Lectures on Language | Page 7

if the father was present in person. So
with every thing else.
Again, after the child has become familiar with the name of the being
called father; the name, idea and object itself being intimately
associated the mother will next begin to teach it another lesson;
following most undeviatingly the course which nature and true
philosophy mark out. The father comes and goes, is present or absent.

She says on his return, father come, and the little one looks round to see
the thing signified by the word father, the idea of which is distinctly
impressed on the mind, and which it now sees present before it. But
this loved object has not always been here. It had looked round and
called for the father. But the mother had told it he was gone. Father
gone, father come, is her language, and here the child begins to learn
ideas of actions. Of this it had, at first, no notion whatever, and never
thought of the father except when his person was present before it, for
no impressions had been distinctly made upon the mind which could be
called up by a sound of which it could have no conceptions whatever.
Now that it has advanced so far, the idea of the father is retained, even
tho he is himself absent, and the child begins to associate the notion of
coming and going with his presence or absence. Following out this
course the mind becomes acquainted with things and actions, or the
changes which things undergo.
Next, the mother begins to learn her offspring the distinction and
qualities of things. When the little sister comes to it in innocent
playfulness the mother says, "good sister," and with the descriptive
word good it soon begins to associate the quality expressed by the
affectionate regard, of its sister. But when that sister strikes the child,
or pesters it in any way, the mother says "naughty sister," "bad sister."
It soon comprehends the descriptive words, good and bad, and along
with them carries the association of ideas which such conduct produces.
In the same way it learns to distinguish the difference between great
and small, cold and hot, hard and soft.
In this manner the child becomes acquainted with the use of language.
It first becomes acquainted with things, the idea of which is left upon
the mind, or, more properly, the impression of which, left on the mind,
constitutes the idea; and a vocabulary of words are learned, which
represent these ideas, from which it may select those best calculated to
express its meaning whenever a conversation is had with another.
You will readily perceive the correctness of our first proposition, that
all language depends on the fixed and unerring laws of nature. Things
exist. A knowledge of them produces ideas in the mind, and sounds or

signs are adopted as vehicles to convey these ideas from one to another.
It would be absurd and ridiculous to suppose that any person, however
great, or learned, or wise, could employ language correctly without a
knowledge of the things expressed by that language. No matter how
chaste his words, how lofty his phrases, how sweet the intonations, or
mellow the accents. It would avail him nothing if ideas were not
represented thereby. It would all be an unknown tongue to the hearer or
reader. It would not be like the loud rolling thunder, for that tells the
wondrous power of God. It would not be like the soft zephyrs of
evening, the radiance of the sun, the twinkling of the stars; for they
speak the intelligible language of sublimity itself, and tell of the
kindness and protection of our Father who is in heaven. It would not be
like the sweet notes of the choral songsters of the grove, for they
warble hymns of gratitude to God; not like the boding of the distant
owl, for that tells the profound solemnity of night; not like the hungry
lion roaring for his prey, for that tells of death and plunder; not like the
distant notes of the clarion, for that tells of blood and carnage, of tears
and anguish, of widowhood and orphanage. It can be compared to
nothing but a Babel of confusion in which their own folly is worse
confounded. And yet, I am sorry to say it, the languages of all ages and
nations have been too frequently perverted, and compiled into a
heterogeneous mass of abstruse, metaphysical volumes, whose only
recommendation is the elegant bindings in which they are enclosed.
And grammars themselves, whose pretended object is to teach the rules
of speaking and writing correctly, form but a miserable exception to
this sweeping remark. I defy any grammarian, author, or teacher of the
numberless systems, which come, like the frogs of Egypt, all