This form also answers for the perfect and past perfect tenses. In the future tense the verb is changed back to present tense form, and the pronoun preceded by lo, as follows:

The future perfect tense adds a (have) before ta, reading, Lo mi á ta (I shall have been), and proceeds with only the changes shown above in the pronouns.

In the subjunctive mood cu 2 is the mood sign, the present and future tenses are alike, and as in the indicative present, prefixing the sign; as, Cu mi ta (I may be; if or when I shall be); and the past tense is as the past of the indicative, with the mood sign prefixed: Cu mi tabatá (I may have been).

To illustrate these forms by practical use let them be used with the word bon (good):

PAPIAMENTO.

Mi ta bon.

Bo tabatá bon.

Lo e ta bon.
Lo nos á ta bon.

Cu boso ta bon.

Cu nan tabatá bon.

The verb quier (Spanish querer, to love) would take its course of changes in speech alone of course-in the indicative mood, as follows. The reader will here, as in the last instance, supply the needed tense knowledge:

And for the sake of the third person plural, and not because of any doubt about it, I will add a subjunctive present:

By taking the verbs in the tables herein given, as the reader finds them there, and the conjugations and examples preceding as guides, a fair grammarian ought to be able to conjugate all of them.

The negatory word in Papiamento, as in several other tongues, is a round no. In use with the first personal pronoun, however, the o is elided and the n joined to the pronoun. Thus Mi no quié (I do not love) would become Min quié.

A few sentence specimens will complete the promise of this article; and they will be presented, as the tables have been, in a way to permit comparison with the language from which they are principally derived, and to show their meaning:

English.There is a man that asks for you.

Papiamento.-Tin un jombre cu ta puntrá pa Chön.

Spanish. Hay un hombre que pregunta por usted.

- What man is it?

P.-Ta qui jombre é ta?

- Como esta usted?

Very well, thanks, and pleased to speak with you.
Macha bon, danqui, y mi ta gustu di papiá cu Chön.
Muy bien, gracias, y tengo gusto de hablar con usted.

E.

How much must I pay for a passport?

P.- Cuantu mi mesté paga pa pasport?

S.-Cuanto dabo pagar por un pasaporte?

E.If you go yourself to the fort to buy the paper, and then go to the police to receive the signatures, only

two florins.

P. Si Chön mes ta bai cumprá pampel na forti, y despues Chön mes ta bai na Statjeis pa tumá firma, Chön mesté paga dos florin numá.

S.Si usted mismo va a comprar el papel al castillo, y luego vá á la policía á recojer las firmas, dos florines solamente.

E. Many thanks, and good-day!

The word Chön (pronounced Shone) is applied to men and women alike, of any social importance, by the lower classes, as Minér (Minheer) is sometimes to men. Both are from the Dutch, and are equivalent respectively to the English Master, or Master and Mistress.

As a large proportion of the words of Papiamento, and especially those which do most to make a language flexible, are from the Spanish, itself a beautiful tongue; and as nearly all those words have been modified as is herein to some extent shown, its softness and ease of utterance may be conceived to be remarkable. In it strong expression depends upon force of voice and rapidity of utterance. Heard from a by-street, upon some quiet tropical evening, from a bevy of women who are using it "for all it is worth" in the interchange of personal opinions, its facile capacity and sweeping vehemence are appalling, and one instinctively longs to shelter himself in comparative safety behind the angles and impediments of language which, if it bruises more, yet leaves one with breath. But heard through an open window, outside of

which Arturo and Juanita are sitting, under a jasmine flooded by moonlight, powdered seemingly with silver-dust, and one might well think of the cooing of doves, and believe in angels in two sexes. The old gentleman and lady, sitting near, would each say of the one of that two who was most in his or her thought at the time: E ta bon, esayá ta bon (he, or she, is good)!

So in that little island of the Caribbean Sea, whose land-locked bay is the crater of a once submarine volcano; whose people, living under as free a government as our own, practically, are as satisfied in their insular homes to have news of the world ten days old as we are anxious to have it every day,-in that island and its near neighbors a new language has slowly grown and become of common use among nearly all the people one less a dialect than Portuguese is, and having dialects of its own. Whether Peter Stuyvesant, who left one of his legs buried in Curaçao, and a mansion bearing his name, now scarcely a heap of ruins, and who left also what is not so easily ruined, the governorship, to become the last Dutch governor of New Amsterdam, brought with him a knowledge of Papiamento cannot be stated with desirable precision; but the regulation for closing the park, which he gave to the last-named city at six o'clock P.M. each day, seems to partake of an influence coming from where the sun regularly sets at that hour throughout the year, the little island of Curaçao, scarcely known by name to the most of the inhabitants of the great city.

THIS is Dr. Arnold's estimate of classical studies:

"The study of language," he said, "seems to me as if it was given for the very purpose of forming the human mind in youth; and the Greek and Latin languages, in themselves so perfect, and at the same time freed from the insuperable difficulty which must attend any attempt to teach boys philology through the medium of their own spoken language, seem the very instruments by which this is to be effected."

THE LITERARY VALUE OF CLASSICAL STUDY.

WIT

BY KITTY AUGUSTA GAGE, A.M.

ITHOUT entering upon the question of the present or future status of the classics, it may be assumed that it will depend largely not only on methods but aims of teaching. Their value may be discussed from three standpoints: literature, comparative philology, and mental discipline. Although a strong plea has lately appeared in a recent number of The Academy, for the study of Latin as a science, few teachers of preparatory schools, and it is of them alone that we are speaking, will insist much on the philological side, except in the most elementary manner, and never as a main motive, wisely leaving that to more advanced students. Again, the disciplinary value of such studies should be incidental; that is, a matter of course, since logically the best disciplinary effects ought to follow the best methods of teaching without special effort or special selection for discipline's sake.

We cannot, however, insist too strongly on the literary value of the classics, a value never denied even by the devotees of the science of language. Mr. Andrew Lang refers gratefully to an early teacher of his who had "discovered that the classics were literature." That is, of course, the veriest commonplace, but a truth which seems to stand in painful need of annual rediscovery. Like many another well-worn truth, its practical force is diminished by its very obviousness. It is too often ignored that it may be described as a clever person once characterized himself: "So commonplace as to be original." This same trite idea has, however, a few devotees here and there, and it is for them to preach and proselyte in a most ardent fashion.

Assuming the theoretical sympathy of most preparatory teachers thus far, we must not ignore the duties in the way of desired results. Many teachers have little time, after filling out the round of each day's positive requirements, to wander far into the bypaths of correlated literature; often books are wanting, and sometimes, perhaps, the teacher's ambition and enthusiasm have suffered