I am ashamed to find that I took no notice of your query concerning Latin Grammars. My own opinion is quite unshaken as to the absurdity of teaching boys the Latin language in Latin rules, though if any thing might seem likely to have shaken it, it is, the fact that late in his life Arnold became a convert to the system, having started from a different one. I cannot hear of any reason assigned for it, except that "rules in the English language do not stick in the memory so well as rules in the Latin." I cannot help questioning whether even this is true. I suspect that the system of asking "What is the rule?" is more practised among the old, than the newer school of teachers; and for this reason alone the English rules do not stick in the memory, because, there being twenty new English written grammars against only one (or two) old Latin ones, it is not possible to expect a class gathered from many schools to give the exact words of any one English rule. . . .

        In schools in general nowadays, I find boys are much forwarder both in Latin and Greek than they were when I was a boy; and I feel no doubt that a part of the improvement is due to the abandonment of the old grammars.