CHAPTER CLVII.

WHICH THE READER WILL FIND LIKE A ROASTED MAGGOT, SHORT AND SWEET.

Malum quod minimum est, id minimum est malum.

PLAUTUS.             

But here one of those persons who acting upon the proverbial precept which bids us look before we leap, look so long that they never leap at all, offers a demurrer.

It may be perfectly true, he observes, that a language may be learnt in three hundred and ninety lessons of an hour each. But in your proposition the hour is broken into several small parts; we will throw in an additional minute, and say six such portions. What I pray you can a lesson of ten minutes be worth?

To this I reply that short lessons are best, and are specifically enjoined in the new System of Education. Dr. Bell says in his Manual of Instructions for conducting Schools, “in the beginning never prescribe a lesson or task, which the Scholar can require more than ten minutes, or a quarter of an hour, to learn.”

On this authority, and on the authority of experience also, I recommend short lessons. For the same reasons, or for reasons nearly or remotely related to them, I like short stages, short accounts, short speeches, and short sermons; I do not like short measure or short commons; and, like Mr. Shandy, I dislike short noses. I know nothing about the relative merit of short-horned cattle. I doubt concerning the propriety of short meals. I disapprove of short parliaments and short petticoats; I prefer puff-paste to short pie-crust; and I cut this chapter short for the sake of those readers who may like short chapters.