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not usually felt in the results of the fursing process common to all other langues.
But important do I regard it that a student should husband the freshness of his ear, and other facilities engaged in acquiring any spoken dialect of China; that I am steadily opposed to labour the character, in excess upon what I have just indicated, until he shall be qualified bona fide to converse, not only with his teacher, but with any man speaking the dialect he has been studying, with tolerable charmness. His teacher will then become his Dictionary, and his progress in written Chinese will be rapid.
I have therefore taken occasion to commend Messrs. Smith and Founseling's plan to give up the character altogether, except in so far as examination of it shall be directly subsidiary to the attainment of their first great object, viz. speaking and understanding the Canton dialect. They have a Vocabulary and Phrase Book, out of which the better part of the contents are arranged categorically. They are to commit phrases ad infinitum, and this, I suggested, should be their business with their Teachers abroad. I also cautioned their teachers against the too common practice of such persons neglecting to correct their mistakes in pronunciation.
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