quartz, topaz, mica, garnet, pyrites, hornblende, augite, actynolite; of
hexahedral, prismatic, rhomboidal, dodecahedral; of acids and alkalies;
of oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon; of the configuration of the
brain, and its relative powers; do all this, and what will he know of
your meaning? So of all science. Words are to be understood from the
things they are employed to represent. You may as well talk to a man in
the hebrew, chinese, or choctaw languages, as in our own, if he does not
know what is signified by the words selected as the medium of thought.

Your language may be most pure, perfect, full of meaning, but you cannot
make yourself understood till your hearers can look thro your signs to
the things signified. You may as well present before them a picture of
_nothing_.

The great fault in the popular system of education is easily accounted
for, particularly in reference to language. Children are taught to study
signs without looking at the thing signified. In this way they are mere
copyists, and the mind can never expand so as to make them independent,
original thinkers. In fact, they can, in this way, never learn to reason
well or employ language correctly; no more than a painter can be
successful in his art, by merely looking at the pictures of others
without having ever seen the originals. A good artist is a close
observer of nature. So children should be left free to examine and
reflect, and the signs will then serve their proper use--the means of
acquiring the knowledge of things. In vain you may give a scholar a
knowledge of the Hebrew, Greek, or Latin, learn him to translate with
rapidity or speak our own language fluently. If he has not thereby
learned the knowledge of things signified by such language, he is, in
principle, advanced no farther than the parrot which says "pretty poll,
pretty poll."