No printing or edition information is provided on this copy. Rufus W. Bailey has a Master of Arts degree, but his status as a reverend is omitted on this text. He was a teacher for over thirty years. The prefaces states this book is for mothers, fathers, elder brothers and sisters, and female teachers employed in primary and public schools. A grammar handbook for younger students that features various modes of examples such as lists or mock conversations. It argues that children learn nouns first, then verbs, and then the combining of these two in sentences. Part one teachers sentence structure and parts of speech; part two, etymology; part three, syntax; part four, rules of punctuation, orthography, and a dictionary of english grammar. It does not use exercises of correcting false grammar, as the author believes those are unhelpful. The Schultz Archive's copy is the complete text.
Stated as the tenth edition on the cover page. Reverend R. W. Bailey is stated as having a Master of Arts degree and in the preface it states he taught English youth for over thirty years. Bailey's English Grammar is a fairly standard grammar handbook from the nineteenth century. The author acknowledges the myriad grammar handbooks that precede his own, but explains that his book serves as a kind of aggregate of such manuals. It divides grammar into four parts: orthography, etymology, syntax, and prosody. It gives three classes of words: nouns, verbs, and adverbs. The handbook includes fairly detailed sections on many of the parts of speech. It says its method of parsing is analytic rather than synthetic, but philosophic and inductive. The end of each section has a review. The preface states an interest in a pure English. The Schultz Archive only includes a brief excerpt (the cover page, preface, contents and a few snippets of text), but they are good quality.