of board, lying on
my lap, was my writing-table; and the task did not demand any thing like
a year of my life. I had no money to purchase candle or oil; in
winter-time it was rarely that I could get any evening-light but that of
_the fire_, and only my _turn_ even of that. And if I, under such
circumstances, and without parent or friend to advise or encourage me,
accomplished this undertaking, what excuse can there be for _any youth_,
however poor, however pressed with business, or however circumstanced as
to room or other conveniences? To buy a pen or a sheet of paper I was
compelled to forego some portion of food, though in a state of
half-starvation; I had no moment of time that I could call my own; and I
had to read and to write amidst the talking, laughing, singing,
whistling and brawling of at least half a score of the most thoughtless
of men, and that too in the hours of their freedom from all control.
Think not lightly of the _farthing_ that I had to give, now and then,
for ink, pen, or paper! That farthing was, alas! a _great sum_ to me! I
was as tall as I am now; I had great health and great exercise. The
whole of the money, not expended for us at market, was _two-pence a
week_ for each