English grammar

“ It has been affirmed by a high authority that a knowledge of English grammar is rather a matter of convenience as a nomenclature,—a medium of thought and discussion about the language,—than a guide to the actual use of it ”

“ It is proper, therefore, for every grammarian gravely to consider, whether and how far the principles of his philosophy, his politics, his morals, or his religion, ought to influence, or actually do influence, his theory of language, and his practical instructions respecting the right use of words. In practice, grammar is so interwoven with all else that is known, believed, learned, or spoken of among men, that to determine its own peculiar principles with due distinctness, seems to be one of the most difficult points of a grammarian's duty. ”

“ And yet of all these, the proper study of English grammar is the true foundation. This would never be denied or doubted, if young people did not find, under some other name, better models and more efficient instruction, than what was practised on them for grammar in the school-room. No disciple of an able grammarian can ever speak ill of grammar, unless he belong to that class of knaves who vilify what they despair to reach. ”

“ Will a boy pretend that he cannot understand a rule of English grammar, because he is told that it holds good in all languages? Ancient etymologies, and other facts in literary history, must be taken by the young upon the credit of him who states them; but the doctrines of general grammar are to the learner the easiest and the most important principles of the science. And I know of nothing in the true philosophy of language, which, by proper definitions and examples, may not be made as intelligible to a boy, as are the principles of most other sciences. ”

“ If any intelligent man will represent English grammar otherwise than as one of the most useful branches of study, he may well be suspected of having formed his conceptions of the science, not from what it really is in itself, but from some of those miserable treatises which only caricature the subject, and of which it is rather an advantage to be ignorant. ”

“ It is the business of philosophy, not to meddle with things to direct how they should be, but to account for them and their properties and relations as they are. So it is the business of grammar to explain language as it exists in use, and exhibit the reason why it is used thus, and what principles must be observed to employ it correctly in speaking and writing. This method is adopted to carry out the principles already established, and show their adaptation to the wants of the community, and how they may be correctly and successfully employed. ”

“ Perfection was never attained by the most learned of our ancestors, nor is it found in any of our schemes. English grammar can be better taught than it is now, or ever has been. Better scholarship would naturally produce this improvement, and it is easy to suppose a race of teachers more erudite and more zealous, than either we or they.
8. Where invention and discovery are precluded, there is little room for novelty. I have not laboured to introduce a system of grammar essentially new, but to improve the old and free it from abuses. ”

“ From grammarians who form their ideas, and make their decisions, respecting this part of english grammar, on the principles and constructions of languages which, in these points, do not suit the peculiar nature of our own, but differ considerably from it, we may naturally expect grammatical schemes that are not very perspicuous nor perfectly consistent, and which will tend more to perplex than to inform the learner. ”

“ In the first place, grammar, being a study of words and not of things, is by no means attractive to the child, nor should he be hurried into it. English grammar, again, depending as it does on the position and logical connection of words, is peculiarly hard for him to grasp. ”

“ All speculative minds are fond of generalization; and, in the vastness of the views which may thus be taken of grammar, such may find an entertainment which they never felt in merely learning to speak and write grammatically. But the pleasure of such contemplations is not the earliest or the most important fruit of the study. The first thing is, to know and understand the grammatical construction of our own language. ”

“ Without oral instruction and oral exercises, a correct habit of speaking our language can never be acquired; but written rules, and exercises in writing, are perhaps quite as necessary, for the formation of a good style. All these should therefore be combined in our course of English grammar. And, in order to accomplish two objects at once, the written doctrines, or the definitions and rules of grammar, should statedly be made the subject of a critical exercise in utterance ”

“ OBS. 18.—It is from an improper extension of the principles of these "learned languages" to ours, that much of the false teaching which has so greatly and so long embarrassed this part of English grammar, has been, and continues to be, derived. A late author, who supposes every infinitive to be virtually a noun, and who thinks he finds in ours all the cases of an English noun, not excepting the possessive, gives the following account of its origin and nature: "This mood, with almost all its properties and uses, has been adopted into our language from the ancient Greek and Latin tongues. ”

“ Hence that science which makes known the nature and structure of speech, and immediately concerns the correct and elegant use of language, while it surpasses all the conceptions of the stupid or unlearned, and presents nothing that can seem desirable to the sensual and grovelling, has an intrinsic dignity which highly commends it to all persons of sense and taste, and makes it most a favourite with the most gifted minds. That science is Grammar. ”

“ Hence, too, have sprung up, in the name of grammar, many unprofitable discussions, and whimsical systems of teaching, calculated rather to embarrass than to inform the student. Mere collisions of opinion, conducted without any acknowledged standard to guide the judgement, never tend to real improvement. Grammar is unquestionably a branch of that universal philosophy by which the thoroughly educated mind is enlightened to see all things aright; for philosophy, in this sense of the term, is found in everything. ”

“ For these plain reasons a competent Grammatical knowledge of our own Language is the true foundation upon which all Literature, properly so called, ought to be raised. If this method were [xiii] adopted in our Schools; if children were first taught the common principles of Grammar by some short and clear System of English Grammar, which happily by its simplicity and facility is perhaps of all others the fittest for such a purpose, they would have some notion of what they were going about, when they should enter into the Latin Grammar ”

“ Yet, properly speaking, the true grammarian is not a philosopher, nor can any man strengthen his title to the former character by claiming the latter; and it is certain, that a most disheartening proportion of what in our language has been published under the name of Philosophic Grammar, is equally remote from philosophy, from grammar, and from common sense. ”

“ It is called 'How to Parse,' and is best described by the further title, 'An Attempt to apply the Principles of Scholarship to English Grammar, with Appendices on Analysis, Spelling, and Punctuation.' The little book is so sensible and so simple that the greater number of its readers will perhaps forget to observe that it is profoundly philosophical also, but it is so in the best sense of the term."—N. Y. Evening Post.
"Of all subjects of study, it may be safely admitted that grammar possesses as a rule the fewest attractions for the youthful mind. ”

“ Grammar has been taught as a mere art, depending on arbitrary rules to be mechanically learned, rather than a science involving the soundest and plainest principles of philosophy, which are to be known only as developed in common practice among men, and in accordance with the permanent laws which govern human thought. ”

“ First, That we should speak and write words according to the significations which belong to them: the teaching of which now pertains to lexicography, and not to grammar, except incidentally. "Secondly, That we should observe the relations that words have one to another in sentences, and represent those relations by such variations, and particles, as are usual with authors in that language." Thirdly, That we should acquire a knowledge of the proper sounds of the letters, and pay a due regard to accent in pronunciation. ”

“ OBS. 6.—Well-educated people commonly utter their words with more distinctness and fullness than the vulgar, yet without adopting ordinarily the long-drawn syllables of poets and orators, or the solemn phraseology of preachers and prophets. Whatever may be thought of the grammatical propriety of such contractions as the foregoing, no one who has ever observed how the English language is usually spoken, will doubt their commonness, or their antiquity. And it may be observed, that, in the use of these forms, the distinction of persons and numbers in the verb, is almost, if not entirely, dropped. ”

“ Besides this principal design of Grammar in our own Language, there is a secondary use to which it may be applied, and which, I think, is not attended to as it deserves. A good foundation in the General Principles of Grammar is in the first place necessary for all those who are initiated in a learned education; and for all others likewise, who shall have occasion to furnish themselves with the knowledge of modern, languages. ”

“ Let those who desire to see our forms of conjugation as sure as those of other tongues, study to exemplify in their own practice what tends to uniformity. The best that can be done by the author of a grammar, is, to exhibit usage, as it has been, and as it is; pointing out to the learner what is most fashionable, as well as what is most orderly and agreeable. ”

“ Names are rapidly added to our list of authors, while little or nothing is done for the science. Nay, while new blunders have been committed in every new book, old ones have been allowed to stand as by prescriptive right;. and positions that were never true, and sentences that were never good English, have been published and republished under different names, till in our language grammar has become the most ungrammatical of all studies! ”

“ Nothing will be more effectual in enabling you to think, as well as to speak and write, correctly, than the study of English grammar, according to the method of pursuing it as prescribed in the following pages. This system is designed, and, I trust, well calculated, to expand and strengthen the intellectual faculties, in as much as it involves a process by which the mind is addressed, and a knowledge of grammar communicated in an interesting and familiar manner. ”

“ Here the art of logic, aiming solely at conviction, addresses the understanding with cool deductions of unvarnished truth; rhetoric, designing to move, in some particular direction, both the judgement and the sympathies of men, applies itself to the affections in order to persuade; and poetry, various in its character and tendency, solicits the imagination, with a view to delight, and in general also to instruct. But grammar, though intimately connected with all these, and essential to them in practice, is still too distinct from each to be identified with any of them. ”

“ The teaching of them, however, has tended in no small degree to settle and establish the construction of the language, to improve the style of our English writers, and to enable us to ascertain with more clearness the true standard of grammatical purity. He who learns only by rote, may speak the words or phrases which he has thus acquired; and he who has the genius to discern intuitively what is regular and proper, may have further aid from the analogies which he thus discovers ”

“ Propriety of language consists in the selection and right construction of such words as the best usage has appropriated to those ideas which we intend to express by them. Impropriety embraces all those forms of error, which, for the purpose of illustration, exercise, and special criticism, have been so methodically and so copiously posted up under the various heads, rules, and notes, of this extensive Grammar. ”

“ OBS. 11.—Amidst all this diversity of doctrine at the very centre of grammar, who shall so fix its principles that our schoolmasters and schoolmistresses may know what to believe and teach? Not he that speculates without regard to other men's views; nor yet he that makes it a merit to follow implicitly "the footsteps of" one only. The true principles of grammar are with the learned; and that man is in the wrong, with whom the most learned will not, in general, coincide. Contradiction of falsities, is necessary to the maintenance of truth; correction of errors, to the success of science. ”

“ Modern science assigns to these their separate places, and restricts grammar, which at one period embraced all learning, to the knowledge of language, as respects its fitness to be the vehicle of any particular thought or sentiment which the speaker or writer may wish to convey by it. Accordingly grammar is commonly defined, by writers upon the subject, in the special sense of an art—"the art of speaking or writing a language with propriety or correctness."—Webster's Dict. ”

“ The disposition of the human mind to generalize the objects of thought, and to follow broad analogies in the use of words, discovers itself early, and seems to be an inherent principle of our nature. Hence, in the language of children and illiterate people, many words are regularly inflected even in opposition to the most common usage.
17. It has unfortunately become fashionable to inveigh against the necessary labour of learning by heart the essential principles of grammar, as a useless and intolerable drudgery. ”