E

“ As you are aware, E is the most common letter in the English alphabet, and it predominates to so marked an extent that even in a short sentence one would expect to find it most often. ”

“ There are four ways and four ways only of furnishing a student with the meaning of given foreign units:
(1) By immediate association, as when we point to the object or a picture of the object designated by a noun or pronoun, when we perform the action designated by a verb, when we point to a real example of the quality designated by an adjective, or when we demonstrate in similar ways that which is designated by a preposition of place or certain categories of adverbs. ”

“ These and many other problems or difficulties suggested by the careful study of the foregoing eight principles can only be solved by the thorough understanding of the spirit of eclecticism underlying this ninth principle. We have alluded to the philosophy of the complete life in order that we may better realize the significance of what we may term the complete method. ”

“ There is a fairly well defined series of laws which determine the relative number of nouns, verbs, and adjectives occurring in a given vocabulary radius, and with the growing attention which is being given to this sort of statistical work these laws are standing out more clearly and are coming to be better understood. ”

“ Whether our purpose is the complete mastery of the language in all its aspects and branches, or whether our purpose is a more special one, the principle holds good: we adopt the best and most appropriate means towards the required end. ”

“ In its second and broader sense, so far from being a term of disparagement or reproach it implies the deliberate choice of all things which are good, a judicious and reasoned selection of all the diverse factors the sum of which may constitute a complete and homogeneous system. ”

“ A with his hands behind him listens to E, who points to I as the subject of his remarks, which must be of a scandalous character, as the injured vowel looks the picture of anger and astonishment. E finds a ready listener in O, who opens his mouth and extends his hands in real or simulated amazement and horror. ”

“ To include in early lessons words or forms which are comparatively rare, archaic, and useless, while excluding some of the commonest and most useful items of language-material, is an offence not only against the principle of gradation but also against the principle of proportion. Too little attention also is usually paid to ensuring a just proportion between the various parts of speech. ”

“ RULE X.--FINAL E.
The final e of a primitive word is generally retained before an additional termination beginning with a consonant: as, pale, paleness; edge, edgeless; judge, judgeship; lodge, lodgement; change, changeful; infringe, infringement.
EXCEPTIONS.--1. When the e is preceded by a vowel, it is sometimes omitted; as in duly, truly, awful, argument; but much more frequently retained; as in dueness, trueness, blueness, bluely, rueful, dueful, shoeless, eyeless. 2. ”

“ E has likewise two powers, or it is used to represent two simple sounds, as in the words Eloquence, Bred, Led, etc. and it may be said to have a third power, as in the words Then, When, etc. In the first case, this letter is only used at the beginning of words, and wherever it is met with in any other place in the words of the Vocabulary, it is used as in the second case: But never as in the third example; for this power, or sound, is every where expressed by the a and i before-mentioned, printed in Italics. ”

“ What sort of exercises should these be? They are many and varied. The essential feature should be the rigid exclusion of all opportunities for reasoning, calculation, analysis, or synthesis. The pupil must not be allowed to focus his consciousness on the structure of the language; he must keep his attention on the subject-matter. ”

“ The most ingenious and interesting arithmetical problems alone will not assist the student in memorizing the multiplication table, and the most ingenious and interesting sentence-building devices alone will not cause the student to obtain the necessary automatic command of the fundamental material of the language. ”

“ The methods by which we utilize these capacities are generally characterized by conscious work (such as analysis and synthesis) and by conversion, i.e. converting written into spoken (reading aloud) , converting spoken into written (dictation) , converting from one language into another (translation) , or converting one grammatical form into another (conjugation, declension, etc.) . All exercises requiring the use of the eyes and the hand are of the studial order, as are also those connected with accidence and derivation. ”

“ The categorical imperative which declares an action to be objectively necessary in itself without reference to any purpose, i.e., without any other end, is valid as an apodeictic (practical) principle. ”

“ Conversion.—In this process, our memorized matter consists of classified series of sentences which are to be converted into other forms by means of appropriate exercises of various kinds.
In the opinion of many, the greatest evil in present-day methods lies in the fact that an almost exclusive use is made of the first of these processes as a method of producing constructed matter. ”

“ The question is a legitimate one; we may well ask ourselves whether the forces which were operative in the case of our first language are available for the acquisition of a second, third, or fourth language. ”

“ We also observe the principle of proportion when we give the right amount of drill-work or free work, of translation-work or ‘direct’ work, of intensive reading or extensive reading. A well-proportioned course, like a well-graded course, ensures a steady and ever-increasing rate of progress.
12. Concreteness
We are enjoined by the principle of concreteness to teach more by example than by precept. When we give explanations we should illustrate these by striking and vivid examples embodying the point of theory which is the subject of our explanation. One example is generally not enough ”

“ It is from them that each species of eloquence has been derived; the rules contained in them are equally applicable to the practice of the senate, the bar, or the pulpit; they are equally fit for the many or the few; they teach how to reason as well as how to move, and to affect the head, as well as to touch the heart. ”

“ This idea, or the more comprehensive one, that all abstract numbers are nouns substantive, settles nothing concerning the main question, What form of the verb is required by an abstract number above unity? If the number be supposed an adjective, referring to the implied term units, or things, the verb must of course be plural; but if it be called a collective noun, the verb only follows and fixes "the idea of plurality," or "the idea of unity," as the writer or speaker chooses to adopt the one or the other. ”

“ WHEN I lived in England, once every year I issued out an edict, commanding that all ladies of wit, sense, merit and quality, who had an ambition to be acquainted with me, should make the first advances at their peril; which edict, you may believe, was universally obeyed. When (much against my will) I came to live in this kingdom, I published the same edict ”

“ Inasmuch as an attempt to define always limits, it is a question how far it will be profitable to formulate definite statements of the whole, parts, etc. Written expression, as well as oral, is individual. Each pupil may have a different formulation. Inasmuch, however, as every author is possessed by a definite purpose, we may suggest, for the guidance of the student, a tentative analysis of a selection which may aid him in reflecting its truth to an audience. ”

“ Somewhere a thin, whining music struck up, mingling with the hissing of the serpents, like an evil night wind blowing through the empty sockets of a skull. Even in the flying speed of her urgent haste she realized that the darting of the serpents was no longer at random. ”

“ Of that long ride in the chariot of Xaltotun, Conan knew nothing. He lay like a dead man while the bronze wheels clashed over the stones of mountain roads and swished through the deep grass of fertile valleys, and finally dropping down from the rugged heights, rumbled rhythmically along the broad white road that winds through the rich meadowlands to the walls of Belverus. ”

“ A complex sentence is a sentence containing one independent statement and one or more dependent statements: When the Romans approached the town | the enemy fled.
Note. A dependent or subordinate statement is one that depends on or qualifies another statement; thus the enemy fled is independent, and when the Romans approached the town is dependent or subordinate.
d. The separate statements in a compound or complex sentence are called clauses. In a complex sentence the independent statement is called the main clause and the dependent statement the subordinate clause. ”

“ Thus, by a change of form in the words employed, we have from house a plural houses; and in like manner men from man. We give also a particular form to a noun in order to mark its value as indicating the possessor of anything: thus man’s, men’s, from man and men; and, in most pronouns, we make a change of form to signify the objective relation as distinguished from that of subject: thus, me, us, him, her, them, whom, as compared with I, we, he, she, they, who. ”

“ Somewhere in the streets below sounded a frantic clatter of flying hoofs that halted before the palace gate. There was silence then, in which O'Donnell heard the splintering blows on the trap door, and the heavy breathing of the men who struck them. Then suddenly they ceased as if the attackers had dropped dead; utter silence attended a shrilling voice, indistinct through distance and muffling walls. A wild clamor burst forth in the streets below; men shouted, women screamed. ”

“ The names called privative, therefore, connote two things; the absence of certain attributes, and the presence of others, from which the presence also of the former might naturally have been expected.
§ 7. The fifth leading division of names is into relative and absolute, or let us rather say, relative and non-relative; for the word absolute is put upon much too hard duty in metaphysics, not to be willingly spared when its services can be dispensed with. ”

“ The verb to be, as it is called, is conjugated by the aid of six different words, in its various modes and tenses; am, is, are, was, were, be. Am is unchanged, always in the in [182] dicative mood, present tense, agreeing with the first person singular. Is is also unchanged, in the same mood and tense, agreeing with the third person singular. Art, in the singular, is the same as are in the plural. Was and wast, are the same as were and wert in meaning, being derived from the same etymon. Be, being, and been, are changes of the same word. ”

“ We shall contend, as before expressed, that all verbs are of one kind, that they express action, for the simple yet sublime reason, that every thing acts, at all times, and under every possible condition; according to the true definition of action as understood and employed by all writers on grammar, and natural and moral science. Here we are at issue. Both, contending for principles so opposite, can not be correct. One or the other, however pure the motives, must be attached to a system wrong in theory, and of course pernicious in practice. ”

“ Any name which belongs in common to all things of a class we call a +Common Noun+; and any particular name of an individual, distinguishing this individual from others of its class, we call a +Proper Noun+. The "proper, or individual, names" which in Rule 1, Lesson 8, you were told to begin with capital letters are proper nouns.
Such a word as wheat, music, or architecture does not distinguish one thing from others of its class; there is but one thing in the class denoted by each, each thing forms a class by itself; and so we call these words common nouns. ”

“ All certainty and sanity were swept away, leaving a shadowy universe through which stole hooded figures of grisly potentialities. Through the belling of the voice, which was like a tolling of triumph over the ordered laws of a sane planet, a human sound anchored Conan's mind from its flight through spheres of madness. ”

“ In this mood the verb must have an agent and object, expressed or implied; as, "farmers cultivate the soil." But a whole sentence, that is, an idea written out, may perform this duty; as, "The study of grammar, on false principles, is productive of no good." What is productive of no good? What is the agent of is? "The study," our books and teachers tell us. But does such a construction give the true meaning of the sentence? ”

“ But as they are now mostly understood as the signs of single things, the English method of adding s or es as a plural termination, should be generally followed as the best method; unless substantives and their articles should be restored to their original sense and use; but in either case the particles, an or en, as terminations of plural names, when the sense will admit of their being singular, and en does not express the male and female of the same kind, as men does both man and woman, seem to be improper. ”

“ It flashed abroad over the realm of the Alpine Fay,--her conquered realm, into which human will had broken a pathway in spite of all her terrors, and in which it had come off victorious in a strife with the blind fury of the elements. The work was finished,--the iron road wound secure among the mountains, the huge bridge spanned the dizzy chasm, and the Wolkenstein, unveiled, looked down upon it all. One brilliant star gleamed just above its peak upon the brow of the Alpine Fay. ”

“ Again Conan looked on death and destruction. Before him lay his spearmen, nor did they rise to salute him. From the jungle-edge to the river-bank, among the rotting pillars and along the broken piers they lay, torn and mangled and half-devoured, chewed travesties of men. ”