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57166

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849,

BY WM. C. KENYON,

n the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of New-York.

STEREOTYPED BY E. G. CHAMPLIN & CO

9 Spruce-street, N. Y.

C. A. ALVORD, PRINTER.

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A THOROUGH Knowledge of English Grammar has become an indespensable acquirement in a good English education. The theory of English Grammar has been long taught; and many eminent teachers have, by their ingenuity and perseverance, succeeded in combining much of practice with the theory. Text books, that embrace practice as well as theory, are very rare.

The author of the following pages would make no ungenerous criticisms; yet deficiency of practical exercises, arranged in view of the successive presentation of principles, is considered to be a point where many of our old authors, and not a few of our more recent authors, on the subject of English Grammar, have failed. Many of these have unfolded the theory in a clear and able manner-have furnished valuable aids to the teacher; but have not adapted their productions to the wants of the scholar. To this stricture, there are a few honorable exceptions among recent authors; yet, being in a respectable minority, their works do not find their way to public notice so generally as is desirable.

Another source of difficulty in our Grammars, is bad arrangement. Nothing is more common, than to find definitions that can not be understood, because they depend on definitions yet to be given. This criticism could be justified by hundreds of extracts, if necessary. Now, it is as unphilosophical to present the fundamental principles of Grammar, without an abundance of illustrations and verifications of those principles as successively presented, as it would be to follow the same course in mathematics. How unattractive-how absolutely dry-how utterly useless, would be the presentation of the theorems of Geometry, unaccompanied by those demonstrations that convince the intelligence of the truth of each successive theo

rem.

And if, in addition to this lack of demonstration, theorems should be thrown in that require, in order to comprehend them, a knowledge of many other theorems which had not yet been presented and demonstrated, would Geometry be the delightful, entertaining, and eminently useful study that it now is? Why, then, is a course adopted in the presentation of the science of language, which would form a successful barrier to the acquisition of any branch of mathematics, in which a similar plan of presentation should be pursued?

The custom of going through with all the principles of English Grammar, em braced under the four general divisions of Orthography, Etymology, Syntax, and Prosody, before commencing any thing like an extensive practical application of these principles, in analyzing and synthetizing, presents almost insuperable obstacles to success in the study. When, by the efforts of the memory, unaccompanied and unaided by the perceptive, reflective, and constructive faculties of the

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