,

\
TH.I

INSTI~l1UTE;

TEACHER'S

OR,

FAMILIAR

HINTS

TO

YOUNG TEACHERS.
BY

WILLIAM B . FOWLE .

"

"Not ns though I hn< l nt tnfn ed, or we re nlrend y perfect.''

FIRST NEW YORK EDITION.

NEW

YORK:

PUBLISHED BY A. S. BARNES & Co.,
111 & 11 3 W ILLI AM STREET.

l,/

18 6 7.

,

\,,,e;_,_,.~~I":":""'~.........................._

TH.I

TEACHER'S INSTITUTE;
OR,

FAMILIAR HINTS
TO

YOUNG TEACHERS.
BY

WILLIAM B. FOWLE.
,.

u N ot ns though I hn(l nttntne<l, or werc ·nlrendy porfect. 11

FIRST NEW YORK EDITION.

NEW

YORK:

PUBLISHED BY A. S. BARNES & Co.,
111 & 113 WILLIAM STREET.

186 7.

.<

PREFACE.

Ente red according to Act of Conf!'res~, in th e yea r 1866, by
.A. S . BAR N E S

&

Co. ,

In th e Clerk's Office of th e District Court of the tr11itc t! States for thll
Southnn Distri ct of New 'fol'k.

-iillr

~ ~ra r

P>.t.

!"'rum

er.- Llb.

..i..)lrl UJ1 4.

SrncE the revival of education in Massachusetts, and, I may justly
say, in the United States, in consequence of the establishment of our
Doanl of Education, several valuabl e treatises on the importan t
subject of Public Instruction have been published, and each in its
way has done good service to th e great cause ; but still, it seems to
me, there is room for the little volume which, perhaps, with more
zeal than discretion, I am abo ut to" cast upon the waters."
·when I was invited by the Secretary of the Board of Education to
take part in the instruction to be given at the T eachers ' Institutes,
which he proposed to hold in different parts of the State, I was not
aware that my notions of the matter and manner of teaching were
so different from those which prevail ed. When, however, at the
Institutes, some of the lessons which I had given at least a quarter
of a century ago were viewed as novelties, and listened to with
attention as unexpected as it was gratifying, I readily yielded to the
repeated suggestion that it might aid the cause of education to
publish such of my hints as co uld be written out, however inferior
they must necessarily be to the living lesso ns that I had given in
perso n.
,.
Tho3e lessons were all given withont any book, and usually withont
any notes; but this volume contains, I believe, a fai th fu l sketch of
them, with three of the many lectures that I delivered , and such
additional remarks a.s occurred to me while the work was in progress .
It makes no claim to be a complete treatise on edncation, for I had
neither time nor inclination to attempt so hig h a task. It is no compilation, however, but a familiar record of my own experience,
written in the midst of business, and with the printer at my heels, two disadvantages which those only can fully appreciate who have
been so incautious as to try a similar experiment.
T eachers' Institutes are assemblies of teachers, conveued for the
purpose of receiving and imparting instruction in regard to the art of
t c~whing. They are, in fact, temporary Normal S chools , although,
of course, conducted with Jess eystem and less preparation. The
cluty of calling them devolved upon the S ecretary of the Board of
Education, and he was present several days at each of the ten that
were hald in the autumns of 1845 and 1846 , of which duty an
in teresting report is given in his Ninth Annual Report to the Board.
The exercises consisted mainly of lessons given by some experienced
teacher; of mutual instruction bv the members of the Institute; of
fr ee discussions , in which the citizens, especiall y school-commi tteemen, often took part ; and of lectures by gentlemen who had paid
attention to the progress of public education in the State. Of co urse ,

iv

PREFACE.

as far as possible, teachers and lecturers on all systems, and on all
educational subjects, were invited to teach and lecture, that the
youug teachers might see and hear all that was abroad, and be able
to carry home many inventions that they would never, perhaps, have
wrou g ht out in th eir almost isolated districts. I spent a longer time
than any other teacher at these Institutes, and probably said and did
more than any other. I must, of course , have said many things
abou t which there is a difference of opinion in this community, for I
am accustomed to speak what I think, without asking whether th e
thought is popul:ir or not. It is my duty, therefore, to declare, that
neither the Board of Education, who honored me by the invitation,
nor their Secretary, is accountable for any sentiments I uttered at
th e Institutes, and much less for any thing I have written in this
volume. The truth of the matter is, that, until it was published,
neither the Board nor its Secretary had any knowledge of the contents of this book, nor even of my intention to publish it.

CONTENTS.
..,.
PAGE

Reading,
Spelling,
Arithmetic, .
Mental Arithmetic,
Writing,
Drawing,
Lecture on Geography,
Remarks on Geography, .
Lecture on the Uses and Abuses of Memory,
English Grammar,
Composition,
Lecture on the Monitorial System,
Remarks on the Use of Monitors, .
Neatn e~s,

The Opening and Closing of School,
Music,
Emulation and Discipline,
Conclusion,

l*

7
27
45
68
73
82
87
102

117
138
178
185
208
222
227
243
248
258

- -

~(e< W"""·

13.

117
THE TEACHERS' INSTITUTE.

116
publish in the form of a third part to my Common School
Grammar; next, I say, to these, for its effect on the industry,
and, of course, on the discipline of the school, is the drawing
of maps. How infinitely sup~r~or to the common practice of
sitting idle, or even of committmg lessons to memory, would
be the directing of children to draw maps on a black-board, or
on a piece of paper. Never let a child have it in his power to
say, "I have nothing to do." 1 believe that, for more than
twenty years, no pupil of mine could ever say this with
truth.
Once a year, it was my custom to let° every pupil draw a
map to be bound in a volume, and kept as a record of the
ability of eacq,, and .as ?-. landmark of the progress of the
school, as a.-·:vhole, rn thIS branch of manual skill. 1 furnished to every puJJil a Jliece of paJler of uniform size, and left
it to her to draw what map she pleased, and to ornament it
as her taste might dictate. I have preserved many such
volumes, and th~y are to me precious memorials of pupils
who are now mothers or teachers, or inhabitants of that better
country not mentioned in our geographies. It is not unusual
for parents to bring their children to see what " mother did
when she was of their age;" and it often happens that the first
and last map the pupil ever drew, is preserved in these
volumes. In one of them are eight maps, drawn by children,
five or six years of age, who were not studying geography,
but who, seeing what the others were doing, requested permission to draw a map for the book. The outline, printed
names, and coloring, are entirely their own, and their names
and ages, well written by themselves, are at the bottom of
their maps. What would not many men and women give for
such a specimen of the work of their earliest days ! Every
district school .should have such a book annually bound like
the School Register, and sacredly kept as the property of the
town.

'

.

~

A LECTURE
OnattheRochester
" Uses and N
Abuses
M ~nwry in
. Education;" delivered
y 0'Jb+ ,F
if
'
·
., eJ01e the Con t.
of C
ven ion o County
S uperintendents
request by WrL om.moBn SFchools, and first published at
their
'

LIAM

•

OWLE.

The,. sub·ject on which
.
plain remarks
I propose to offer a
fewGENTLEMEN,_
, ior your con ·d
·
.
emory' that wonderful !: l
s1 era.tJon, is MemoryM
petuates the product of . ict~ ty ~the mm~ which alone perpast, and enables us to
e it e[s ; which resuscitates the
we may acquire by studyyo up or. uture use the knowledD"e
What th
. M
r expenence.
P
' en, is
emory i The
d ·11
that it is a gloomy treas · h
age w1 perhaps tell us
th t . h
.
ure ouse of regrets . th
. . '
e young,
a . it as no existence; the fortu
which his constantly reced·
t nate, that it IS a paradise to
fr?m which he is constantlm~ri~otst~;.s would f~in return, but
his onward destiny,_ whJe t en 'f the ~am mg sword of
, odthe d1sappomted, memory is a
barren waste without o
where the m~numents thnet ~er ant spot; a cheerless desert
·
a rise over b · d h
'
to cast their deep shadows u
l une opes, never cease
sense, memory is ver much pon t 1e present ~~ene. In this
our virtues and vices,ymay ma~:ftt· o~r phopensit1es a~d habits,
teachers have to do is le
.' ut t e memory with which
affair, and as such only wo~ll~e~cal,-a more matter of fact
.
As all discipline of the mind d ecome me now to speak of it.
tion of this wonderful facult . ~pe_nds upon a proper educashould endeavor to ~scertainy, ~ IS ~mportnnt, surely, that we
to the metaphysicians and ;v at lt is, ~nd we naturally go
definitions of these philos/ h~r~he question ~o them; but the
unsatisfactory. Whilst alack arl ds various as they are
faculty of the mind all h
b now e ge that memory is a
connected with the :Uind .avde h een. puzzled to tell how it is
0
· .
, an ow 1t operates
ne mamtams that it is onl
·
·
perceJJlion, (that is, a feelincr 11
a con~nubed but weakened
Another says it is on ly o\vho trepeat~ ' ut forever felt.)
]'k
h
'b ·
·
a remams after a s
·
1 ~ t e v1 ratwn of a strincr th
.
ensat1011,
(ugam.)
"' at is never to be strnck

i:1·

r

-

..........
118

I

IJ

•J

~~

It
~

0:i

MEMORY.

THE 1 EACHERS' INSTITUTE,

A third declares it to be a sensation, or an idea renewed
(but he could not tell us what renews it.)
A f onrth tells. us that it is a sort of sensibility so delicate
that it ~an be aflected by a pas t sensation, (as a place once
struck is su sceptible to a slighter blow afterwards; but we are
not told how, or by what the repeated blow is given.)
A fifth has called memory that faculty which experiences
anew wh~t has been already perceived, with the consciousness that It has been previously perceived; (but this is a statement o.f facts, an~ no explanation of them.)
~ sixth descnbes memory to be a power of the mind to
revive or recall former impressions.
~ seventh insists that memory is not itself a faculty, but an
attnbute of every other faculty, and this, it appears to me, is
the only theory that a teacher can tolerate for a moment.
But, although. the descriptions of this mysterious faculty
~ave been St;i vanous, not so have been the systems of instruct10n base~ upon them, for these have been very uniform, and,
I fear, umforml:y: erroneous. All t.he. theorie, of memory, but
the. last ;[ ment10ned, agree that 1t 1s a single power of the
entue .mmd, and that it only requires an act of the will for
the mmd to perform one act of memory as well as another.
In other words, th~ common notion seems to be, that every
~r;ntal storehouse 1s fitted up for the same kind of goods, and
It IS t~e ~uty of the teacher to fill all alike; and this attempt
at fill1.ng 1s often carried on until school days are over, when
the mmd, no longer controlled , for the first time discovers its
ow:i fitne~s and capacity, and begins to accumulate treasures
entirely d1ff~ rent, pe_rhaps, from those which had been forced
down, no~w1thstandmg the disgust and nausea that always
accompanied the operation.
We do not know wh~t the m!nd is, and we can hardly
expec~ !o understand all its faculties. But, as in the case of
electnc1ty and the subtler fluids, if we cannot ascertain the
natu~e of memory, we may ascertain some of its laws; and
by this meth~d we n:iay .approach nearer and nearer to that
seat of the mmd, which 1s surrounded with clouds almost as
impenetrable as those tremendous shades which involve the
eternal throne; and though m~rtal s may not hope to be admitted to the secret. place w~ere light actually dwelleth, we may,
we must asce:tam something more of its nature and of its laws
or th e very .light that i~ in us will continue to be darkness. '
I have said, that various as,.are the theories of memory, the

119

use that is made of it in education is altogether too uniform.
So prevalent is the error on this subject, that when I?en speak
of memory, it rarely happens that any ot~er .operat10n of t?e
mind is meant than that which we exercise m common with
parrots I mean the recoUection of words. You, who are .
teache;s, know, that when parents bring t~eir little :infledg:ed
angels to you, and wish to m~lrn you sens~ble of ~eir prod1gious talents, the burden of praise almost uniformly is,, t?at they
can commit ever so many pages at a lesson. . Co;1fimit: -ye~,
and commit suicide at the same time. It 1s this notion, thlS
mistaking of the mere memory of words for the whole of
memory that I consider the unpardonable sin of teachers and
bookmakers at the present day. I hope ~y rem~rks. ".l'ill not
be considered as those of one, who, havmg laid aside the
harness has no better use for his leisure than to make observations ~pon those whom he has left in the traces; but rather
as the remarks of one, who, for twenty years at leallt, has
practised what .he now P.reaches, and who has reason to
believe that thousands of his late fellow-laborers would be glad
to adopt the system he recomm~nds , if those who superintend
their schools would second their endeavors, and supply: the
means of communicatincr ideas instead of words.
Let us consider for a moment the positio~ I have assumed,
that the memory of words is generally considered ~he ~vhole
of memory. What is the first employment of. the mi.nd m the
nursery? Learning to say things by heart; that 1s, to say
them heartlessly. When I was at a dame's s.chool, I learned
the Assembly's Catechism, - the compend of it that was then
printed in the N. E. Primer,-so thoroughly, that I ~ould
repeat it backwards as well as forwards, and understood. 1~ one
. way just as well as the other. When the dame had v1s1t?rs,
I· was often broucrht forward to perform this feat, crab-fash10n,
to the great ama~ement of the visitors, th.e gl~rific~tion o.f ~he
venerable.dame, and to my o>vn great ed1ficati~n m Chnst1~n
knowl edcre
and humility! God forgive her, if she erred m
0
teachincr0 me the first step in that narrow way, whose gate she
.
opened with love if not with judgment! .
Then the child reads books without havmg them explamed,
and generally without any examinatioi1 by the teache:,-;--- for
who, until perhaps very lately, ever heard of exammmg a
child in his reading lesson, exceJl perhaps to correct the pronunciation of a word, or to settle the power of a dash or
comma,- although the reading lesson may be the best medium
0

"\

120

MEMORY.

THE TEACHERS' INSTITUTE.

f~r conveying: useful kno"'.l~dge to the mind, the best opportu·
mtY: for tea~hmg the defimt10n of words, the precious occasion
for mculcatmg a healthful taste for substantial food !
Then, at an early age, English grammar must be studied,
committed, I mean, for the words are by no means synony· ·
mo~s. The words of some manual must be said or sung for
a given number of years, until the child arrives at that ne
plus ultra of philology, "a substantive or noul) is the name
of any. thing that exists or of which we have ·a ny notion, as
man-virtue-London;" and then, if the child is at a loss to
. !mow exactly what sort of notion "man-virtue-London"
is, he will not fail to learn what it is " to be, to do and to
suffer."
Geography, of course, cannot long stay uncommitted. A
book is placed in the child's hands, containing on an average,
about 350 pages. The committing of this to memory is
generally the work of years, and, by the time the task is done,
the world has so changed, that more than half the book con·
~ains is inc.orrect.' and the _only consolation the poor victim has
is the cons1derat10n that, 1f what has been learned is not true
it will do no harm, for it has been forgotten as fast as it wa~
learned.
·
Next, the child must stu dy histor)•-study history! That
is, he must commit page after page to memory, or, at least, such
paragraphs as have been adjudged a suffici ent answer to a
st~r~otyped que~ tion . . The _meaning of the language is not.
elicited by any 1mpertment 1~quiri es; the geography of the
country at different epochs 1s not allowed to interrupt the
thread of the narrative, and the practical and moral conclusions are left, as th e gramarians say, understood.
I could add to this summary, astronomy, botany, the various
branches of natural history and natural philosophy, the modern
~nd anci~nt languages, and all the branches usually tormented
Ill our higher schools; but I have said enough to illustrate my
re~ark, that common school ed ucation is generally conducted
as 1f there were no memory but that of words, and as if this
were all that is e~sential to the proper development of ideas,
and the. full exercise .o f every intellectual faculty.
Leavin g the school for a moment, let us look abroad into
the world, and see how facts corroborate this opinion. If you
select half a dozen person~of good intelligence, it is probable
that the memory of each will be different from the others.
You will, r('rhaps, he<lr the first deplo ring his wretched

121

memory, which cannot recollect his children's names,. and, in
the next breath he will hum a tune that he has heard but once,
perhaps, half ~ century before~ Ano~her says . he cannot
remember the name of ii: person; but 1f he ~as seen a man
orice; lie never forgets him, ahd yet he complams of a treacherous memory ! A third had no inemory at school,, and co~ld
never learn his lessons ; but he can never forget the brutality
of ihe inaster, who regularly,: flogged him for not doing what
he would gla~Ly have done if he could: He " ne~er can for·
get;" and yet he has no l:rie~ory. A f~rth, perhaps, has
travelled mucli· and can descnbe most particularly every route
or every objec; he has seen, but as he sometimes forgets an
appointment or a message,. he .laments that he has no memory.
A.fifth can never quote a lme of ~oetry, and concludes she has
no memory, although the chromcles ?f scanda~ are engraved
on her memory of adamant, and she is not unlike one of our
\vestern mounds, the capacious receptacle of worthy characters
that have been slain, arrd from which the curious may at any
time extract the sad memorials of human frailty. A sixth, in
fine who cannot recollect the text at church, or a single senti·
rric~t of the discourse, will tell you . how long her poor~i'
neighbor has worn the same bonnet, and how every person m
church was dressed; or, perhaps, she recollects every christen·
ing for more than half a century, to the great annoyance of
advanced spinsters .and old bachel?rs, .~ho would prefer to
1
have this matter confined to the family Bible.
·
If this be a true picture of life, it follows tha~ eve~r¥ pe~son
has a memory for something; and that so~ethmg is us~all~
what occupies the strongest faculty of the mmd, and, of co~rse,
affdrds the greatest pleasure. A musician w~ll ~ more likely
to remember tunes than sermons; a mechamc will rem,e~ber
the form and operation of machines,. better than any wntten
description of them. The painter ~111 recollect.the colo~ _ of a
dress 1 and the dress-maker the fashion or cut of it. An an~v
perso n will rem~mber an a:ffrorit; and a ~nevolent person :will
never forget a kmdness.. .Sha~l a man w,'.o remembers words
most ea.Sily, say to any of these, you have no memory 1 or
shall he take airs because he can remember words, when they
are so fortunate that they cari remember only t~ings 1 . .
One thing is certain, the memory of words 18 no cnter1on
of intellectual power. Some of the greatest talkers ha.ve ~en
the shallowest logicians, and some of the greatest lmgmsts
hav~ beE:Jq the greatest simpletons. In fact, the memory of

ll

122

. .IE TEACHERS' INSTITUTE .

one class of facts is no pledge for the memory of any other,
and few persons have ever been distinguished in every department of memory. But we are told that this committing to
memory strengthens the mind and leads to a habit of application. So it does. It doas strengthen this particular faculty,
it does lead to a habit of application, but only to words, con~idered as words, and not as embodying ideas. Let me not
be misunderstood. I am not contending that a great verbal
memory, and great general scholarship, great practical knowledge, are incompatible, but only that one branch of memory,
like the high priest's rod, has swallowed up other branches as
.
lnrge as itself, and is likely to die of repletion.
Remarkable verbal memories are almost the only ones that
have been recorded, and yet every one cau recollect remarkable
memories of other faculties. I spent much time with Zerah
Colburn before he went to Europe. He was then about five
years old, and could neither read nor write. His manners
were so rude that he knew not the use of a knife and . fork,
and when placed at table, he stabbed a large sausage, and
holding it impaled on his fork, he placed both elbows on the
table, and nibbled alternately at the ends until the · sausage
disappeared. And yet this untutored child performed calculations which involved so many figures, that I could not have
repeated them from memory after a week's application, but he
made the calculation , a.i1d gave the answer in a few seconds.
When he was exhibited in London, he was allowed to overwork this faculty, and it was destroyed, as the verbal memory
usually is, by the excessive exercise of it.
How common it is to hear a teacher complain that his pupil
will not attend, has not the faculty of attention. But children
are never destitute of attention. The reason they do not
attend to the lesson in hand is, that they are attending to
something else. Attention, like memory, is an attribute of
every faculty, and it is only where there is no desire that there
is no attention. A stupid boy may forget his lesson, but he
will not forget his, ¢inner, and the same operation that puts
one man into an ecsl.'asy, puts his neighbor to sleep. Children,
at school, usually prefer one study to another; what they like
they attend to, and wha t they do not like - and this is what
they have the least capacity for-they disregard. Now, I conceive the greatest, the highest effort of teaching to consis.t in
so clothing useful subjects with interest , that those who may
not love them are sti1l jnduceq to attend to them, This

~!EMORY.

123

exercises the weaker faculties, and increases their ability. As
the hand or foot acquires strength and skill by judicious exercise, so does every faculty of the mind ; and as the muscles
lose their power and skill by inaetion, so does every organ of
the brain. If a child is malicious and quarrelsome, vindictive
and passionate, you have only to give him cause and opportunity for the display of his malevolence, to increase .ts power.
But place this child where his passions will not be excited,
treat him with unvaried kindness, cultivate his reason and his
moral sentiments, encourage him to acts of benevolence, and
set him. an example, and in time lfis lower propensities will
become less active and less powerful, if not entirely subdued.
I do not pretend that all evil dispositions can be made good
ones, nor that all memories can be made equal, for I know
that there are original and irreconcilable differences; but I
also know that the worst disposition nnd the weakest memory
may be greatly improved.
After the view which I have taken of memory, it may
reasonably be expected that I should endeavor to show how
education should be conducted if the view be correct, and it
be important to improve the whole mind, and not merely a
portion of it. May I be excused, then, if in doing this I speak
in the first person, for it is in this person that I have taught
for twenty years,~and ought I not to add, that when I declare
what may be done, I only describe what has actually been
done?
As it is certain, then, that the intellect of a child under five
or six years of age is immature, I should pay less attention to
that than to the senses, on whose power and correct perceptions so much of the future intellectual progress depends.
Most children are very observant of the ten thousand objects
of nature and art that surround them, but they are genera lly
left " to find out by their learning," that is, to find out without
instruction, the qualities and peculiarities of what they see.
The senses are allowed to take care of themselves, as if they
could not go wrong, could not acquire bad habits, and mu st
come out right at last. It would lead me too far if I should
follow out this idea, but I have alluded to it that your own
minds may do so. This early cultivation of the senses is a
delicrhtful exercise to children; and clothing, as it does, ali
the "'objects around them with interest, instead of promoting
sensuality, the surest basis is laid for intellectual and moral
progress. Conversation, then , with children, about common

124

125

THE TEACHERS' INSTITUTE.

MEMORY.

things, their form, size, color, number, order, feel, smell, taste,
sound, &c., next after the fear of God, is the true beginning
of wisdom.
I sh?uld allow the little •nes as much liberty as is consistent with tolerable order. I should give them little or nothing
to commit to memory, and make their exercises light, and vary
them often. I should not be distressed if they did not know
their letters in six months or six years, for they can be taught
ten thousand things more important ; kindness,. obedience,
· reverence, truth and justice, will do them far more good than
~he alphabet. If I see lny evil propensity displaying itself,
if I _cannot demonstrate the impropriety of it, I shall not punish
until I have exhausted every means of preventing its indulgence. Prevention is the great principle ; for to my mind
nothing is more unwise and unjust than the laws which regulate even the best Christian communities. We allow the
young t.o run unmolested until . they break the law, and then
we pumsh them. If a boy discovers ever so vicious a propensity, and we are sure that crime must be the consequence,
we cannot touch him until it is too late ; we cannot restrain
him ; it is against the .kw to save him.
If the little child shows an uncommon aptness for one thing
more than another, I never allow the predominant faculty to
be overworked, but I turn my chief attention to the weaker
fac~lties that need ~ncouragement. What is generally called
genius and ·talent 1s only the predominance of one faculty
over the rest. This must be carefully educated, but the others
must be well attended to, also, or we shall see another example
of genius without a well-balanced mind; wonderful talent
without common sense; genius that can create other worlds at
pleasure, wit?out b_eing able to get a decent living in this.
The merry little bemg learns to talk, to sing, to think- little
thoughts, of course - to draw, to count, - anything but her
money-;-t~ play, dance, and be happy, and to make others so.
But 1t will not be long before the child will desire to read;
and, perhaps, of late, no question has exercised the minds of
teachers so much as how the first lessons in readinrr shall be
given. With the old plan of teachincr the names of aie letters
first, and then their various powers, you are acquainted ; the
new method, which has found friends in the highest rank of
teachers, proposes the teaching of whole words first, without regard to the elements of which the words are composed.

Of course, the learning of one word is no help to the pronun·
ciation of a new word; at least, I have never seen words
placed in any book on this plan, so that the first words learned
are a key or help to those which follow.
I do not deny that a child may lenrn to read a few words
in this way sooner than he will if he waits to become
acquainted with the letters, but I have always found that
pupils who are allowed to skip the elements of any art or
science, and revel in its pleasant things, are never willing
afterwards to go back to those elements, which, though
omitted at first, must be learned some time or other. Now,
no one pretends that the names of the letters and their
powers ne.ed never be. learned; but, on the contrary, as they
all recomrn.end this, at a later stage of the business, the question seems to be whether, in the end, the new method does
not cause a loss of time and an increase of labor.
But we are told the new plan is more pleasant to the child;
he prefers words with meaning, to letters and syllables with·
out. I think, however, that this objection to the old plan
relies for its force entirely upon the defective manner in which
the alphabet has usually been taught. If it be important to
connect ideas with letters, I would engage to connect as many
with a letter as with any word. It would be difficult to illustrate this position better than by reading a short extract from
a work called " The Youth of Shakspeare," which, in the
quaint style of that day, "runneth of this wise."
"Mother,'' said young Shakspeare, "I pray you tell me
something of the fairies of whom nurse Cicely d1scourseth to
me so oft. How may little children be possessed of such
goodness as may make them be well regarded of these same
fairies, mother ? " " They must be sure to learn their letters
betimes,'' replied she, " that they may be able to know the
proper knowledge writ in books, which, if they know not
when they grow up, neither fairy nor any other shall esteem
them to be of any goodness whatsoever." ''I warrant you I
will learn my letters as speedily as I can,'' replied the boy,
eag~rly. "Nay, I beseech you, mother, teach them to me
now, for I am excee.ding desirous of being though\ of some
goodness. But what good are these same letters of, mother?"
inquired he, as he took his hornbook from the shelf. " This
much," replied Dame Shakspeare ; "by knowing of them
thoroughly, one by one, you shall soon come to be able to
put them together for the forming of words ; and when you
11*

as

126

127

THE TEACHERS' INSTITTTTE.

MEHORY .

are sufficiently apt at that, you shall thereby come to oe
learned enough to read all such words as are in any sentence
which Y?U sh~ll find to be only made up of such ; and whe~
the readmg. ~l such sentences shall be familiar to you, doubt
not your ability to master whatsoever proper book falleth into
your hand, for all books are composed only of letters as I
shall teach thee straightway." The lesson had not proc~eded
far, when the draper's wife came in. "And what hast got
here, prithee, that thou art so earnest about?" asked Mrs.
D owlass. " A hornbook, as I live ! And dost really know
thy letters at .so early an age ? " " Nay, I doubt I can tell
you .them all," replied Master William, ingenuously, "but,
methmks, I know a good many of them." Then pointing at
the. several ~haracters, as he named them, he continued :
" First, here 1s A, that ever standeth astraddle. Next him is
B, who is all head and body and no legs. Then cometh C
who bulgeth out behind like a very hunchback. . After hi~
cometh D, who doeth the clean contrary, for his bigness is all
before. Next,'' - here he hesitated for some few seconds,
the others present regarding him with exceeding attentiveness
and pleasure - " next, here is-alack, dear mother, do tell
me that fellow's name acrain, will you an' it will go hard
with him if he escape me . ~
'
. 1:hink you that a child taught the alphabet in this or any
s1m1lar way, would ever be tired of his lesson 1
But let us suppose the child has passed the threshold, what
shall he read? Not, surely, such books as are levelled down
to his intellect, for these ,,;ill keep the intellect down. It is
better to give him books that he can understand when
e~plained, and this explanation it is the duty of the teacher to
give. I would have the child understand just enough to
?nable him to take an interest in the book, but I would have
It always beyond his easy grasp.
Bring the book .down to
the child's. capacity! so that he ~an understand every word, •
and every idea of 1t, and he will never wish to read it a
~econ~ time, and will mak~ no progress in ideas or in reading,
1f he is compelled to read it. If I may compare great things
with small, I will say that the Creator does not teach us to
read in the book of nature in any such way. We are interested in every page that he has spread before us but we
unders~and very little of it. On the second perusal, ~ve learn
some th mg more; and the more times we read, the better we
understand, though we are sure we shall never master the

great volume. There is a just medium in this matter, and he
who consults the nature of children will observe it. Chillren, if I know them , prefer to read such books as require not
·nly a constant stretch of the understanding, .but even of the
imagination; and such are the best for them, if they are to be
rr.ad more than once.
But some utilitarians would have all reading books for
schools filled with lessons in useful knowledge, and, of course,
would exclude the greater part of our best poetry and works
of imagination.
.
.
.
It is true that much useful matter may be mtroduced mto
school books, and, other things being equal, instructive lessons
should be preferred ; but the great object for .which reading·is
·taucrht in schools must not be lost sight of m . the attempt to
in.tr~duce a little of all sorts of knowledge, which will never
make children good philosophers, and which will assuredly
prevent them from becoming good and impressive readers.
Show me. a teacher who prefers to use books on this mistaken
plan, and I will show you one who knows nothing of reading
as an art.
In teaching English grammar, I wo:-ild require .little or
nothincr
to be learned by rote. If there is any real difference
0
betwee n the parts of spee~h, the ~hild sh?ul~ be ~bl!ged to
think it out instead of seekmg the mformat10n ma d1ct10nary.
Moreover, in teaching English grammar, I would be sure it
was English. Our language is more simple in its structure
than any other, and I wo~ld teach it in -~II i.ts_ simplicity,
whatever mi rrht be the fash10n. Not one clnkl m a thousand
studies any ~ther language than his own, and yet every c~ild
is obliged to learn grammars that were constructed on foreign
models. · Because Greek had one article, two adjectives were
set apart fr.om the rest and calle~ articles, that English grai:i·
mar might not appear .to_lack this part of sp~ech . As L~tm
nouns had six cases distmctly marked by a different termma·
iion, so English n_ouns must have cases, although they undergo
no change, or only one in the singular, which render~ the
word no loncrer the name of a thing,-of course, no longer a
noun. Bec~use the Greek and Latin, and some modern
languages, in their various modes of SJ?eaking, vary the termination of the verb, we also must conlnve to have five modes,
not because we have any change of termination, but because
we oucrht to have! Because the Greeks and Latins, by the
additi;n or change of terminations, counted forty or fift)r

12$

THE TEACHERS' INSTITUTE.

me\ho_ds o.f expressing te~se Qr time, we, who ha-ye hµt Q~I!.
s11ch ch!\nge of terqi.ination, li~e the simple jackdaw, ai:e strut~
\mg about with our borrowed feathers, and pretending tc:> bii
classical peacocks.
In t~aching geogra,phy, I should require no lessons to be
committed to memory .. :
··
·
The, author of the larger geography used in ~e Boston
schools, has fold us that it was first published in 1819, and,
after twc;i editi~ns, was stereotyped, or .pei:mane~tly fixe~.
Soon, he adds, it was necessary to re-write it en.tlrely ; an~
then, after two editions, it was st~reotyped or fixed agajn ;
and ~e say~ it may be expected to ren:i.a in as it is, till a consicJ,era.ble change shal,l become desirable,-that is, till an
unl,lsually large proportion of it is false . In the mean time,
it must be borne in mind, thousands and tens of thousands of
children 'are learning such geographies, with the ce'rtainty
that wh,a~ they learn, if remembered, will soon be of no value:
The world w.ill not stay fi,xed, as the unlucky book does, and
when t.here is so m_uc}J. c~rtain and perinanent knowledge to
be learned, is it not cruel to trifle with the young mind thus 1
I.t is ba~ enoug}J. to have to com.mil to memory what is true,
but it s~rris unpardonable to oblige a child IC) "com1I1it" wha'
is already false, or avowedly soon to. beco1Ue so. L.et i,t not be
supposed; h,owever, th.at the geqgraphy allu.ded to is singulru:
in this respect-I believe i.t is like all o~hers that are p9pular i
and. a late most popular author solemnly promises in his preface not to change his book oftener than onc·e in five years,
right or wrong. It i,s said of one of the worthy governors of
New Amsterdam, that because the wind had a troublesome
trick of cha,nging, he was accustom,ed ea,rly in the m,oming to
fi:x the city weathercock for the day; and in what does his
conduct differ from, that of the author last mention.ed 1
~gain, it is generally conceded that the true way. to learn
ge?graphy is to begin at home, and trave1 no faster than we
get acqua_inted ; but, a.s geographies are n:iade tC) be u.'Jli·
versaJ1y u.s~d, this ~gin11ing at hom.e is imp:i:actic;abl,e, ~
geography adapted to any J>l!.rl.icular home, WO)l_ld no~ be
likely to have an, extensive, sale. rh.e utmost, we may ask
then is, that they shall give a particular acco~t of our own,
state. Well, ho"'. far have they dope this?
Mitchell,
<?Ut of 336 pages, allows the empire state but 4, and these
include 3 pictures that were not executed by Rapha,el o~
Benja~in West. Olney's geography allows r,our great s~te

MEMORY.

129

4 pages. out of 288. and these 4 include 3 engravings, not l:iy
the same great ma~ters. Smith allows you 4 pa~es o~t o.f
312, and he can only afford 1 engraving. W ood?ndge'.m his
new edition, thinks that 2 pages out of 352, with 1 picture,
are enough for New York; and ~e other autho~s are no
more liberal. Poor Massachusetts 1s allowed room m proportion to her. size; and yet these books furnish all t~e knowle~ge
that our children are required to learn of their respective
states.
·
d f
If you wished to learn the geography of a town mstea o a
world how would you proceed? Would you go to one
farme~ and ascertain whether he raised wheat or oats? to
another to know how many men he employed ? how many
pigs he raised, or how his potatoes yielded? Would you
visit the schools to see how many children attended ? how
many pupils there were of each sex, and how many teachers ?
~.hat school books were used and what abused? and whether
they were purchased because they were cheap, or because they
were good? Would you. visit the several clergymen and
ascertain how many sects there were, and how m~ny of each
sect? which expended the most money, and which had the
most virtue to show for it? No, indeed; you would know
that these thino-s have nothing to do with geography. You
would walk ro~nd the boundaries of the town, and see how
other towns bordered upon it. You wou_l~ travel every road .
and learn where it led to ; you would v1s1t every pond and
every hill, and sail down every stream ; you would learn the
locality of every church, of every school-hou~e'. and every
other public building ; you would learn the limits of ev~ry
school district; the remarkable cave~ or rocks; the quarnes,
and every thing that could be considered pennan~"':t; y_ou
would draw a plan of the town, till you were familiar with
ev~ry part of it.
.
Then, if you wished to learn the h1st?ry of the town, you
would' have some lines to go by, some pomts to measure from.
you could lay out the fari:ns of the first settlers, and cut them
- up as their descendants did ; you could plan new roads and
future improvements,· and your accurate knowledge of the
unchangeable features of the town would never ce.a~e to be of
service. Statistical tables are valuable to the political economist, to the historian and antiquarian, and such may prep~re
and preserve them for reference; but what would they thmk
if asked to learn such tables by heart ? W e cannot travel

130

131

MEMORY.

THE TEACHERS' INSTITUTE.

over the wo~ld as we may over a town, but we may travel
over maps till the face of the globe is familiar, the great
natural features, those characters which the Creator has
engraved on the everlasting rocks, and not what transient
man has scratched upon the shiftin g sand.
. The celeb:ated Rousseau ridicules the custom of teaching
lustory to ch1.ldren, and he relates an amusing anecdote , which
shows .that history was tau~ht in his day very much as it has
been smce. 8:e was sp.endmg a few days in the country, anJ
a .fond mother mv1ted him to be present at a lesson in ancient
history about to be given to her son . The lesson related to
that ev~~t of A'.exa~der's .life, :vhen, bei.ng dangerously sick,
he re.cen ed. a le,ter rnformmg lrnn that his physician intended
to poison hnn, under pretence of giving -him medicine. Alexande_r h~nded the letter to th e physician, and while he was
reachng lt, dr~nk off the medicin e at one draught. At dinner,
the. conversat10n turned upon the lesson, and the young his·
tonan expressed so much admiration at the couracre of Alexander, that Rousseau took him aside and asked him in what
~he wonderful courage consisted. Why, said he, in swallow.
mg such a nasty dose of physic at one draught. His kind
n;iothe: had ~used him almost to death, and he hated all medic1~e hke po1~on. Stip, the history was not lost upon the
child, tho.u~h It was misunderstood, for he determined that the
next med1cme he had to take, he would imitate Alexander
" If it be asked," adds Rousseau, " what I see to admire i~
that act of A~exand.er, I ans~er, th at I see in it the proof that
the hero .b~h eved 111 the existence of human virtue, and that
he ~vas w1lhng to stake his life upon his belief. The swallo1ymg of the medicine was a profession of his faith and no
mortal ever made one more sublime."
'
. History, as taught in schools, should be. a p~actical applis:a·
l10n o! geography. My method of teachrng 1t, was to read
the. history to th~ class, explai ning every word, and illustratmg. every sent1men.t, as far as possible, by maps, books,
engrav1~gs, medals, relics, and conversation. Then I required
the pupils to read the. lesson for.themselves, and be prepared
to a.nswer such quest10ns as I might propose. I never tauaht
ancient .geography except in connection with history, ;nd
n~ver without a constant comparison of ancient geography
\\1th modern. In this way there is hardly anv branch of
hum~n lmowle.dge that was not brought to the aid of history
and m return illustrated by it. But. set a child to learnin;

the compend by heart, or only so much as will serve for an
answer to certain set questions, printed and adapted to the
very words of the answer, and what does the child acquire
but a distaste for what is only a dead letter, and a love for
tales and romances, and that trashy reading which is too well
understood, and whose spirit, as well as letter, killeth too often
both body and soul 1
But, it may be asked, would you not cultivate the memory
of words at all. I answer that the ordinary intercourse o.f
society will do much towards educating this memory, but
there is one school exercise, which, when not perverted, is
peculiarly fitted for this purpose ; I mean spelling, although
spelling, if properly taught, is not merely the learning of
words, but the expression of sounds, and the acquisition of a
correct pronunciation, which is rarely acquired in any other
way. Perhaps no one branch taught in our common schools
has been so badly taught as this, and in no department is
there such a general complaint of deficiency, and such a loud
cry for reform . Whence is this 1 Certainly not because cor·
rect spelling is not universally considered indispensable to a
good education, certainly not because there is any dearth of
spelling books. Will you bear with me a few minutes longer,
while I endeavor to explain the cause of the deficiency which
is so notorious 1
First, then, spelling has been treated as an inferior branch,
in which to exercise a pupil was to degrade him. Hence the
higher classes have generally been excused from spelling, or
have only spelled occasionally, without having regular and set
lessons. Now, spelling must be taught at school, or the
chance is a thousand to one that the ad ult will never make up
for the neglect. The reason of this is, not so much the
incapability of adults to learn, as their unwillingn ess to come
down to the only effectual way of learning, that is, by lessons
from the spelling book. It must be this, for adults read the
words constantly, write them frequently, and understand and
use them better than children do ; and yet they seldom correct words that they have been accustomed to misspell. The
reason uniformly given by adults, who continue to spell ill, is,
they were not properly drilled when young.
•
The second reason why spelling has retrograded in our
schools, has been the pretended improvement of spelling
books. Thirty or forty years ago, littl e or no regard was
paid to pronunciation; and any person who cliewed his words

"'

•

ME!'IIORY.

THE TEACHJ;.RS' INSTITUTE.

'faslaugh~d

at as a fia,t, or sn!jered at as a pedant. A.hem~ t4ii~1
ti.me .W allf,er's Dictioq!11)'. w,a~ niprintlld in thjs country, an!i1
spelling bqoks began to . ~ iµaflll on his plan. The test of
g~11-tility, thenceforth, was pronunciation, and not orthography.
~1gur,es aIJd oiher m~rk.s "".£1re introdµs:ed into spelling bo 0 k,s,
and r,elying upon, these, t4e classiqcation of words began_IP.
be neglected,. until it was almost disregarded, and the diffi.
cuJty of learning to s~ll was increased just in proportion. to
this ~eglect Who nee~s an argument to show that a proper.
classifica,tion facilitates the learning of every ait and science,
and.that on the associa~ion thus produced, the memory in a.
great dl)gree depends for its power 1 The great desideratum 1
of. a s~Uing book is that it shall be choice, but sufficiently
corµprehlln~ive in i\s vocabulary, simple, but exact an<li
thorough in itsclassification ; and that it shall teach the true
w,O.\'lllnciation without appearing to do so, and witkout drato-:
ip.g off, the pupil's atten(i<m from tke naked word.
T~e third re~~on for t~e decline . of spelling was the intr.oquct1.on of:definmon spellmg books, and the custom of giving
spellmg. lessons from dis;tionaries. If attention to the marks .
and figures that indic.ated the pronunciation, took off the
scholar's. attention from the .orthography, much more so di4:
th~ affixmg of a definition.
The definition . became every,,
thmg, and the orthography only a secondary object. The
vocabulary of a definition spelling book was so curtailed fro,m
neces~ity, that it was altogether insufficient for the purpose of
teachmg orthog;.i~hy, and the words of a dictignary are so .
!1umerous that it JS the labor of a life, a school life, to spell
it. th~ough once. You see the consequence ; in the definition
spellmg books, many common and useful words were omitted 1
and the attention was distracted between those that were left
and their de~n!tions; while the length of time required to go .
through .a. dJct10nary, rendered a familiar acquaintance with
the defimt1on ~r. the orthography absolutely impossible. And ,
had the defimt1on been retained, what would it have beeQ
~o!th 1. Common word~ are generally mystified by a defi~ ·
mtion, and seldom explamed. The other day, in preparing a
~ew work to oblige children to write the words of their spell~
mg books, J wnnted a simple definition of a.fl.ounce and of.a
periwig, both common things, and well understood. l turned
to the most popular, and really the best school dictionary, and
found the definition as follows :
Periwig. Adscititious half.

133

Flounce. A loose, full trimming, sewed to a woman's
ga:rmeI)t so as to swell and sha~e.
.
1 theii asked an intelligent child what sort of h~ir he thoug~t
"adscititious hair" was,-" I don't know," said he. "Is 1t
hair that is all in a snad 1 " - I then asked an intelligent girl
what she should call " a loose, full trimming sewed to a.
woman's garment so as to swell and shake," and she said at
once, " an April fool."
So.much fqr tl)e definition of easy words. I then h.ad occa~
sion to. look out the word: Irnbricated, and found . that it meant
"Indented with concavities." I a,sl~ed a miss who was read·
ing, the meaning of the word mwdY_ne, and she looked in the
dictionary, and mistaking the a which .~enoted tha_t the word
was an adjective, for a part. of the definition, she said arwdyne
meant," a ·mitigaiing pain,"
..
.
· If the memory is treacherous, the defimt10n will. soon .
escape, almost as so<;m as it is learned, or it mar be applied to
the wrong word, When a class of young misses was once
readin" to me, the word wedl.ock occurred, and, as usual, l
asked the meaning of it, " I ]\now," said a liv_ely little girl,
who had "studied dictionary,'' as she called it, at another
school· "it is somethin"
they fasten barn-doors with."*
0
I beiieve this is a fair specimen of the aid that children &'et
from definitions obtained in dictionaries; for, as I have said,
if the words are common, no definition is needed, and a large
proportion are of this description ; and if the words a~e not
common, the definition will not be understood, or will be
immediately forgotten,
The fourth cause of the decline of spelling, is the att~mpt
to teach spelling from reading lessons. I ha".e already hmte.d
that the true place to teach a child · the meaning of a.wo~d- is
not in the dictionary, where it may ha~e a _d~zen mea_nmgs
apparently contradictory or perfe~tly unmtelhgible, bu.t m the
reading lessqn, where the wo~d JS used, aµd ~vhere its ve.ry
use often defines it. The fa1thfl)l teacher. will never miss
this opportunity to explain words, not, only _because the
mterest and the intelligent reading of the particular lesson
depend upon it, but because he will never, in any other.
department of instruction, have so good a chanc~ to_ teach the
correct meaning and · use of words, Bw.t this 1s a very
*As I have seen this anecdote elsewhere, and may he su spected of appropriating what is not my own, it may he proper for me to sny that 1t was first
published in one of my Reports, many years ago.

12

134

THE TEACHERS' IN STITUTE.

different exercise from spelling; and just so far as it is
excellent for teaching the meaning and use of words, it is
unfitted to teach spelling; for, if it be true that the afl1x.ing of
a definition diverts the attention from the orthography, it is
evident that the sentiment, and the interest of the narrative,
will do so in a greater degree. Every scholar ·knows the
extreme difficulty of printing correctly; but this does not arise
from the ignorance of the author or the printer, but from the
constant tendency of the sentiment or thought tp divert the
attention of the proof-reader, whether author or printer, from
the structure of the words themselves; and hence their custom
of spelling the words instead of pronouncing them, or the
reading of sentences backwards, to destroy the sense and fix
the attention upon the naked words.
But spelling from reading books is attended with another
serious disadvantage. The number of words spelled will not
be extensive, and many words in common use will, perhaps,
never occur at all. Besid es, those that do occur, · occur in
utter confusion; and, for this reason, neither teacher nor pupil
can ever know how manv words he has learned, nor of how
many he is ignorant. The presumption is, that the words of
a spelling book include all that will occur in useful, but not
strictly scientific books, and in profitable conversation; and
these will be spelled and written over and over, until they
become familiar; and when teachers will go back to this old
plan of using the spelling book, and not till then, will they be
able, in my opinion, to remedy the defect which all acknowledge to exist. It will not do to say that spelling is not worth
the trouble of acquisition, for I think no one will deny that
spelling is like charity in one remarkable respect; for a man
may u·nderstand all mysteries and all lrnowledge, and yet,
wiLhout correct spelling, - be nothing.
If I did not believe that the prevalent mode of committing
books to memory was cruel us well as incorrect, I should not
be so anxious for the reform. The custom has been, and no.v
is, for the teacher to set a lesson to be learned at home, arid
it not unfrequently happens that the parents have the hardest
part of the work to do, for they have to direct the child, to
encourage him in the disagreeable task, and then ngrse him
in the sickness that follows constant study when he should be
taking exercise. I wonder that parents have not come to the
conclusion that they may as well set th e lesson as teaclt it, and
so have the credit of it. Who does not know that nineteen-

135

MEMORY.

twentieths at least of every lesson committed to memory, are
immediately forgotten? I should as soon think of employing
a chi d to bring me water in a basket, as to learn lessons by
rote. What would you think of a farmer, who, instead of
takin()' his boy into the field, should send him to a school,
'l.vher~ he would be required to commit an agricultural catechism to memory?
It would not require much shrewdness in the farmer to .
guess what would be the result of this sort of education. He
would instantly reject it, and the next morning, perhaps, ~end
his child to school to be taught geography, or natural philosophy, in the sam~ irrational manner!
Some years ago, I wrote a dialogue* for the amusement
of my pupils, and as it not .only exhibits the foll,Y now. under
consideration, but also the kindred folly of crowdmg a little of
every thing into the young mind, with your permission, I will
read a page of it.
A mother in search of a school for her child, accosted a
yov.ng teacher as follows :
Motlier. Are you the mistress of this school, miss?
Teacher. I am, madam.
.
M. Your school has been highly recommended to me, and
I have concluded to place my only daughter under your care,
if we can agree upon the subject of her studies. Pray what
do you teach ?
·
T. What is usually tau ght in preparatory schools, madam.
How old is your little girl?
M. She is only five, but then she is a child of remar-kable
capacity.
T. I should not think she studied many branches at present,
madam, whatever she may do hereafter.
M. Indeed; she is not so backward as you imagine. She
has studied astronomy, botany an~ geometr)'.', and her tea~her
was preparing to put her into Latm, when ill health obliged
her to relinquish her school.
T. Have you ever examined her in these sciences, madam? ,
JIJ. 0 yes, indeed. Fraxine!Ja, my dear, t.ell the lady
something of geometry and ast!onom~ . What is as~ronomy,
mv dear? Ask her a quesllon, miss, any quest10n you
pl~ase.
.
. ·
T. What planet do we 111hab1t, my dear?
*Since puLli.she.d iu tl1c" l"•'ami l:t!r IJialt;~:urs

11

oftl1c

author.

..

..

---

...

136

137

THE TEACHERS' IN STITUTE .

MEMORY.

C. Hey?
T. What do you live on, my dear 1
C. On meat, ma'am ; I did not know what you meant
before.
M . No, my dear, the lady wishes to know what you stand
on now; on what do you stand 1
C. On my feet, mother; did she think I stood on my head 1
M. Fraxinella ! dear, you have ·forgotten your astronomy
the three days you have staid at home. But do now say
a line or two of your last lesson to the lady; now do, dear,
that's a darling.
'
C. The equinoctial line is the plane of the equator extended
in a straight line until it surrounds the calyx or flower-cup,
fo_r the two sides of an isuckle triangle arc always equal to the
hippopotamus.
M. There, miss; I told you she had it in her, only it
requires a peculiar tact to draw it out. I knew she would
astonish you.
T. She does, indeed, madam. You speak of the plane of
the equator, my dear; will you be good enough to tell me the
meaning of the word plane?
C. Ugly, ma'am; I thought every body knew that.
T. How many are three times three, my dear ·?
C. Three times three 1
T. Yes , how many are they 1
C. I don't know. Mrs. Flare never told me that; she said
every body knows how to count!
T. She taught you to read and spell, I suppose.
M. No, I positively forbade that. I wished to have her
mind properly developed, without having her intellect frittered
away upon the elements. But I see your school will not do
for my daughter. I was afraid you only tau ght the lower
branches. Come, Fraxy, dear, let us call on Miss Flourish;
perhaps she is competent to estimate your acquirements, and
finish your education.

what the child is competent to understand, and the next is, to
illustrate, explain, and demonstrate it, as far as possib"le, to
the understanding and the sensesi·
,
.
I have given you the result of t':"'enty years observation
and experience ; and whether I am m error, or whe~er the
common theory of memory and the comI?on system of mstruc·
tion are in fault, you, gentlemen, must Judge.

I have thus, in a very familiar way, endeavored to expose
the too prevalent error of attempting to cram all sorts of
knowledge into the mind through the single avenue of the
verbal memory, to the neglect of all other kinds of memory,
of the external senses, and of the reasoning powers. The first
great principle which should guide us in the education of
children is, to teach only what is necessary and proper, and

12*

138

ENGLI SH GRAMMA R.

ENGLISH GRAMMAR.

i

fr any on e branch taught in ou_r common schools is 1'ery
bad ly taugh t, that branch IS English g rammar . vVhate1·e r
may be th e lex_tbook used, the object undoubtedly ought to be,
lo teac h th e child to speak and write correc tly and with ease;
::rn cl, if the teacher is competent, this obj ec t may be at tained
1Yllh any of the popula r textbook s, or even without any of
them.
Unfortuna te ly, h owever , the number of district school
teache rs who arc skilful in the use of lan rr ua rre is very
small, altho ug h many are acqua in te d with the t~chnics of
grammar, and can analyze sente nces mad e by others with
to lernble_faci li ty . . To suc h, and to all teachei"s , le t me say,
tha t th e ir t11n c w ill be better spen t if they begin ea rlier to
' teac h the. use of lang uage, leaving the grammar to come in,
as It ong 111al ly came, alter th e language has bee n formed.
T o enab le the teache r to do this, he must begin early wi th
the child, and make every exe rcise bear np on this. In mv
remarks on read ing an d or thograp hy, I have s ho wn how
bcgmn1n g ma)'. be made, and I shall end eavor not to repeat
what I ha l'e said .
I. s honld begin to teach Engl ish g ram ma r, th e n, wh en I
bcg111 tu leac h the Eng li sh languag0; tha t is, w he n I begin to
tcacb rending, spell ing and ta lki ng . The mi sc hi ef has been,
th;1t child re n ha ve bee n :dl owed to read without intelli rren ce
lo spel l wi thout any application of the word s, and t~ tall~
without care, ahhoug h they ta lk before th ey read, or spell, or
'I' rile _; and ,being alloweJ to ta lk badly, th e chief obj ec t of
.eachrn g tecnr11cal g ram mar afterwards is, to undo wh at has
bee n previously done, but what should have been avoided . If
pa rents only fe lt th e im portance of speaking correctly, an<l
C'.'c n cleg«rn tly, in th e prese nce of their children; if they paid
a lrnndrcdth part as much attention to language as th ey do to
r.h·8s..; :rn tl externa l appeara nce, we should hear li tt le of rrram ma r, excep t as it affords direc tions for forei 0cr ners who wish to
lea rn ou r idioms, and ha ve not time to do so by prac.tice in
writing a nd spea king it.

a

•

,,,.

139

Unfortunately , not one child in a hun_dred. is so situated
that he is not exposed to evi l i n flu e n ce~ m th is respert ; and
the tim e is fa r distant, I fear, w hen, rn th e fam ily a nd 111
society , th e use of language will be so fr ee from error that the
young will insensibly learn to speal_c correctly, and be so
familiar with good usage that they_will not n eed to resort to
grammars to know in what it. ~ on s is ts . S e v~ral ye'.irs ago, a
young Frenchman, who had bee n ed_ucated 111 Pans at great
expense, underto ok to teach French 111 B?slon. H e was an
excellent scholar, and yet one day he pom ted to a countryman of his who passed u s in the street, and ~·ema rke d, "Th~t
man is an upholsterer, and h~s taken no parns to perfect his
pronunciation, but I would g ive all I am worth to be a?le lo
pronoun ce French as. correc tly as ~.e does. " " How, did h~
arrive at s uch perfection ? " said I.
He was born at ~ours,
said he," where French is m ore correctly spoken t?an m any
other part of France, and he speaks well from habit. I shall
ne ver equal him." The teach er cannot, per?aps , counter~ct
entirely th e evil influences of home, and of mtercourse w'.th
th e illiterate and unrefin ed, but h e may do much by the fo1 ce
of his own example, and by untiring vigilance in regard to the
.
fatd ts of his pupils.
Before children are readers or writers, they ~ re often. gre ~t
talkers; but how rarely do we h ea r of a te acher~ en g~gm g 111
conversation with such pupi ls , or indeed wit h his m os t
nrl v:rnced pupil s ; and yet, what exercise could be. more
proper or more use ful than for the teach er to _call his !Jule
class arou nd him, and converse freely and affection~te l y '".1th
them upon the thou sand s?bj ~cts that 0te re~t their openm g
minds ? Besides th e exercise rn gramrrmr which such a co:irersation wou ld afford , how com pletely mi ~h t the t~ach e r wm
th e affections of the children, and lay the basis of mild and ye t
effective di scipline; and how easily c?ul? he impress _u pon
the yet unsullied heart the great pnnc1ples of conscience ,
morality and religion. W ere I agam to undertake _to teach,
this exercise would be one of the first that I should rnt~odu ce
into every class ; but, when I was a teacher, I was blmd as
my fellows in this respect, ~xcept that I '".as accustoimecl to
converse wi\h my oldest pupils on th e sub]eCt of the.r next
com position.
It is to be r eoTetted tha t so few teachers are fitted to con. I1 th e1r
'°' pup1·1s rn
· th'is rnanner , but this should not
ve rse w1t
prc,,e nt th em from making th e attempt ; and I err greatly in

140

THE TEACHERS' INSTITUTE.

my judgment , if thev do not soon find that in this exercise,
as in philosophy, a~tion and reaction will be, at the least,
equal.
If he cannot trust himself without a text, let him take some
c.ommon thi~1g,-a piece of money, for instance,-and ask the
httle ones !ls uses, and such other particulars as will lead
them. to tell wlrnt they know on the subject. He may even
appomt the subJect of conversation the day beforehand and
let them think upon it befor e they come to the class. I know
that '.11any teachers will say they have no time for such an
exercise , and I suppose they have not; but I think every one
can make tune for it, by thu s employing some of the minutes
that are worse than wasted in teaching useless things, or in
teachrng even useful things in a useless manner.
I h~ve already sh own how early the child may be taught
to wnte, a nd how u se'.ully he may b~ employed in writing
little sentences from !us books, from dictat10n, or from copies
set on the ruled black-board. Every sentence that the child
writes in this way is a lesson in grammar, and in the use of
language, which is, or ought to be, the only object in learning
th e grammar of one's own lang uage.
\Vhen I was. at school , composition was not taught, and,
although I received the Franklin medal for Eng lish grammar
e~~ecia lly_, I am not aware that I ever wro te a word of composition until I left school, and I am sure that I never wrote one
as a school exercise. I entered what is now called the Eliot
school, i1~ Boston, at the early age of six years, easily pa ssing
for a child of seven, becau se as large as my brother, who
was erg ht. W e read one verse , and spelled one or two
word s, every day. My class consisted of twelve forms or
long be~1che s , each. holding six or eight boys. Each form, on
successive days, said g~ammar, as it was called, and my turn
came only once a fortm ght, unless I got above others in spelling, which elevation, of course, brought the grammar lesson
s.omewhat earlier than if I had remained stationary. Six
lin es of the gra mmar were th e least quantity that was taken
for a l~sson, but we might say more if we pleased, and he
who s~ud most went to the head of the form . Such was the
l1orror in which th is exercise was held, that boys, whose turn
n wo11 Id be to say g rammar the next day, would miss words
i11 . spellrng , so as to drop into a lower form, and put off the
evil day. Others, who had an opportunity to fise into the

ENGLISH GRAMMAR.

141

doomed form, intentionally spelled the words wrong, and staid
down.
The recitation was generally made t? some boy of the
highest class, and it was never accompamed with any expla·
nation. When a boy had said every word of the .grammar
book through three times, he was promoted to the hrs ~ cl~ss ,
1
which alone was allowed to make that wonderful appl1cat10n
of O"rammar which is technically ca lled parsing. The text·
book I first learned was the Young Ladies' Accidence, by
Caleb Bingham, with whom, after he bec~m e ~ bookseller, I
had the pleasure of serving my apprenticeship, and. whose
partner I had the honor to be until his <lea.th . If this were
the proper place, it would give rne great delight '.O sketch the
character of this excellent man, who was the earliest reformer
of education in Boston, and perhaps in these United States.
No readinO" books we re so popular as his American Preceptor
and Colun?bia n Orator. No spelling bo,pk was more. used
than his Child's Companion in our primary scho~ls, which, at
that time were private or select schools for children under
seven, and kept by females ; and his little grammar, called
" The Young Ladies' Accidence ," because, when he made
and named it, the author was teacher of a sele.ct school f~r
girls, was the first g rammatical textbook used m t~e public
schools of Boston. I must be contented, however, with barely
saying that Caleb Bingham was a good scholar ; ~ very successful and much beloved teacher; a gentleman m the be~t
sense of the word; an humble, devout, co_nsistent, and chan·
table Christian,- one of those whose punty of heart enables
them even here on earth, to see God.
Be,fore I had learned the Young Ladies' Accidence once
through, it was superseded by a little abridgrl'.ent of .Murray's
Grammar by" A T eacher of Youth;" and th1.s ~ ~ec1te~ twice
by rote,-a few lines at a lesson, bef?re I was m1t1ated rnto the
mysteries of parsing. Ho.w far th1~ change o~ books went
towards fini shmg my En ghsh educat.10n may be mferred from
the fact, that, when, at the age of thirteen, I went t() t~e ~ub­
lic Latin school and th e teacher, by way of exammatlon,
asked me what ~vas the perfect participle of the verb love, I
could not answer him. It is not to be wondered at, theref~re,
·that I hated grammar, had no faith in th.e utility of teachmg
it as it wa s then tau ght, and determm ed to reform the
method, if I ever had a good opportunity.
.
But the teacher must use some textbook, and the quest10n

142

THE TEACHERS ' INST ITUTE.

ENGLIS H GRAM!VIA JL

is , how shall h e use it? T
h'
·
o .nn
WOLL l rl b8 n c c e ~ s :uy to " i 1,e
. swe
I r . t 1s. que s t'wn fu 11 y, it·
e1·cry CJ!t" or t't' n l1t1 1"' 1 p::i r t1cu ar dJrect1ons_· for th e use of
•
c
'
•c
nc rcc or more t • ,1. ] · 1
i to
.. 1 · •
.
ex,uoo ,s t rnt l1 ave bceu
1Jre11·11""
· "'
exp ntn, or modify
· If
h
' obr siLmp 1 y, t e system prop osed nearly h·ilf' ~ ce t
•
u
· nnryan-o y 1 JI
l\ir
n ot be expec ted to do ti ·
nc ey rnrray. I can
ge neral remark i·iz W1h1s ,tanc mb ustl be co ntented with one
· ·
.
'
·'
::i ever e t 1e textb I·
a prrn c1ple 1s st:-tted, do no t adv .
- oo" as soon as
u nde rstood a nd appl' d t
alnce on ~ step further until it is
b
ie o actua practice H , ti ·
. '
'
1
r.01w, 1 h a1•e attem pted t
h
.
.
O\\ 11 s may e
S h
'
o s ow rn m y C
G rarn m::ir, to whi
ch l 1nust . ,. . h
omm on c oul
.
•
1e1e1 t e "Ouno- t
I
·
~
"' eac 1er, smce to
exp Ia rn :.iny textboo k would b
as that to which I refer.
e to wnte a gra mmar as large
But th e most popular arnm
l .
.
abou_ncl in diffi culti es , and 'b ' mars u_~ec m th e Un ited S tates
g u.sung th e pupil s, they fo'il }toP~'.Iflex~ng '.he teache rs an d di susrng the ir mother ton o-u . 'thief: cH/8r m the g reat work of
thing is funclamenial!y ~v1·eon'~1 Aallc1 t1ty hand effect. Somer,cc I t li1·s , and ye r no reform 0th· t 1 beac ers and a JI pup1·1 s
th e diffi culty or in "tiy
,n.cl.iasbl eedn proposed reaches
b ·
.
u r·ll
'
'
"
cons1 era e eo-r
vv J th e read er bear wit h m
·h' I
"' ee, o vmtes it.
w
1
e,
at
some
le
nn-th
I
·
e
out w I1at I consider to be the e vil ::ind
pornt
acl eq uate rem edy for it
'
en eavor to p10pose an
Th e fi rst school tha; I
l
l
ducted on the monitorial u 1;: e rt oo ;: to teach _was to be conformed the h iohe< t class . pl.rn, ancl thle momtors, as usual,
·
" •
'c ' an c " ere u nc er m s
· I ·
twn . Th e first time th~t I
d
. cl
Y , pecrn
rns trnc .rn E'rwlish
.
u
en
eavo1
e
to
"
Ive
tl
l csson
o-rarnm~r· I ,.
d
·h
"'
·
i
em
a
0
u
'
ioun t at th ey a ll
1· l
. · "'
. f
app 1ec to the
cl 1ctwnary to a scer tain to wh t
A s th e snme word, in cliffere~t ~flt o speec h a i~ord belonged.
different classes of word s an l \~umstan ces , mig ht belon g to
have exercised thei r in aen~it' .c ie pupils seemed never to
the us e that was m"c!e"'0 f ti Y ll1 attlemp trn g ro class words ltv
·
.
"
ie m m ti e se nte
I cl ·
·
cl 1·ctwnan
es to be ban i<hecl ::i cl ti cl fi .. nee, · 1rec1ed all
parts of speech to be th' • n I ~e 1e mtJons of th e various
lesson. 'When th e tim e a~~:f~~~ 1
ear~ed before the next
the read inn- boo]' aii cl I s ]i II
' r se lec'.ed a sentence from
D .
"'
" '
- a never 1oro·et 1t I t
-~ mot e Goliah . " "vVcll ,, .. 1 I
I o
·
. was," avid
r
l .
' Sa JC
to
t
JC fi rst pupil "
l
or :>f'C!CC .1 1" D,1 vi'rJ i" " A
.
·
, w iat part
- ·
·
noun Sil' " " \VJ
·
" A s 111is ta nti1:0 or nou n i- th
'
·
. iat Js a no un?"
o ! ' ll'hi l' h we h:ll' c an y n;ti o~.'i;a~'cl~fD~~~htng th.at exists , or
t11 c 11<u11 c 01' :~:n· thin o- that e ,· t. 1 ,, ~. N' rn thi s se ~ tencc ,
lo rJO' a rro" " ( · ' "' '·
x is s ·
o, sir; D av id died
,, '"' .
~ Il tne nam e of any thin <r of iv]1' ·} ,
h
"'
JC l } OU a 1·e

l

d

f.

- "' .'

1

143

any notion? " " Y es , sir; I have some notion of him as a
\' Cry small man, an d a king. " As the object was only to
ascertain the part of speech, I ask ed the next pupil whn t part
of speech smote was. "A preposition, sir. " "A preposition ! " said I, with astoni shment," pray what is a preposition?"
"Prepositions serve to connect words with one another and
to show the relation between them." "Very well," said. I ,
with all the importa nce of a tencher who felt it his duty to
expose the ig norance of his pupil, "what words does smote
l'Dnnect 1" "David and G oliah, sir, for there is nothing else
to con nec t them." "Yes ," said I, somewhat flurri ed, "but
what relation does it show between them?" " Not a very
friendly one , I sho uld think, sir," said the pupil. I was struck
11·ith th e truth of the answers, and had the honesty to say,
" You are right, miss, or the definition in your book is
wro nrr "

TJ{i~ incident shook my faith in the p erfection of Murray's
Grammar; and the long course of study which followed,
res ulted in the settled conviction that Murray's Grammar is far
from be in g synonymo us w ith E nglish gram m ar, and that any
tim e spent in teaching it is worse than thrown away. This
may seem a bold asserti on, wh en it is recollected th at, perhaps,
h11nclrecl s of persons hav e publish ed grammars founded up on
Murray's , and th e sc:ho ols of onr country, from one end to th e
other, for n ear ly half a ce ntury, h ave known no other, and
half th e teachers , and n early all the parents , seem to h ave
adopted the no tion, that to throw aside this very popular
grammar would be to throw aside tl'ie English language itself.
Twenty-five years ago , when I first struck for reform, the
cha rge of wishin g to corrupt, or, at least, to a lter th e language ,
was urged against me w ith n o li ttle violence, although I never
proposed any such alteration , and was mainly anxious to
prese rve th e "well of English undefiled." I have had th e
pleasure of seein g several of the im provements I then recommen ded very generally adop ted, but much rubbi sh y et remains
to be removed; and ns, in teachin g this branch, I differ fr om
my brother teach ers still more in regard to the matter to be
tuu g ht than in regard to the manner of teaching it, I \vi lt
venture to g ive the reasons for my conduct somewh at at
length.
. The human m ind being essentiall y th e same in e very ma n ,
it wo~ild be stran ge, if, in some i mpo rtan t respects, there was
not n de gree of similnrity in tlie la ng uages ll'hich thoi r

144

common wants have created. All languages, for instance,
would be likely to have words that were the names of objects
that could be the subject of sense or of thought. They would
ha ve words also to distinguish several individuals of the same
name from each other, and they would have another class of
words to express the actions that any object may perform.
Beauzee * expresses the same idea when he says, "Reason
produ ces every where the same results ; it establishes every
where the same sorts of words to represent, under similar
circumstances, -the same kind of ideas; it subjects words to
the same kinds of service, and it fixes the relations between
them as the ideas are related of which they are the signs."
A gra mmar whose object is merely to show in what respects
all languages agree, is called a general grammar; but lang uages do not agree in every respect, and a general grammar
would never enable us to learn those peculiarities which are
confined to a single language. How shall we learn them, then?
Is it not by studyin g such grammars as set forth these peculiarities in the clearest light, unmixed with the peculiarities of
any other language? Now, if it can be shown that the
gra mmars in common use , called English grammars, do not
exhibit the peculiarities of our language, but, on the contrary,
so mix up its peculiarities with those of other languages that
no distinct idea of English grammar is contained in them,
ought we not instantly to discard them all, and to endeavor to
find some one that shall be fitted to do the work that they
can never accomplish?
To understand this remark, let me give an example, taken
from th e L atin language. W e there find that the verb, or
word that expresses action, changes its termination more than
a hundred times, and, without the addition of any other word,
changes its meaning as many times. Thus, Amo
means I love.
Amabam
I was loving.
Ihave loved.
Amavi
"
Amaveram
I had loved.
I shall or will love.
Amabo
Arnavero
" I shall or will have loved.
Arn em
Amarem

ENGLISH GRAMIY!AR.

THE TEACHER S' INSTITUTE.

I may or can love.
I might, could, would, or should love.

* Bea.uzCe, nuthor of 11 l.nmmairc Generate ~
£1eme11ts 11 Ci:t>ssairt· s d11 La 1 1 ~~·;1!!t' :" 1:tc ,

011

Expo~itiQ1! l{qisonnlie d.e!J
·

145

Amaverim means I may have loved.
I might, could , would, or shoul~have loved.
Amavissem "
Ama

"

Love thou.

Arhare
Amavisse

"
"

To love.
To have loved.

Amor
Amabar
Amabor

"
"

I am loved.
I was loved.
I shall be loved.

Amer
Amarer

"
"

I may or can be loved.
I might, could, would, or should be loved.

Amator

"

Be thou loved.

Amari

"

To be loved.

"

Here are twenty forms of a Latin verb, each ~aving a
different termination, and each a diff~rence of meanmg, as I
have shown by the English translation that I ~ave. placed
oppos1"te to them . Now these chano-es
o . of termmat10n are_
called tenses in Latin grammars, and, "'.It~ one or two excep
tions, each of these has five other vanat10ns to express the
other persons in the two numbers. Thus,
.
h
Amo I love;
Amas, thou lovest; Amat, e 1oves'
Ama~nus we love; Amatis, ye love ;
Amant, they love.
The Latin verbs, therefore, have really more than a hundred
such chano-es of termination.
. .
Now h~w is it in our lanrruage? How many termmat10ns
have w~; or, if these chang~s of termination are called tenses,
how many te'!Ses have we? L et us see. We have
Love, lovest, loveth, loves.
Loved, lovedst.
Six in all! and, surely, there must be an a~azing differenc~
between the particular grammar of the Latm langu::ge an
that of English, and this point of difference,_ of course, it ~our
seem to be the duty of the makers of English gra:nmar- oo cs
distinctly to set forth. They have done no such thmg; but, on
the contrary, they have said that we have as many tenses as

l3

146

THE TEACJ-! EI(S' INSTITUTE.

th e L ati ns have; and Eng lish ch ildren, who could learn OlU
trrminaiilons, whi ch make bu t two tenses , in five minutes,
arc co: :1jwllcd often to wa ~ te years in lea rnin g the translations
of the: hu ndred La tin te nses , a lthough not one in a thousand
will c 1-<: r see the L atin words.
'_i_'!i is n1ul tiplicity of term inations has been called an advantage , a nd is said to add richness to the Latin tongue ; but it
see ms to me , tha t, if it is an advantage to have an a lphabet of
a fe w letters, liy the transpos ition of which we can express all,
and more than all that can be ex pressed by the countless hieroglyphi cs which the alphaliet superseded , the English language
ha:; an ad1·a11 tage over th e Latin in being able with six words
to e xpress al l that can be ex pressed by their hundred, and this
wi thout an y loss of strength, or any fea r of mi stak e.
T his will suffice for an example , and th e qu estion naturnlly
ari,es , " H ow cam e E n!!lish g rammar to be so strangely
perl' e rted? " Fortunately, this question ca n be satisfactorily
an s11·e red. B ut, if it be asked wh y disturb the cou rse of
instrn ction by introdu cing a new syste m into the schools? I
an swer that this qu es tion should have been put to L indley
Mur ray when he proposed his grammar; for the grammars
befo re his day hardly departed at all from the true idiom and
stru cture of our language. Th e teache r who has not access
to a ny g ood lib rary, and who takes, - as , I trust, every Massachu se tts teacher, who deserves the name, does,-the Commo11
. 'clwol Journal, will fi nd in the third volume a brief analysis
of some of th e early g rammars of our language , an analysis
which was made, I beli e ve, by a gen tle man, who, if I can
jud ge from his initials, W . H . W. , saw in those grammars
what the tru e principles of Eng lish g ramm ar were, and seems
to have approved them , ;rnd, nc 1·cr theless , went away and constructed a grammar of his own, wh ich , if possible , departs
furth er than lVIurray's does from th e simplicity of truth , and
docs not appea r to be in the least improved by the critic's researches. The analysis, however, as fa r as it goes , is fairly
mad e , and the follow ing is the result.
~: ix

Lilly's Grammar. This was a L atin grammar, though, in
a second pa rt, it touched upon English; "but," says W . H.
Vlf., "both parts are devoted to th e gramm ar of th e L atin
tongu e." The fact is, nobody studied En glish grammar
when thi s was publ ished, in 1513.
B en Jonson's Grammrtr , 1640. vV. H. 'vV. s:ivs of th is
g ramm ar, " Th e author attem pted to force th e• E: ;gli sh Ian-

ENGLISH GRAMMAR.

147

guage to the L atin idiom." This grnmmar was written in
English .
Dr. vVallis , 1653. "This learned man endeavored," says
W. H. Vl., "to free th e language from th e tramme ls imposed
on it by othe r writers, but he sometimes f ell into the opposite
extreme." Dr. vV. classed adjectives , pronouns, possessive
cases an d participles, with m er e adj ectives, and allowed no
moods, and on ly two tenses, to verbs. A s h is grammar was
in fac t the ba sis of my Common School Grammar, I shall say
more of it than the critic did, ancl shall herea fter endeavor to
show that Dr. vVallis fell in to no extre me, as the critic errone·
ously supposes.
John Brightland, 1710. The criti c says, "He thoroughly,

investigated every department of the subject, and his work
presents a striking contrast with many of our modern hasty and
superfi cial productions." He mak es but four parts of speech ,
-nouns , adjectives, verbs and particles. Pronoun s h e calls
nouns; the article and th e possessive case h e calls adj ectiv es.
He has no moods, and only two tenses. Participles h e calls
adjectives. The auxil iaries he calls principal verbs? and t~e
verbs after them infinitives with to und erstood, as did Wallis
and Ben J on son. Under the name of particles he includes
adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections.*
Gawrh, Ja-mes and Jolin, 1750. The cri tic says, " T his is
a prod~ction of little merit;" but h e gives no particulars in
regard to th e parts of speech.
. .
Ja-mes Harris, 1751. The Hermes of H arns 1s a gene.ral
grammar, and should not have been m ention ed by the critic
arnong En glish grammars .
.
A. Fisher , 1753. Four parts of speech, the same as Bnghtland's. H e has no' moods , and but three te nses. H e allows
but two cases, having no objective.
The British Grammar, 1762. This an onymous gramma r
has eight parts of speech , and calls the article and adjective
subdivisions of the noun . I t has but two cases, four moods
and five tenses. I t allows no potenti a l mood, and n o second
future tense, but, in other respects, is like Murray's Grammar,
of which it was probably the basis.
.
It is not known who was th e author of this grammar, but
he is en titled to the infamy of having led the way to a fatal
*T he se were the concl usions of a man who, it seems, had " t horoughly
investigated every depart ment of the subject of grammar! "

148

THE TE AC HERS' INSTITUTE .

rel apse into the wretch ed system, from which Wallis had so
pal ri otically redeemed our language.
Dr. Priestley, 1762. This very learned author had no
moods, and but two tenses. " He al so asserts," says the critic,
"that wc h ave no more business with a future tense than we
have with the whol e system of Latin moods and tenses."
Dr. L owtli, 1763. D r. W ebs ter says that. ·Wallis and
L owth are th e two aLles t writers on English grammar. Dr.
L . allows but two cases ; has fo ur moods, omitting the potential of Murray; and three tenses, adding the future to the
prese nt and past of his predecessors.
Dr . J ohnson, about 1763. This g rammar was prefixed to
th e g reat dictionary. The critic says it cannot be re rrarded
as a complete syste m of English gram mar. It contai~s one
brig ht remark, however , which th e critic seems to cite with
disapprobation. Dr. J. says , " Our language has so little
inflection or vari ety of te rmin ation s that its construction neither
requires nor admi ts many rul es." H e also objects to the use
of ne w terms or names in g rammar.
Dr. Ash, about 1763. This gramm a r is mentioned, but
n othin g is said by the critic to enable the reader to form an
idea of ils plan, except that th e au th or called it a n Introduction
to L owth's Grammar. D r. ,Ash rejected the passive voice, and
ca ll ed participles adj ectives.
'William ·w ard, 1765. Of Ward the cri tic sa ys, " He was
st ron gly inclined to the old system of instru ction, and used his
influ ence to re vi ve ma ny useless terms, whi ch had been
rejecled by Wallis and L ow th ." H as not the criti c done the
s;ime thing in his ow n .i:i:ramrnar , publi shed in 1846?
John Burn, 1766. T he critic g ives no idea of hi s system ,
and mi ght as well not hnve named him.
James B uchanan, 1767. " Stolen chiefly from the Bri lish
Grammar, " says the criti c.

.,.

The ill health of W. H . W. prevented him fro m con tin uin g th e lis t any furth er , bu t he broug ht it far enough to
show t~at, origin ally,_ En glish g rammar was made entirely
s ubserv 1 e ~t to th e L atm; th en, some noble minds, led on by
Dr. W allis, brol<e the shackl es, and made a proper English
g ramma r ; and, fina ll y , men of less ge nius and learning began
the rctrogre~sion, whi ch end ed in th e prod uction of Murray's
Grarnrn n r , ct id genus omne.
I prom ise d to sny something more of Dr. \Valli s's Grammar, hut ll't me fir~ t say a word nr two of the ma n .

ENGLISH GRAMMAR .

149

Dr. John W allis was a disting uished professor of geometry in Oxford University, one ?f the found ers of the ~oyal
Society, and one of the secretaries of the famous Wes tmms~er
Assembly of Di vines in 1644. Before he wa s honored with
the professorship, he was a clergyman, and, probably, a
teacher, for he tau rrht several deaf mutes to speak, and wrote
l a valuable treatise ~n the bes t method of instructing them. It
is to be rerr retted that no one seems to have thought of simplifying the labor of teachii:g these ur_ifortunates by adoptin.g the
Enrrlish Grammar of this true philosopher, who to this, no
doubt, owed much of his success in .teaching them to articulate
words. Dr. Wallis made some valuable discoveries in natural
philosophy, and his mathema'.ical .works led t? ~any important improvements. As a lmgmst he was d1stmgmshed,
and edited two or three ancient authors. He was therefore a
competent jud 0rre of general and particular g rammar, more so
than any that preceded or followed him, '".ith t~e exception,
perhaps, of Dr. Priestley, who agreed with him, and·
Lowth who wrote his Grammar, as h e avows, for the specml
purpos~ of h elping some of his family to study Latin and
Greek.
In the preface to his Grammar, nearly two hundred years
a<ro,
Dr. Walli s says : 0
to learn our language, com" Man y foreig ners who wish
plain of its difficulty; .an d even some of our. own countrymen
think it can not be subjected to any grammatical rules. These
evils I have und ertake n to remedy, in order that a lang uage,
in itself very easy of acquisition, may be so explained that
foreirrners may more easily learn it, and natives more
thorc°urrhly understand its true stru cture. I am aware that
others before me have attempted this, amon gs t whom are Dr.
Gill in L at in, Ben Johnson in English, and H enry Hexham
in Bel<ric · but no one of them, as I think, has adopted the
method bdst adapted to this design, for, all of tliem, by forcing
our lan"'Ua "'e to conform to tlie Latin model, liave g iven many
useless 1':uzeJ' about tlie cases, genders, and declensions of nouns,
the tenses, modes, and conju.gations of verbs, and otlier similar
thin as, u:liich a? e entirely foreign to our language, and
obsc~re and confuse, rather than explain it. On th is accoun t,
I have adopted a different method, which aims not s~ 1~u.ch
to exhibit th e u sages of the L atin tongue, as the pec uhant1es
of our own; for, what causes much trouble in other lang uages,

J:?r.

13*

150

THE TEACHERS' INSTITUTE.

is made a light affair in ours, by the aid of prepositions and
auxiliari es."
H ow, th en, do es Dr. Wailis construct his True En<Tlish
Grammar? I .will show, in as few words as possible. "'
I. H e has eight parts o~ ~peech,-the noun, adjective, pronoun, ~erb, adverb, prepos1t10n, conjunction, and interjection.
2. 1he arncles he calls ad1ect1ves.
3. ~Te has no c.a s e~ to noun s ; for the possessive case, he
says , 1~ a mere rtdject1ve, and not, like noun s, the name of
an y thing .
4. All adjective pronouns, and possessive cases of perso nal
pron oun s, he calls adjectives.
l 5. _Personal pronouns, h e says, ought to be called nouns.
.~e keeps them m a separate class, however, probably because
th ey .s~ em to have two cases, which he calls two states or
cond 1t1 ons.
6 . He has no active an d passive voice, no moods, and
onl y two tenses,- the two that Murray calls the prese nt and
1111 per fect.
7. Of ,\h,e, two parti ciples, wl~ich. h e calls active and passive,
h e says , Il: ey.are clearly ad1ec t1 ves, and, in every respect,
like other acl1 ect1 ves. "
8 . vVhat Murray· calls auxiliaries , he calls so, because he
says, th ~y have no auxiliaries th emselves, and no partici~l es.
As this JS no t true of be, liave, do, and will, and, since Dr. W.
trea.t~ th em alt as principal verbs, th e uti lity of calling them
a uxtl1anes JS not very appa ren t.
9. He treats th e oth er four parts of speech very much as
Murray do es.
Tl: is. is a bri ef summary of th e plan; and who does not see
th at Jt is founded in nat m e .and reason, and is more simple
than th e grammnr tha t pre vails ?
I am not aware that, in th e Common S cho ol Grammar I
lia.ve. depart~d in any important respect from the gr~at
pr~nc1ples la!d down by Dr. vVallis ; but I know that these
pnn c1plcs , sunple as they are, will not be received without
great reluctance, and I shall, at t?e risl~ of being tedious, say
a few words up on each of the nme pomts above noticed. It
wou l<l be a shorter way, perhaps, to refer the teacher at once
to m )'. Grammar ; but ns that is in te nd ed for children , I have
11 ot discussed a ny <lJsp uted ques tion, because this could only
pe rplex the learner, an d th e teacher should be convinced
wi thout obl igi ng the child to p::iy for the argument.

ENGLISH GRAi\!MAR.

151

1. In regard to the parts of speech. As we have names
of things that exist, a nd of those :dso " of which we have any
notion,'' we must have names for actions; but we have no
such names, unless the infinitive mode of lVIr. Murray, a nd
the present participle, when not used as an adjective, are
called nouns. This may seem a startling position, but it does
no violence even to the Grammar of Mr. Murray; for he
nlways governs the infinitive as he would a noun, and mr:kPs
a nomi na tive of it in the same manner; nay, he even allows
an adjective to qualify it, as in th e se ntence," To see th e rnn
is pleasant." H e does the same thing with the present pa rticiple, and why th en sh ould not th ese names of action at
once be called nouns. If it be said, "the infinitive must be
a verb, becau se the other modes and tenses are form ed from
it,'' the answer is, that, granting tha t they are so form ed , the
conseque nce does not fo llow. A head is a nou n, to !1ead is an
infinitive, I headed is an undoubted verb; now, if to head is
a verb because I headed is form ed from it, th en a liead
is a verb because to liead is fo rmed from th at. vVhnt is the
difference betwee n I love r eading , an d I love to read; writing
is useflll, and to write is useful; a nd why should th ey be
parsed differently ~ It is, therefore, no departure from e\·en
Mu rray himself to call in fi nitives and present participles
nouns ; but, if it were, I cou ld bring a uthority for doing so ,
with which Mr. Murray and his followers may not be com pared.
I shall content myself with only one extract from Dr.
Crombie's justly celebrated Grammar, cited with approbation
by Bosworth, in his valuabl e An glo-Saxo n Grammar. Dr.
Crombie says , "In what li g ht nre we to consider the phrase
to love, ge nerally termed a n in fini tive ; or to what class of
words is it reducible ? It cannot be a verb, fur it does not
affirm any thin g. It expresses merely an action or state
abs tractedly. H ence, many grammarians have justl y considered it no part of the verb; and, in the languages of Greece
and Rome, the infinitive was employed like a common substantive, having frequently an adj ective joined with it, and
subject to th e governm ent of verbs and prepositions. I
decidedly concur with those grammarian s who exclude the
infi ni tive from the appellation of verb. The an cient L atin
grammarians, as Priscian informs us, termed it, properly
enough, "nomen vcrbi, the noun, or name of the verb." In
the Common School Grammar, it is called a verbal noun.
2. The Article, also, is struck from the list of parts of speech.

152

THE TEACHERS' INSTITUTE.

153

ENGLISH GRAMMAR .

It may seem unnecessary to say a word in defence of this
act, for some of the Latino-English grammarians, and W. H.
W., of the Common School Journal, among them, yield this
point; and yet, not many days ago, a gentleman, of some reputation as a scholar and a teacher, undertook, at one of the
Normal schools, to expose my folly in uttering such a notion,
and, therefore, it may be well to waste a word upon his arguments, which have been reported me.
" The articles have a peculiar meaning and use, different
from adjectives," says my reviewer. vVhen I say, Give me
an orange, then, what do I mean, but that I wish for one
orange? vVhcn I say, Give me one orange, what do I mean,
but that I wi sh for an orange? So much for tm peculiar
meaning; and who can tell in what respect an is used differently from one? If it be still objected, that this similarity of
meaning and use proves not that an is an adjective, for one is
an indefinite adjective pronoun, I may gran t this, and be
contented, for the present, to call a, an, and the indefinite
adjective pronouns ; and the similarity of meaning and use
between the expressions, Give me a book to read, Give me
some hook to read, and, Give me any book to read, may help
to fix th e articles among the pronouns. We shall see what
adjective pronouns are, presently.
The must go into the same class also for the present, if
give me the book you are read ing, and give me tltat book you
are reading, mean the same thing, and the and that are used
in a similar manner. So " I saw the strangers you described,"
I saw tlwse strangers you described. " I will keep tlte book
that I hold in my hand," I will keep tltis book that I hold in
my hand, &c., &c. It is unnecessary to multiply examples.
The fact is, that the, although separated from this, that,
these, and those, and called a definite arti cle, is not so well
entitled to this distinction as they are; for, if the can be used
for any one of the four, and they cannot be used for each
other, it necessarily follows that the meaning of tlte is more
general or comprehensive, and, of course, less definite than
th eirs.
But, says my reviewer, "It is well to have a name and a
definition for th e articles, to call attention to them, and fix
th eir meaning in the mind, which is the only object of making
and definin g any distinctions." Well, then, what is his definition of the article? "An article is a word prefixed to substantives to point tltem out, and slww how far their signijica-

.
·t l " Let us test this definition, which my revie:''er
twn ex encs.
h la
ho hear me" 1s a
thinks so very impo~tant. "The sc o ; : :re told, poi~ts out

s~nlence a~d t~~~-~~r£~~:·far ~~!ir

e~tends.

good
s!gnification
tBhe sic o a:s, l"ned
to think the sirrnificat10n would be JUSt as
1
ut, am me
d the sentence were,
. •
. "d
limited if the were entire 1y om1tte , a~
I· use " who hear
,/Sclwlars, w!w !war me." Does not t e. ca ·~ tit out and
me" thourrh
not prefixed to th e substantive,. poi h ' z'
0
'
·
tends i and 1s not t is c ause,
·
· fi
show how far its s1g~1 caht10n elx
th which is so indefth erefore, a better article t an t 1e war
e,

d

inite that ~t may be omitted ?N . I h lars listen to me ! "
Arr:iin m the sentence , " orma sc ?
'
·
. " "/ . l . fi d to th e substantive ? and does It not
is not no11na pie ixe .
.
d 1 Wh is not Nor<how how far th e s1gmficat10n exten s ·
Y
, l a goo d article
then 1· - Normal scholars are, we a11
111a
.

kn~v:1in

~m!th

in the name, John Smith, John is prefixed to
lo
;he particular Smith out, nnd showhow far tl1e
cation of S_mith extends. John,_ then, m~~t b!J~e;e0 :i ;J, ~~~
So with wznd null, elm tree, bhm nd d~o:,. ., f the article. So
and barn answer perfectly to ts e 1mt10? ~
. 1
h
. d
I
d tell become s1m1lar aruc es, w en
b
even t 1e ver s grm a~ ·
d l .
crrind-stone,
prefixed to the substantives. st~ne anh·l~a,,e,; ~~· c°hild" "her
tell-t.ale . So the pronouns m
my c I , I .
II '1 conchild ,, become th e best of articles, .by fulfi !mg a t 1~e . 1
di.tio~s of th e defi nition that. my reviewer thmks so esoentrn.

~~~t

1

s1~?~fi­

.

·1
J" ed the definition
to show what a true article JS.
I have already shown how my pup.1 app J
.
that no
ol' the preposition to a ve/b, andhl he~~t:ra~~: ~r~:~ar is a
definition of an.\'. part 0 speec m ·ave this let us amuse
whit more .defi mte tha n that. Tl\~ prMurray'~ definitions of
ourselves with an expenment on '.·
the adverb, preposition anfd COllJ~n~t1.on.d to a verb an adjec" An adverb is a part o speec Jome
'
'
r
tive, and sometimes to ~not~e1:.adverb, to express some qua ity
or circumstance respecting it; as, He reads correctly.
He reads to me .

Ho reads as I do.

Correctly expresses some circumst~nce
of the verb reads, viz., its quality.
To expresses a circumstance of reads,
viz., its direction .
As ex presses a circum stance of rc~d s ,
viz., its resemblan ce to my rea clmg.

THE TEACIIEr~ s ' INSTITUTE.

"Prepositions _serve to conn ec t words with one another and
to sh ow the relut10n between them."
H e wished for a coach. It is not my business to say whether
for connects lte or wished with
coaclt, bu t I am in clin ed to think
the connection an d r elation would
be just as apparent if for were entirely omitted.
H e wi shed but a coach. H nt co nn ects _words as much as f or
does , an d Jt sh ows the r elation
bet wce.n wi sh ed and th e oliject of
th e w1 s b, viz., the relation of re-

striction.
H e wish ed tlten a coach. T hen con nects of course, though it
may be left out as for may, and it
shows th e r elation of time between
th e wi sh and the thing wi shed. ·

" A co11junction is .a part .of speech that is chiefly used
;o connect se nte nces ; 1t sometJm es connects only words."
~ wo and three are five. A nd con nects two and three.
wo wztlt three are fi ve . W itlt co nn ec ts the same words.
I wo more three ar e fi ve, Tha t is, 2 3 5.

J,

+ =

Bu t en ou gh of thi s ; th e defin itions are a ll wrona and I
sh ould ask pard on for this attemp t to expose what is~~ manifes tly abs urd .

3." N ext com es the subject of Cases. vVe h ave seen that
several of the ol d g rammari an s, noticed by W. H. W. , allowed
no cas~s, and others a ll owed but two,-the nom inative and
possessive . s.orne . En g lish grammarians a llow but on e case,
:rn u. some ~ln11 n .~1x,. not becau se we vary th e noun, as the
L atrn s can, rn. s.1 x---· differe nt ways, but beca use, by the aid of
;:~rt:1111 prcposn10n s , we can tran slate their cases into Enrrlish.
0
lhu s the L at ins say:
SINGU LAR .

No m inat ive, l-Iomo,
G enitive ,
Hominis,·
Da tive ,
Homini,
Accusative,
Hominem,
Vocriti ve,
Homo,
Abhtivc,
!famine,

which mea ns

"
"

"
"
"

Man.
of Man.
to Man.
Man.
0 Man!
with Man .

ENGLISH GitA!l!JIIAR.

155

PLURAL.

Nominative,
Genitive,
Dative,
Accusative ,
Vocative,
Abla tive,

Men.
Homines,
which means
of Men.
Ro min um,
"
"
to Men.
Rominibus,
"
"
Men.
Romines,
"
0 Men !
Romines,
Hominibu,s,
"
" with Men.

Now, if the L atin s have six cases , and we can translate
.hem by a phrase in English, we have as good a ri g ht to say
that we h ave six cases, as we have to say that we have four
or five moods and forty or more tenses ; because , forsooth, we
can, by plira;es, express what they express by only altering
the termin ation of single word s.
Dr. Crombie, by far the most judicious of modern gramraarians, says, " If we confine the term :z.oun to the na_me of
an object, we shall exclude the possess_1ve fr?m all nght. to
th is appellation. This is, indeed, an mc?ns1stency? :vh1ch
can in no way be removed, unless by adoptmg the opm10_n of
Wallis, who assigns no cases to English nouns, and considers
man's, king's &c., mere adjectives."
It is clear that, if " a substantive or noun is the name of
any thing ," man's, and king's, and John's, can not be nouns;
for who ever saw such a thing as a man's, a king's, or such
a boy as John's ? It is amusin g to sec those who do not
he sitate to place even the nominative or ~he obj~cti~e case
un chan<Yed before another noun, and call it an adjective, as
town cl~rk, city government, head ornament, are afraid or unwilling to call the possessive case an adjective, although there
is no difference of m eanin g or u se bet wee n town clerk and
town's cle rk; the city g overnment, and th e c-ity's governmen t;
ltead ornament, or th e ltead's ornament, &c.
The fa ct is , that, whe n w e use ·a possessive case befor e a
noun, we do so to distingui sh that object from others of th e
same name · and all words used for this purpose are adj ectives. If I ~cc several hats in a row, and wish to describe or
di stin a ui sh the m from each other, I call one new, and another
old, t; distin g uish their age ; one black, and another white, to
distinguish them by color; one fine, and a nother ~oarse, to
distinguish their quality; on e near, and another d·tStant, to
distingui sh their place; one John's, and another H enry's, to
plural. The uomiuative and vocative,_ in both numbers, am! the dative aud
ablative, iu the plural, arc :;cnerally a ltke.

156

. ,..

THE TEACHERS' INSTITUTE.

di stinguish th eir possessors. Whatever word I use to dis·
tinguish them becomes an adjective; an<l, if thi s is true when
a verb, as, tell tale; a noun, as, tale bearer; or an adverb, as,
the very man, arc used unaltered, how much rather is it the
case when a change is made in the termination, for the very
purpose of making an adjective of the noun, as the termiation ly makes an adverb of an adjective.
4. Adjective pronoun s are called so because they have the
nature of adjectives, and are u sed, like adjectives, to distinguish nouns. The best grammarians call them adjectives at
once; but som e pretend to have discovered that some of them
-not all-are occasionally used without a noun, and therefore
are said to stand instead of a noun , and so come under the
definition of a pronoun, which is said to be, " A word used
instead of a noun to prevent its too fr equent repetition." If
~\anding without its noun makes a pronoun of an adjective,
1t may reasonably be suspected that every adjective occasionally becomes a pronoun. In the sentence, " The wise and
good are scarce," are wise and good pronouns, because their
noun is understood ?
But, says a shrewd philologist, "It does not follow that the
~v ord s called pronouns sta.nd instead of nouns, any more than
1t ~ar: be tru~y said, that those wo!ds which remain in any
elliptic or abndged sentence stand mstead of the words omitted ." Such words refer to some noun that is understood, and
point it out, but they no more stand instead of what they point
at, than a guide-board stands instead of a town, to which it
only directs the traveller.
The greatest grammarians of other languages, as well as
of. the_ Eng lish, have classed all the pronouns among the
ad1ect1_ves; but I ha ve been contented with giving this name to
the adjecti ve pronouns, and the possessive case of the personal
and relative pronouns.
. Some, however, may ::ay , "We gran t that all the adjective pronouns may he used as adjectives, and may have nouns
und erstood , wl1ich may be easily supplied, but it is not so
with the pusse$sive cases of personal pronouns, for when, in
~ p eakin g of two hooks, we say, " This is mine and th at is
yours," although the word book is evidently und erstood, we
cannot supply it, for it will not do to say, "This is mine book
a nd that is y01crs book." This is all tru e, but th e tim e was
when nri11c Wfl S s pelled me-en, as yonrs was your-en, or, contracl0.d, ymtn1 , and this termination en marked an adjective

ENGLI SH GRAMi\IAR.

157

as much as ly now does an adverb. Yours is only your's, the
possessive termination, which, it has been shown, marks an
adjective.
But, what do mine and yours stand inste_ad of? If t~e
conversation is between William and J ohn, mzne means William's, and yours means John's. It has been shov;n that
vVilliam's and Joh n's, not being names of person.s, are not
nouns, and, consequently, if mine and yours stand rnstead of
those words, they cannot be pronouns, for pronouns, the gram·
mar says, are words that sta11d instead of nouns, and not
instead of adjectives.
.
Again; if mine and thine, hers, ours, yours and theirs, _are
used without, or instead of, nouns that can not be supplied,
this is not the case with th e possessives his and its, for the
noun may be introduced by the side of these, and this may
lead one to doubt whether the use of the words mine,
yours, &c., precludes the introduction of the nou~. W ~ find,
therefore , that although, in the case above ment10ned ~ it may
not be graceful to say , " This is mine book and that 1s yours
book," yet it is perfect'.Y corre?t to_ place the word ~oak else.~
where, and say, "This book is mine and .that book 1s yours,
in which sentences mine and yours qualify book as much as
new and old would in the sentence, " This book is new and
that is old,'' it being ungraceful to say. "This is new book
and that is old book."
But, if the English nouns have no ch ange of termination
entitlinO' them to the distinction of cases, they can express all
the L aITn cases , and many more, by the help of pre~ositi?n~,
or often without their aid. If a noun does any thin g •. It is
a~ agent; if somethin_g is done to it, it is an object . Th e_ two
words an-ent and obJect, are the only n ew ones, I believe ,
that hav~ been introduced into the Common School Gram·
mar, and whether they can be better explai ned than the teri:is
nominative case and objective case, th e teacher will soon discover by trial.
.
5. P ersonal pronouns were called nouns by Dr. vVall1s,
and by several succeeding grammarians, and it would be
much easier to prove them to be so than to prove that th ey
are pronouns. They do, howe~e r, ha:'e this pecu liarity, that
the nominative case or agent 1s a different word from the
objective case or object. Then, it may be ask ed, why_ not
call the variations of personal pronouns cases a t once, s;nce
there is really ::i difference in th e word s ? Case 1s den ved
l "l

158

TH C TE ACI! E llS' INSTIT UTE .

from casus, a Latin word, 1yhich, some say, means an accident, th e change of termination being considered an accident;
or, as other s say , because the cases f all a.ff from the nomina·
tive. Now, in neither sense , is the objective of the pronoun
of the first person a case ; for me and us are not produced by a
change of termination, nor by any such acciden t as happens
to Latin nouns. It is safer, th erefore, to say that I is an
:igcnt, and me an obj ect, and to leave th e word case un til the
chil d learn s som e lan g uage to whose noun s the term is appli,:al >l c. An y on e who will take the tro uble to read Mr. l\forr:ty"s rcrnarks under th e term case , w ill sec enou gh, I think,
to sicken him of thi s propensity to a pe th e classic lan g1rnges.
6. But the great point of difference between Dr. W allis,
Dr. Priestley, Dr. Crombie , &c., and Mr. Murray and his
imi tators, is in the manner of treating the verb. This difference is so essential that it must not be lightly disregarded;
and the teacher is bound in con science to weigh well the
question , "What is the verb in English, and in what manner
shall it be presented to th e 1:-iind of a child?,,. It is generally granted that the English verbs have r eally no great
v:t riety of termination, and yet we are told that th ere is a
propr iety and a convenience in gi ving the name of tense to
certain English pltrases, because they are translations of
L atin tenses.
The example of a L atin and Engli sh verb that I hn.ve
g iven on pages 144-5, mu st go far, I think , towards showinrr
that there is no propriety in givin g th e nam e of tense t~
certain English phrases, which are like hundreds of other
phrrrses, and have no better ri ght th an they to this distinction.
Why n ot take oth er lan guages than La tin , and translate th e
lenses of th eir verbs, and ~ ay we ha ve those tenses, al so?
Wli o can tell where we shall stop ? X'
But, . s ~~ th e old _sr:hool grammarian s, "We certainly ha ve
three d1v1sions of time , present, past and future , and th ese are
snbdi".ided." No one will deny that all nations have an id ea
of past time, and of thi s, as of the prese nt, history treats.
!hey have an iuea o~ fut~re '.ime , also, and this is the pro v!nc:e of prophecy or 1magmat10n; but, because the idea of
these three divisions of time is common to all nations, it bv
no mean s follows that all nations have the same manner of
0

* \V c need go no further than th e Greek to find :tn Optal i 1'c mood of which
the prc::;en l tc11sc o: I!:n ·:crh /-t"O would he c11uivalcnt to n ! wi ~ h to 'g n. 11

ENGLISH GRAMMAR .

159

expressing their ideas. The English, as has been shown by the
best authority, h ave but two tenses, the present and th e past;
but th e English is not so singular in this respect as som e
other languages. Michaelis, in his Syriac Grammar, says ,
" Th e Syrians, like the rest of the Orientals, have but two
tenses, the past and th e futur e ;" but, he adds . "by the help
of the verb or pronoun, they can express the five tenses of the
Latins, and even a sixth tense ; and they have a sort of present form ed bv th e coalescence of the pronoun and verb in to
one word; but I have not given these tenses a place in my
paradigm, lest I should cumber it uselessly." What a pity
that Mr. Murray, and those who, with him, have "cumbernd
the English grammar uselessly," ,h~d not been ble~sed Wll~
some portion of the great German s .Judgme~t and d1scret1o:i .
There is no propriety , therefore, m thrustmg so many ·miscalled tenses into our grammar; and, as there is no good
authority for any such abuse, let. us see if t~ere is ~ny c?nnenience in it. It may be convenient for a child who 1s gomg
to study Latin to learn th e phrases that correspond to the
Latin tenses; but is it fair to impose this task upon every
child? The number of children in the public schools of
Massachusetts is about 175,000; the whole· number of
araduates annually from our three colleges falls short of two
hundred. A few study Latin without going to college , but
such do not make any extensive acquaintance with it, and an
allowance of 300 per annum will be liberal. At this rate, o_ne
child in about six hundred of those who go to school studies
Latin, and to accommodate this one, five hundred and ninety·
nine are compelled to learn what is of no. use to th~m, an_d
what r eally is an insurmountable stumblmg-block m their
way. Can any thing be more unjust?
But it is convenient, say some, to have our grammar conform to other lang uages, that foreign ers may learn it more
easily. This must be. a mistake altoge the_r. Grammars constru cted for the use of foreigners, are differently composed
from the common rrrammar. They are compared with th e
lanauaae to. be lear~ed, and our ternis are translated irito the
tcn~s ~sed by the other. Cobbett, who made a good grammar for En 0<Tlishmen, made a very different one for Frenchmen to lear n English. But, grant that t~e making of our
grammar on a foreicrn model h elps the foreign er, the proporrion of foreirrners ~vho study English is as nothing to our
own childre~, especiall y when it is cons idered that we can

160

ENGLISH GRAMMAR.

THE TEACI-llrns ' INS TIT UTE .

adapt_ our language to only one foreign idiom, and ju st as far
as Jt 1s for ced to resemble one, it is made unlike th e rest.
But in spite of th e unnatural form of the common Enalish
0
g rammars, some say there is a convenience in havin o- the
mood s and tenses and th e pass ive voice, and we can teacl1 the
use of th e lang uage better with them than without them.
Vlfe have seen th at, fr om the year 1653, almost till Mr. Murray's clay, certainly for more than a century, no such thing as
mood s, and only two tenses, were a llowed in the grammars ;
l1u t who w1ll pretend that th e Enrrlish la1wuaae was written
·I 1css purity
·
o been
"'
\\"J t l
and power in "'what has
called its
f~u s· u stan age , than at any time before or since ? Addison,
Swift, S teel, Pope, J ohnson, Horne Tooke, and Junius, were
edu cated m_ this per10d, a_nd it is very clear that the English
language did not suffer rn their hands. It is clear that no
such thin g as moods and tenses would have been dreamed of
had there been no such thino- in L atin · that is had the Eno-~
o
. Il never lmown that there
" was any' other language
'
I is
than
th eff own.
I regret d1e necessity, but my plan requires that I should
cx::unme thi s matter. of conv~nience more thoroughly. If it is
an object to teach children this mixed grammar, the advantages
should more than balance the disadvantaaes not to the few
but t? the_ million ,_whose only obj ect is to Iea;n English. I~
certamly 1s less chfficult to teach a child two tenses only, than
to teach hun the comm on system of voices , moods and tenses.
L et us contrast th em by a paradigm.
PA ST TENSE.
PRESENT TENSE.
The_ pre;ent tense, being th e r~ot of the past, is placed
below 1t.. The nam~ of_th e verb bem ~ a noun, and the participles bcmg mere adj ectives, the Engli sh verb h as but the two
fo rm s. a_bo ve _given. and these are all it needs. Compare this
~ 1 mplic1ty w1_th the common system, as displayed in the following parach gm.

•

•

•

•

•

•

161

Im Ill ii •

Compound P erfect.
Compound P~r~ect.
Perfect Participle.
Perfect Part~c~ple.
Present Participle. [ ] Present Participle.
PARTICIPLES.
PARTICIPLES.
Perfect Tense.
P erfect Tense.
Present Tense.
Present Tense.
INFINITIVE MooD.
INFINITIVE MooD.
Second Future T ense. Second Future Tense.
First Future T ense.
First Future Tense.
Pluperfect Tense.
Pluperfect Tense.
Perfect Tense.
P erfect Tense.
Imperfect T ense.
Imperfect Tense.
Present Tense.
Present Tense.
SuBJUNCTlVE MooD.
SuBJUNCTIVE Moon.
Pluperfect Tense.
Pluperfect Tense.
Perfect Tense.
Perfect Tense.
Imperfect Tense.
(OJo·
Imperfect Tense.
Present T ense.
Present Tense.
PoTENTIAL MooD.
PoTE NTIAL MooD.
Present Tense. ·
Present Tense.
IMPERATIVE Moon.
hIPERATIVE MooD.
Second Future Ten se.
Second Future Tense.
First Future T ense .
First Future Tense.
Pluperfect Tense.
(OJI"]
Pluperfect T ense.
Perfect T ense.
I
P erfect Tense.
Imperfect T ense.
Imperfect Tense.
Present T ense.
Present Tense.
INDICATIVE Moon.
lNmcATIVE MooD.

lOJ

ACTIVE VOICE.

PASSIVE VOICE.

In teachina what resembles a certain tower of old times,
and what fro~ th e confusion it produces, may also not improperly be ~alled Bab-el, it is expec_ted that the child should
learn not only the names of the v01ces, moods and tenses, bt;t
1he distinctions that are said to exist between them. But this
must be impossible, for the builders o'. the tower do not always
arrree in their definitions and explanat10ns, and when they happ~n to agree, they cannot always make themselves und erstood.
I shall not attempt to reconcile them, but shall endeavor to
show the absurdity of the whole structure

14*

162

TIIP. TEACHEH S' IN STITUTE.

The bases of the two towers are the two voices. Let us
look rrt them. Th e whole passive voice owes its existe nce to
th e fact that, in Lat in, there is something of th e kind, as has
been sh own on page 145. This voice is formed by adding the
pe rfect participle of any verb to some tense or combination of
th e verb B e ; as, I am diseased; slie was concerned, &c. It has
been shown that the perfe ct participle is an adjective qualifymg nou ns or pronouns, as other ac!J ectives do. And in this
case, we mi ght say I n.m sick, instead of I am diseased, and
s he \Vas an:1:ious, for she was concerned. No on e denies th at
diseased a nd concerned qualify th e nomin atives I and she, as
sick and anxious do; th en wh y not call them adj ectives at
once? and as th e child is supposed to know how to conjugate
th e verb to be, and kn ows what an adjective is, why compel
him to learn five moods, twenty tenses, and a hundred and
twen ty persons, fo r the sake of a me re notion called a passive
vo ice? Many perfec t partic iples have adjectives nearly sy nonymous; an d ':V~at reaso n is th ere for res tricting the passive
vo ice to participles , when they are situated and used like the
adjec tives, and in some cases mean the same thing? If the
child knows the forms of the verb B e, h e can place after them
any participl e or adjective that expresses his thou g ht, without
knowin g or caring whether the p hrase is a passive verb or not.
Some g r:::mmar-makers, and many teachers, have h ad the
good sense to r eject the p:::ssive voice, but several a uth ors still
reta in it, and, u seless as it is, it will not be dropped without a
stru ggle. Dr. Crombie, one of th e best modern grammarians,
rejects the passive voice, and Bosworth , whose An glo-Saxo n
G ram mar is also a precious En glish g rammar, says , "If th ese
cases be rej ected by common co nsent fr om En gli sh noun s,
w hy may not the passive voice , and all th e moods and tenses
formed by a uxiliari es? Vofe shall then see this lan g uage in
its primitive simpli city. Dr. ·w allis, on e of our old es t and
best g rammarians, has divested the En glish of its Latinizcd
forms, and, when speaking of his predecessors, says " - and
here he quotes th e sentence already gi ve n on page 149.
Dr. "'Webs ter, who preceded Murray, and, notwith stanrlin ir
all his learn ing and good sense , was superseded by h im, say~
i,1 the first edition of hi s Grnmmill', "J\.s to passive verbs , we
h~"'c n o such thin g in our language. I can not be tter express
niy ideas on this subj ect than in th e words of Dr. Ash, who
oboen 'es that, ' Properly speakin g th ere is no passive verb in
the En gli ~h language ; for thou gh I am loved is com monly

ENGLI SH

163

Gll A ~U1All.

called a pass ive verb, yet loved is no part of the verb, but a
panicipl e or adjective , d ~ rivcd . from the v ~rb love.'"
Let us leave th e passive voice, then, wllh but one remark ,
to show how carelessly the verb has beei: defin ed by Mu.n ay
and his followers. They say," A verb 1s a word that srgmfies to be, to do, or to suffer; as , I am , I rule, am ruled."
Th e child, of course, concludes that I-am-ruled is a word, f~r
it is a verb, and Murray says a verb is a word, and a. word 1s
bnt one word. If the defini tion be correct, no passive verb
conforms to it, but the passive voice furnishes some fri ghtful
words, as I-might-have-been-loved; If-I-shall-h ~ ve-been-loved,
&c. &c. The definition sh ould read, "A verb 1s a phrase that
sirrnifies,
- accordin g to its meaning ! "
0
Havina0 despatched the voices , let us look at the moods.
Of th ese as we have seen , the earlier and better grammarians
had non~; for, allowing but two tenses to English verbs~ th ey
h:::d nothin g to make moods of. Murray fo'.1nd four rn the
old British Grammar, and h e added a fifth, which h e separated
from th e s ubjunctive of the L atin and of the British Grammar,
and called the potential. This was the greatest departure of
Mr. Murray from th e model he followed, and it is rather
amusing to see that one of his followers has transf~rred .the
whole poten tial mood of Murray, not back to the subjunctive,
whence it was taken but to the ind icative ! If such tran sfe rs
c:::n be made, there 'certain ly cannot be a very defi ni te line
between th e several moods, - no line that a child can ever
discover; and will not the absurdity of such distinctions cause
all the moods to coalesce at last into one, as it was at the
beginnin g ?
The infinitive mood we have shown to be a mere noun.
The imperative differs no more from th e in?icati~e than ~ve~y
verb that asks a question does. Depart ye'. is the imp~ra:1ve. if
it have a period or note of admiration after 1t, and the rnd1cat1ve
if it have a mark of interro rration. " Depart ye, and begone !"
"Depart ye so soon?" This may. not prove that .there is. no
imperative, but it does pro ve that if we have an 1mperat1ve,
we ouaht for th e same reason , to have an interrogative mood.
Mu;ra~ says, " The nature of a mood r:iay be ~ore in:elligibly explain ed to th e schola r by observm g , t.h at. 1t con ~ 1sts
in the chan rre which the urb undergoes to signify vanous
in te ntion s or° th e mind and variou s modifications and ci rcumstances of action." L~t us try this explanation, which Murray
says is so mu ch better than his defini tion. "Love ye," says

!

164

THE TEA CHE RS' INSTITUTE.

he, ·:,is the second person plural of th e imperative mood. Ye
love, he says , " is the second person plural of th e indicative
mo od, presen t tense , ,~nd If ye love is th e subjunctive present,
As no one will preten d, I trust, that the
second person plural.
p ronoun ye, or the conjun ction if, is any part of the verb, the
scholar may reasonably ask, "What chanrre do es the verb
undergo to sign!fy various in te ntion s of the ~nind," &c.? It
do cs no such thrng . The verb und ergoes no chanae.
If m ood denotes '.' the manner in which th e verb is ~mployed ,"
ns Murray rrnd his follow ers say. then who is to determine
how m.:,in y form s of speech , or mann ers of using the verb, there
are .1n English. Mr. lVIurr~y says, " Th e indicative mo od simply
mcl1cates or declares a thrn g, or asks a qu estion ." Here are
two form s of expression as different as two · can be for when
a man asks a qu es tio n, he does not indicate or de~lare anytbrng, and he generally chan ges the place of the nominative.
Mmray seem s to have had a notion tha t he was embarkrn g on an ocean wi thout a shore when h e promulaated his
system of moods, for he says, after making five moods, " It is
n ccessary to set . proper bounds to this business. Instead,
therefore, of making a sep~rate mood. for every auxiliary verb,
~nd rn troducmg. moods interrogative, optative, prornissive,
. w r~alz've , precatwe , &c., we have exhibited such only as are
obv10usly ~1 st rn ct,'_' &c. H e certainly is economical, when,
und er the 11nperat1ve mood, he includes a ll verbs that comma~d , exho rt: e ntreat, or ~e ~mit, that is, the imperative, hortatzve, precatwe and permisswe mo ods.
. I have sometimes tl:ought tha t, when I was myself in the
n gh t m?ocl, and had leisure, I wou ld carry out Mr. Murray's
sugges t1?n, and see how many moods can be mad e, as good as
hi s sp ec ~mens. There . would be th e progressive mood, as,
I am trying, I was learning; emphatic mood, as, I do love, I did
Zou ; the optatzve mood, w hich omits the nominative, "Would
zt w~1;; s.o ! " The regrettive mood, " 0 tliat I were as in clays
pas.t . for, why 1s not 0 as much entitled to create a mood,
as if ~r tliougli ? - The expostulatory mood " What ! kill me
fo r dorn g my duty !" &c. &c. As these m;ocls would have a
due vari ety of tenses , if the tower of Babel is not already
" Ill th e cloud s," it may easily be raised th ere thoucrh I should
IJc nshamed to have Him who gave us the ' noble"' fa culty of
~ pc; cc h , "com e down to see what fo lly the so ns of men had
IJuildcd."
The w}i.olc sy', te1n
o f mooc Is seems to me s11 ffi
- ciently

!\ir.

ENGLISH GRAMMAR.

165

ridiculous to authorize this treatment of it; but I must proceed
to exa min e th e claims of what are called the tenses.
Dr. W allis, Dr. Priestley, Dr. Crombie , and other learn ed
men, could see but two te nses in our language; for they considered tense to have the same meaning in English as in
Latin, viz., not time, but extension, from the L atin word tensus,
th e tenses in Latin being extensions of the simple roots, an
addition to them, or merely by a change of termination . Dr.
Lowth could not conceive of a language without a verb to
express future time, and h e added a future tense to the presen t
and pas t of his predecesso rs. H e used a phrase, however , to
supply what he supposed to be a defect, nnd set an example
that was pregnant with mischief; for, fr om that time to this,
the number has gone on increasing, until it has doubled, and
more than doubled, if th e liypothetical tense of a late author
is to be accepted by th e faithful, and duly canonized by
authority.
We a llow, then, two forms, which, in the proper sense of
the word, we are willing to call tenses , and we call them present and past, not because th ey actually denote any division of
time, but because they appear to do so. The authors of our
Latinized grammars seem to have thought that we could not
speak of the fu ture and other di visions of tim e, without setting
apart some phrase for the purpose, although our ancestors
contrived to do this without any grammars. But while they
were about it, th ey should either have given us all th e modes
of expressing future tim e, or none of them. They no doubt
singled out sliall and will as sign s of this tense, because t~ e
word to is omitte d afte r them; but we have other phrases m
which the to is omitted, and a great variety of ways in which
futur e tim e is as well ex pressed. Indeed, I should not be at
all afraid to assert that no verb ever expresses time, and of
all tenses, that which is supposed to be the most exact in this
respect is reall y the most indefinite. I love, for insta nce, is
said to denote the present time ; but it does no such thin g.
When I say," I love every good man that I see ," do I mean
that I only do so at this moment? Far from it; I mean to
say that I have l011ed them, do lo ve them, an d shall love them.
Hold and do are said to be present tenses, but when H amlet
says to Horatio, "Hold yo u th e watch to-night?" and Horatio
says," W e do, my L ord," wha t are liold and d~ but fu ture
tenses, since th e watch was not ye t se t? Go, 1s a present
ten se in good repu te, but when Peter s:iy~, " I go a fi shin g, "

166

TIIE TEACHERS' lNSTITUTE.

and his companions say, " W e also oO'O wi'th th ee ," go, wJt· h•
out any auxiliary, makes an excellent future. I am, of course,
1:3 the r:11tcrn .o~ present tenses, and yet we constantly say,
I a1n to IJe pum:rnccl, I am to die , &c. &c., in which sentences
am JS as good a ft~ture as any in the world. Henry Martin,
rn a letter to a friend, says, "One thina I have found that
th ere ~ re ,but '.wo te~1ses in .Pe:·sian a~d English. I~ the
sc 11 tc nce , I will go, the pnncJpal verb is I will, which
1~ _the. presen t tense . In 'I would lzave gone,' the principal
vci b is 1 would or I willed. Slw uld , also, is a preterite
nam e_ly_, slzallcd, from to sliall." [See Martin's Life, p. 312.J
Bosw or th, afte r makrng the above extract f\-om Martin adds
"He might h:ive added that go and lzave, after wilz and
slwul~, we re verbs m the in5niti ve mood." The excellent
Mart'.n probably had never seen any English grammar but
Munay s, and no doubt thought he had inade a area! dis·
covery when he_ made th e declaration I h ave quoted. "u it took
the gifted ~'Iartrn s.o long to see his error, how long will it take
the less ~1ftecl rmlhon s, who are in the same darkness to
grope_ th en· way into the same degree of light?
'
. vVill _not the very general belief that the verb expresses
~zmei excuse me for dwellrng a moment longer on this sub·
3ect · Mr. Murray. says, I may go, I can go, I must go, are
present tenses, bu.t 1t woul? be difficult to find any phrases in
which the tun e JS more rncl efinite. I may go now or next
year; I can go ne:i;t yea_r, but not to-day; I mu st go tlzen, if
I do not noz~. vVha~ 1s call ed the present ten se seems to
speak o~ all tzme, or w1thou.t .referen ce to any tim e, :incl hence
use It to express proposition s that are true at all times ; as,
" Two and two are four." "The wicked flee when no man
pursuetll." "The poor work for the ri ch." If the English
languatl'e, th eref?re, possesses. any tense capable in itself of
expressrng futunty, that tense is \\'h ;it Murray and his followers call the present! No th ing, too, is more common than to
use this present ten se, when we are speakin g of p ast occur·
rences. . Any preacher would think it right to say, "Jesus
souls awa y the mul titude and r etires apart to pray." The
hi storian says, " Alfred, encouraged, takes a harp and enters
the camp of th e enemy." If it be said, this is firrurative
language, I .grant it; but it is said of past events, and it is not
imgrnrnma tic a! .
Mr. l\Iurra y pbces shall and will among the defective
vcrLs, bemu se , he says, they lack som e form s of a regular

w;

ENGLISH GR.'\.Ml\IAR.

1

167

verb. He calls sliall and will present tenses, and g~ves sliould
,md would as their past or imperfect tenses. But, .if sh~ll and
will are n ever used without an infinitive after them, 1f th ey
make that infinitive future, and are never used except to
denote future time, how can he consistently call slzall and will
present tenses? And if he allows, as he does, that they are
always sicrns of the future, how can they have the past tenses
should and would? But should and would are as much future
rrs shall and will; for, when I say, " I should go next week, if
he would let me " in what does the futurity of the expression
differ from that ~f "I slzall go next week, if he will l~t me."
So, "I would play to-morrow, if I could," and, "I wzll play
to-morrow, if I can."
. .
If I will my proper~y to r;1Y son, ~o 01~e doubts that .wzll 1s
a present tense; but, 1f I wzll an act10n instead, the w1l.l, forsooth, is no longer present, but future! And yet, I w~ll go,
expresses a present act of the mind, as much as I wzll my
honses and lands. This has generally been conceded to _me
by teachers, but they say they cannot get over shall so easily.
Let u s see what Dr. Crombie says of this auxiliary. "Shall
is unquestionably a derivative from the Saxo1,1 sceal, I owe or
I ouglzt, and was originally of the. same import. I slzr:,ll
denoted It is my duty, and was 'precise]~ synonymous ,wtt~
debeo in Latin. Chaucer says, " The faith I shall to God,
that is "The faith I owe to God." "Thou shalt not kill,''
that is' "Thou ouo-htest not to kill." In this sense, shall is a
presen~ tense, ana"' denotes present duty or oblig:ation. But
as all duties and all commands, though present 111 respect to
their obiigation, must be future in reg;ard to their executio~,
so, by a natural transition, observable 111 most languages, this
word, significant of present duty, came to be a note of future
time. I have considered it, therefore, as a present tense,
because, 1st, it originally den oted present tense; 2cl, be~a~se it
still retains the form of th e present; and, 3d, because it is no
siiwular thinrr to have a verb in the present tense expressive
of fn ture tim~." p. 140.
When, therefore, we say, "I will go," we only express a
present determination to do an action, ':'hich may never be
done· but which, if done, must necessarily be subsequent to
the a~t of th e will. So whe.n we say, "I shall go," we express a present obli gcltion so imp era ~ive, that it amounts to a
determina tion, to go. It is just so with all words that expreso
any act of volition, '' I wish to ~o,'' is as good a future tense

168

THE TEACHER S' INSTITUTE.

a~ I will go; and " I determine to go," is as aood a future as
either "I will go," or" I shall go." "I hop: to go," "I expec t t?, g o," " I propose to ~o," " I intend to go," " I desire
lo go, &c., &c. , &c.~ are sJtuat~d. exactly like " I will go,"
th e ?n ly _d,ifference bemg the om1ss10n of to before the followrng rnfi111t1ve, an accident common to the verbs bid , dare, let,
and others, as well as to these mystified auxiliaries.
But many who yield that the passive voice is unnecessary,
that the moods are of doubtful character, and that the future
tense expresses no futurity , make a stand at the perfect and
pluperfect tenses, and. re fu se to give them up. It was behind
th rs tense that my fri end at the Normal School, to whom I
have before alluded, entrenched himself· for he could not
allow, that, in the sentei.1 ce, " I have le~rned my lesson,"
have could be the prmcipal verb; for, says he "I have
learned my lesson," is as different in meaning fro:O " I ha~e
my le~s~n learned," as sorrel horse is from horse sorrel.
Now, It is not p~·ete nd ed. th~t, when the participle is placed
befor e the noun , its meanmg 1s exactly the same as when it is
placed after It, but on!y that it is still a participle qualifying
the noun . :'V:hen I say "I have learned a lesson," it is clear
that I have It rn the condition which is called learn'd. So it
has been said it is absurd to say, "I have my purse lost," for
"I have lost 11'.Y purse ," because , says the objector, "I can·
no.t have what IS lost." T~i s reasoning amounts to nothing;
fo1 lo~t expresses the condition of th e purse, and modifies the
meamng of ha ve , very much as the negati\'e not does in the
se~ite n ce, " I h av~ not my purse ;" a nd who will pretend that
th is latt~r phrase 1s not good English, because it is somewhat
paradoxical 1
This objection ap~ears with more force in the perfect tense
of verbs that a re said to be intransiti ve; as, "I have aone "
" I ~a.ve been ," " I have sinned. " I have no doubt thaf the~e
part1C1ples are .mere adjectives, and qualify the nominative
to the ve rb '. as 1f the verb were what is called passive; for I
hm;e. ffone is equivalent to I am gone ; been expresses the
con cl 1tion of I, for the objector will not admit that be ex·
presses any action; and " I have sinn ed " is equivalent to " I
am a sinner; " in which case , sinner qu~lifies the nominative
befo~e the verb, . as every nominative after a neuter verb
qualifi es th e no m111ative before it.
Dr. Crombi e had a right idea of this tense when he said
" It is compo11nd11d of the .present tense of
the verb d enotin~0
.

ENGLISH GRAMMAR.

169

possession and a perfect participle. It clearly refers to present
time; this, indeed, the composition of the tense manifestly
evinces." If I have, then, is the present tense, and written is
a participle, t~ey must be called by their right names and
treated accordmgly, whether we can tell what the participial
adjective qualifies or not.
I suspect that if participles and adjectives in English were
varied by gender and number, as they are in French and
Latin, we should soon see what they agreed with in these
respects, and, of course, what they qualified.
The participle amatus, is not only varied in connection
with the verb sum to express the two numbers, but a·lso to
express the three genders. Thus the Latins say:
Amatus est,
H e (a man) has been loved.
Amata est,
She (a woman) has been loved.
Amatum est, It
(a thing) has been loved.
Amati sumus, W e
(men ) have been loved.
Amata! sumus, We (women) have been loved.
Amata sumus, We (things) have been loved.
The French say :
L'homme que j'ai vu;
The man that I have seen.
L a femme que j'ai vue;
The woman that I have seen.
L es hommes que j'ai vus ;
The men that I have seen.
L es femmes que j'ai vues;
The women that I ha ve seen.

In these sentences , the French participle is varied to agree
with th e noun, or with its relative que.
In L atin , the phrase I have seen is expressed by one word,
vidi. But in the indicative, perfect, pluperfect and future
tense of their passive voice, amatus sum, amatus eram, ama·
tus ero, sum is the only L atin for I am, eram for I was, ero for
I shall be; and yet these tenses are always translated, I have
been loved, I had been loved , I shall have been loved; and not,
I am loved, I was loved, I shall be loved. The French have a
similar idiom, and say, "Je me suis blesse ," which we translate "I have hurt myself;" and yet suis is the French for am ,
and not for have. As there was a time when French was
more fashionable in England than English itself, it is not to
be wondr:red at if some idioms have become common to both
15

l'i'O

171

TI-IE TEA CHERS' INSTITUTE.

ENGLISH GRA1>11\IAR .

languages. vVhen, therefore, these classical cavillers account
for su.m's meanin g I have in French , or I have been in L atin,
it wi ll be time enough for them to complain of the obscurity
that seems to hang over the English use of have for am, or
of !tad for was.
Whenever I have repeated what all the philosophers have
asserted, that the verb is a word expressing what is done, the
grammatikins have always thrown the verb to be at me, and
cle mand~d wh ether th at expressed any action. If, as is pretendo cl , It expresses abstract being, without the idea of action,
1t wo uld only be one exception to the most extensive rule in
our language ; and if th e existence of a single exception be
good grou nd for rejecting a rul e or a principle , less would be
left of iVI urrav's Grammar than remained of th e two feline
combatants ~n th e fi eld of Kilk enn y. I cannot consent to
arg ue this qu estion at length, for, if the teacher thinks th at be
never ex presses any kind. of action, he can consider it an exception, althou.;rh I do not. I shall, therefore, con tent myself
wnh only askrng h ow a person can be active if be does not
express any action? Whan God said , " L et light be," who
supposes that lig ht was, an d nothing was done? When the
Creator called himself the Great I AM, did h e mean to call
himself the Great I nactive ? When I te ll a coward to stand
and be a man, do I merely tell him to continue to exist a noun
of th e masculine gender? 'YVhen I add be to a noun, whence
comes the activity expressed by the compound? Is there no
act ion in be- fool, be-friend , be-head, be-sieae ? Numb is an
adjective, but is Jack Frost idl e when he be-numbs us?
"When a learned teacher once told me th at h e could do nothi(lg with a class of teach ers afte r I had be-grammared them,
did he mean tha t my teachin g produced no effect 1
So with th e division of verbs into active, passive, and
neut~r; I see no necessity, and less propriety, in any such distmct10n. I have shown that I am sick, he is dead, &c., are as
good passive verbs as I am diseased, h e is deceased, &c. Murray says, " A verb pass ive expresses a passion or a sufferi1w,
or. the receiving of ail action, and necessari ly implies a"n
obj ect acted upon , and an age nt by which it is acted upon;
as, P enelope is loved by me." Me is the agent, then, intended by J\'.Ir. Murray . An agent necessarily impli es action ,
:. t~lll the act10n r~ust be rxpressecl by the help of the verb is,
~ l not solely by 1t.
Su 11pose th e se ntence were, "P0n clo; 1e
1s offended with me, nn• vithstand ing I lo ve her; " me, [ sup-

pose, is the agent implied, and Penelope is only th e nominative, or, as Murray an d his followers say , the subject of
the verb. This is the same, as if, in regard to the sentence,
" P enelope hates me," I should say, I do th e hating , an d
Penelope is the subject of it. I may not have a distinct
idea of nonsense, but this comes up to my poor idea of it.
How simple, compared with such absurdity, is the grammar
of Dr. Wallis, which would say that P enelope is the agen t of
is, and loved or offended, like sick or mad, are only the adj ectives qualifying P enelope, or expressing the condition of her
mind.
This theory of the passive voice obliges those who adopt
it, to give up the true de fi nition of a nominative, and to say
that it is the subject, and not the agent of the verb; a most
un fortunate result, if only th e confusion arising from a new
use of a well-established ex pression be considered; for, if it
be tru e that, in the sentence , " I lo ve P enelope,'' or " I ~tudy
history,'' I is the subject of love and study, then P enelope is
not the subj ect of my tender thoughts, and history is not the
subject I am studying, although I meant to say they were .
'YVhen we say, Victoria governs Ireland, we of course mu st
mean that she is the subj ect of the action expressed by th e
verb governs !
Again ; Murray says , "A verb neuter expresses neitber
action nor passion, l;)llt being, or a state of being; as, I sit, he
lives , they sleep." When the master tells the child to sit,
then, he tells him to do nothing! I sit , and I am seated,
mean the same thing ; but, according to Murray 's defini tion,
th e latter expresses passion or suffering , and the former does
not ! If any believer in such stuff were compelled to sit three
hours on the hard and narrow seats to which children are
confined in some of our district schools, without any support
to their backs, or any resting place for their feet, we are
inclined to think he would find action and suffering enough
in the neuter verb sit, and if he did not ge t into a passion,
also, he would be a miracle of patience.
Moreover, when I say, "He sits on a horse ,'' " He livP-s
upon fish," " They sleep in pain," these verbs, we are told,
"neither express action, nor passion or suffering," but " bein g
or a state of being." And ye t, althou gh the n euter verbs ex·
press neither action nor passion, Murray says, "They may
properly be called intransit·ive, becau se the effect is confined
within th e subj ect, and do,,,. not pn ss over to any object."

172

THE TEACHERS' INSTITUTE.
ENGLISH GRAMMAR.

The ejj'ect , th en, of sitting on a horse is confined to the rider,
and th e horse never feels any effect from his load ! ! The
~Oect of living upon fi sh is confined to the eater, and not felt
by the fi sh ! When the watchman sleeps, the effect is confined
to him self, and nobody else suffers! The fact is, the action
of .e.very neuter verb may he conveyed to an object by a prep·
os1t10 n, and, although there may be a difference between
su ch objects a nd those of active verbs, they are objects still.
If I se nd a child to school, school is just as much an object of
the mission as child is. Prepositions, says Mr. Murray, serve
to connect words and show the relation between them. If
this means any thing, it means that prepositions connect verbs
wi th obj ec ts, and show the direction of the action expressed
by the verb.
I hope th ese remarks upon the common definition of verbs
will not be set clown as unimportant cavils, for they are serious
obj ections ; no system liable to such cavils being fitted for the
use. of children, or capable of being explained to the satisfaction of any mature, unbiased mind; for," what reason never
d ictatecl, reason can never explain."
My list of adverbs, and my use of them, do not differ materially from Murray's. Prepositions I define to be words
showing the direction of som e action or tendency previou sly
expressed, and this is strictly true of all rei:tl prepositions,
exce pt oj; which , sin ce it dropped an f , s1=ems to express the
relation of possession, unlike its original, off. Concerning,
touching, during, pendin g, and such words, are participles, or,
as I call th em, adj ectives, and not prepositions.
I allo w Murray's list of conju nctions to k eep th e name, but
I do not di vide th em into copulative and disjunctive, becau se
if a conjunction connects, it is idle to call it copulati ve, and
absurd to call it disju ncti ve . B u t and or connect sentences as
much as and docs, and th e sentences are non e th e less con·
nected because there seems to be " an opposition of meaning."
I say ~eems , \or it admi ts of question whether, in the example of
oppos1t1on give n by Mr. Murra y , "They came with her , b11t
th ey went away without her," th ere is any other "opposition
of meanin g" than in any two sentences connected by and; as,
"He preached peace, and practised war. " Nay, in the sen·
tence selected as an example by Mr. Murray, and may be
substi tute d for lrnt without altering the sense ; "They came
with her, and we nt away without her."
A s it regnrds in te1jections , none are allowed to be such,

173

but those natural sounds, which can hardly be considered a
part of arbitrary language. Silence ! Hail! Hush ! and such
words, belong to other parts of speech. There seems to be
no doubt that the interjection was the first part of speech
formed; for man, like the lower an imals, has a natural language, which he uses before he learns that which is purely
conventional. The infant makes its wants known long before
it can talk. That the first man, when created, resembled an
infant in this respect, there seems to be no reason to doubt;
for the first notice we have of his uttering any words, is when
the animals were presented to him to see what he would
call them. And what did he call them? By some name,
undoubtedly, that expressed some peculiarity; as, in English,
we have a few significant words, buzz, hum, hiss, rush, bawl,
blow, &c., &c. This would indicate that, next to his natural
language, he must have used nouns; and infants do the same.
The young being says, "Ma, baby, bread,'' and the mother
understands him as well as if he used a verb, and was familiar with its hundred variations. If it be said that we are
told that God spoke to Adam before he named the animals, it
can hardly be supposed that h e did this literally; and, if he
did, we are not told that Adam answered. The child often
understands what is said to him long before he can utter a
word in reply. Men make words only as fast as they need
them to express ·ideas, and nations having th e fewest ideas,
• have the fewest words. This simple and natural theory is
not contradicted by Scripture or human experience. I shou ld
have preferred the name exclamations for such words as are
called interjections, but I have thought it prudent to continue
the terms in common use, and, except in calling the nominative case an agent and the obj ective an object, I do not know
that I have altered a single term, although the necessity of
using many has been clone away, such as the names of the
moods and tenses, participles, auxiliaries, articles, adjective
pronouns, possessives, &c.
Many private teachers have candidly confessed to me that
the reformation I proposed was very desirable, and would
greatly reduce the labor of the teacher, wh ile it enabled the
pupil better to understand and use the language; but an
acquaintance with other grammars was a prerequisite for
admission into high schools and colleges; and a pupil would
not be supposed to know any thing, if he did not know
the popular system, although familiar with the works of all

15*

ENGLISH

174

·.

_,

GRA~1MAR.

175

THE TEACHEllS' INSTITUTE.

the great philologers, who, to a man, reject it. Why is it that
reform so generally commences at the foot of the educational
ladder? One would think that, where there is the most
learning there would be the most enterprise , th e most independence; but I fear that those who accuse the higher seminaries of proverbial attachment to old forms and fixed abuses,
do them no injustice.
In my visits to the Institutes of New York and Massa·
c.husetts, I became acquainted with more than a thousand
teachers, and I am not aware that I met with one who felt
satisfie(l with any grammar that he had seen, and very few
had ever been able to make the study of grammar an agree·
able exercise to their pupils. The reason is obvious; the
teachers, not one in five hundred of whom had studied
Latin, did not understand the mixed L atino-English grammar
they were called upon to teach, and how could they explain
it to their pupils? But, give them the pure English grammar I have endeavored to describe, and let them require
their pupils to write English as soon as they begin to read and
:;peak it, and no exercise will be so agreeable to the child, and
so useful to him in all his other studies.
May I be excused, if, after all I have said on the subject of
i;-rammar, I say a few words more, by way of caution, to
tectchers. Perhaps there never was a time when there was
~o much need of care and activity as now, to prevent the cor·
rup tion and decline of our excellent language. The press '
has delu ged the land with a flood of books, some of which
art! worthy of the best age of Eri glish literature, but the mass
of which are to be shurined fo r their faults of style, as much
as for their emptiness, or positively demoralizing tendency.
T he teacher who wishes to make a selection of passages con·
t:w1ing false grammar, or fa ulty construction, to be corrected
by his pupils, may readily find abundant material s in the
light literature, as the heavy trash is called, of the present
clay. He will find novels, tales and romances, written in a
style often inferior to the sentimental effusions of a boarding·
school girl ; nay, he will even find many volumes written
with the perverse intention of disregarding every rule of
En glish grammar and orthography. Works of the Jack
Downing school, witty as some may be, have done more mis
chief to young and old, in a literary point of view, than a
regiment of well qualified teachers can undo in half a
century. Our newspapers, too , which, without pretending to

do so, exercise a powerful influ~nce over the ~opular style of
writing and speaking, have, w1tb few exceptwns, stooped to
cater to the vulgar taste for cant expressions and sl~ng
phrnses ; and writens who aim at pure and elevated English,
bear no proportion to those who study to adulterate and destroy our noble tongue.
.
Teachers, therefore , must set their faces sternly aga~nst
this evil tendency of the times. T.h ~y must wrnrd agarnst
the use of corrupt expressions, and ng1~l,Y prohibit t~e use .of
them in the conversation and composit10ns of theu pupils.
They must be careful to associate more with persons whose
conversation is correct and refin ed. They must set a watch
over themselves, as well as hold one over their.pupils. It
was my custom for some tim~, u~til I had established a sort
of public standard of conversat!on i~ my school, to rew~rd any
pupil who detected anoth~r m usrng. an ungrarr:matical or
vulgar expression, or even 111 pronou°:cmg a word imprope rly,
bv rriv in rr her what was called a mentor good mark; and 1f
she"' dete~ted me in any such misdemeanor, she was entitled
to five such merits. E very expression or w.ord so reported
was recorded on a sheet kept for the purpose m a conspicuous
place, and the conse'.luen~e was, that, in less than a ye~r, the
record sheet was laid aside, because we ~ad no matenal s. to
auament it. A sheet of this sort, kept without any promise
of~·eward, will be found hi ghly beneficial to both tcac11er and
pupil s, and will do more to banish bad language and bad
P'.·onunciation, than all the set grammar !es.sons that can be
C:lYCn.

~ I have aone more at length into the subject of grammar,

bec.ause I fhink that, in teaching it, we have departed further
from the truth than in any other study; and we have ?~ne
this without any reason or jus.tice. Hundre~s. of enterpnsmg
tel.'.chers, who allow the justice of my positions, and have
been desirous to attempt the reform I have proposed, assure
me that they have been unable to do so, because t~e . committees are not enlio-htened on the subject, or are unwilling to
assume the responsibility of taking the lead. In this exposure
of the prevalent system of.English grammar,. the:efore, I have
had the comm ittees as well as the teachers m view, and ~ da
earnestly en treat them to take t~e subject into. th~ most senous
consideration. If they complam of my radicahsm, let them
remember, that I only ask them to eradicate foreign weeds,
that have been scattered amongst our wheat, and have well-

176

THE TEA CHERS' INSTITU TE.

nigh choked it. Many who have allowed that I have told the
truth in rega rd to the matter of geography, and the manner
of teaching it, are afraid of my ultraigm in English grammar;
Lut let such be assured that I have proposed nothing so radical in grammar as they have approved in my remarks on
geography. Finally , if any accuse me of a want of modesty
in so often referring to my own grammar, let such remember
that there is no similar grammar to which I can refer; the
grammars in common use being based mainly on the abuses
introduced by lVIr. Murray, and the truly philosophical works,
on whose authority I rely for all I ha ve asserted, not being
accessible to one teacher in a thousand. Indeed, in referring
to my grammar, I, in fact , refer to Dr. Wallis and other men,
whose opinions and works I have studied with ever increasing
wonder at the per versity, which, for so long a season, has prefe rred darkness to light, falsehoo d to truth, mystery to simplicity.
Some of the sternest opponents of this proposed restoration
of English grammar to its original simplicity, look with favor
upo n the new science of phonography, a nd are ready to introLluce it into common use ; and yet this new science proposes a
revolution immeas urably greater than the proposed change of
grammar. The frie nds of phonography, it is true, propose to
disca rd the foreign alphabet, as I do the foreign grammatical
terms ; but their success will render the external form of our
language a dead letter, and send every scholar to learn his
a, b, c, again. The restored system of English grammar
requires no study, for he who knows Murray 's Grammar,
knows too much already, and has only to drop a portion of
what he has acquired. A person, for instance, who has
studied the popular grammar, knows what an article is, and
what an adj ective; and when he is told to class the articles
with adjectives , it costs him no effort. He knows what a
possessive case is, an d by what noun it is governed; and
when told to call it an adjective qualifying the same noun
that is falsely said to govern it, he find s no difficulty. He
knows what is meant by auxiliary verbs ; and he has only to
call them all principal verbs, followed by a participle, which
he must call an adjective, or by an infinitive mood, which he
must call a noun , governed by the auxiliary, or rather, the
object of it. My system alters not the construction of any
sentence , or the Nthography of any word; it only removes
what docs not belong to our grammar, and by so doing reduces

ENGLISH GRAMMAR.

177

the labor of teaching it moro wun one half; and, by making
it more intelligible, makes it more pleasant to the learner.
Having full faith in the practical good sense of my countrymen I have full faith in the final success of the system of
En rrlish that I would restore , and I mistake greatly the signs
of ti'he times if the restoration is not speedily to be accomplished.

118

COMPOSITION.
I HAVE already said that every step in English o-rammar
shoukl be a step in. English composition, and my grammar
prov ides fo r this uni on of th e two . I h ave said also that
every step in reading and spelling should be made ~n ex~rcise
rn En glish grammar also. But little remains, therefore, fo r
me_to say on the subject of composition .
Tltc orthog raphica l exercises contain ed in the Companion
to Spellmg-Boo lcs, . the copying of short pieces of prose and
verse , and the wntmg of easy sentences from dictation, made
my.riupils early ac.quainted with the mechanical part of compos1t10n, syllab1cat10n, th e use of capitals, the division of sen·
tences, punctuation , &c. As soon, however, as the child
seemed to requi re some hi ghe r exercise, I was accustomed to
call up th e li ttle class, and tell them a short story or anecdote,
and th en require th em to write th e same story in their om1
lan&"u:-ige . As I continued this course for man y years, suitable
stones became scarce, and at last I was oblirred to make them ·
as th ey were wanted. This labor was for~ed upon me also
by the fact, that the pupi ls read more story-books than I did,
and, too often, some one of the class was not a stranger to the
source of th e story that I. had selected. In this way I prepared a .vast num~er of suitable lessons, of which I published
several 111 my Primary R eader, to which th e youno- teacher
may refer for materials, until he find s it for his inte~est himself lo make such lessons fo r his pupi ls.
_ About this period of their education_, my ~upils generally
began to study some other lan g uage th an th eir own, and this
afforde~ me a fi ne OJ?portunity to forw'.lrd them in English
cornpos1t1on. I requHed most of the1r translations to be
written, an.cl I corrected them as carefully as if this were the
prnna.ry ob1ect of ~he new study .. Children, who are required
to. wnte a trnnslat10n, are more likely to examine the idioms
of both languages ; and as th~y are only to supply language
to cl?the th e id eas of the fo reign author, th is exercise may be
req nirccl m uch earli er than a set composition .
·
My n ext 'tcp was to sel ect a subject, and wr ite

COMPOSITION.

179

such notes or questions as would guide the thoughts of the
children, and suggest, perhaps, a few of the leading ideas connected with the subject. The subject, with notes, written
fairly on a sheet of paper, was posted up in the school-room,
so that no pupil could plead ignorance of what was required.
When the pupil had but a small stock of ideas, and was
prepared to express th em, I was accustomed to call ·th e class
around me, and after stating the subject of their next composition, I conversed with them about it, allowing them to ask
questions or discuss each others' opinions, until their minds
were awake to the bearin gs of the subject, and then I sent
them away to write what they had gathered from the conversation. I am inclined to think that the children were
benefited, in more ways than one, by this fr ee interchange of
thoughts; and were I again to become a teacher, I think I
should make conversation a regular exercise of the school.
Finally, I gave a subj ect to the highest class, and left them
to write upon it as best they could, without any assistance.
If the pupils were studyin g Rhetoric, I found full employment
for them by requiring original as well as selected examples
of the different figures, or of the different kinds of style. If
th ey were studying Prosody, exercises in th e composition of
verse were frequ ently required. I found the translation of
short poems from some foreign language a valuable exercise,
and the poetical part of my "French First Class Book"
contains a hundred or more suitable poems for this purpose.
Another method by which the pupils were enco urao-ed
to
0
exe:t. themselves, was the recording of all praisewonhy cornpos1t10ns m a neat book kept for the purpose. I have several
volumes that were filled in this way by my pupils; and on
win ter evenin gs, it was not un common for the parents to
assemble at the school-room and listen to the readinoof selec0
tions from this record .
Besides these set exercises in composition , I occasionally
called the classes around a black-board, and tauo-ht th em
punctuation by writing sentences for them to punctuate an d
~o rre c t.
Of course, t~ere may be some difference of opinion
m regard to some pomts, but the rules of punctuation are
about as well settled as those of grammar, and yet on no one
subject, perhaps, are .youn g teachers so much at a loss. May
I be excused, then, if I say a few word s to them for th eir
guidance and encouragement.
Th e comma is the main stop, and, .o f late, it has alm ost

180

TH E TEA CH E!lS ' INS TIT UTE.

superseded the semicolon , colon and parenthesis. A correct
kn owledge of the use of the comma is, in fact, one half of the
whol e science of punctuation. The followin g rules, perhaps,
embrace the greater number of occasions when the comma
must be used.
1. T wo verbs , nouns, or other parts of speech, followin g
each other, and not connected by an d, must be separated by a
comm a; as ," That wise, good and great man lived, labored
and died for his fellow-creatures. "
2. The word and is equivalent to a comma , and, when it is
understood, a comma must be supplied; as, " Wise, good,
great men li ve, labor, die fo r their fellow-creatures. "
3. Nouns in apposition arc separa ted by a comma; as
" J ohn, kin g of E ngland. "
'
4. The name or epithet by which a person is addressed
must have a comma after it ; as, " John, come here !" "My
good friend, forgive me ! "
5. The phrase that includes a case absolute with a participle,
as Mu rray calls it, must be preceded and foll owed by a comma ;
as," They, all hope being lost, surrendered."
6. Certain adverbs are generally preceded and followed by
a c.omma ; as, indeed, perhaps, moreover, therefore. Nay,
besides, firstly, secondly, &c., at the beginning of sentences
or phrases, require a comma after them.
7. \Vhen the exact words of another are quoted, the quo tati on mu st begin with a capital and follow at least a comma.
The quotation marks must not include words not borrowed;
as , " Go,' ' said she, " but return soon; " and not, "Go, said
she, but return soon. "
8. A comma marks the omission of a verb; as , " To err is
human ; to forgive, divine. "
9. All paren thetical clauses or words, that is, all words that
may be omitted and not destroy th e sentence , mu st be preceded and followed by coI?mas; as, "Grammar, properly
understood, 1s a simpl e affmr; but , unfor tunately, it has not
been so understood ."
Th e ancients made no use of punctuation, and thi s has led
to. ;nany m_istakes , and much difference of opinion among
cnt1cs. It is probable that to the absence of these points the
ancient oracles owed much of their renown; for the response
was generally given so that it would be true whatever was
th e event. Jt is said that a Grecian kin g, doubtful about the
poli cy of innuling a neig hboring kin gdom , sent to Delphos to

COM P OSITION.

181

ask the opinion of the oracle. The answer was no~ p~nc tuate~;
and they read it, " He shall go, re tur~, n~t be slam m battle.
He went and was slain; and when his friend s reproached the
C"acle wi th want of truth, they were told that they had read
the answer wrong ; its meaning being, " He shall go, return
not, be slai n in battle. "
The semicolon must be used when a comma does not seem
to be sufficient that is, when more than the sma\J.i<st pause is
needed; but it .should not be used instead of a period, as is
too often the case. It is difficul t to give any invariable rules
for its use .
1. It generally separates clau ~e s rath er than . words ; as,
" He may become the victim of misfor tune ; he JS mcapable of
crime. "
2. A comma follo wed by and, or, but , f or, because, yet
seems to be equivalent to a semJcolon ; as, " He may become
the victim of misfortun e, but he is in ca pable of crime. "
Many writers, when in cl_ou?t as to the p:oper stop, make
free use of the dash, but this 1s a bad practice, and teachers
must not tolerate it in their pupils.
The colon is rarely used, and , perhaps, is never necessary.
Usage places it still after the words, to wit : as follows :. thus :
and after the abbreviation, viz: but, in other cases, 1t had
better be avoided.
The p eriod marks the end of a coi:nplete . sente? ce , and the
teacher mu st be careful not to let his pupils strrn g together
several sentences. They must be encouraged to write short
sentences at first, and should always be required to cut up
such as are too long to be easily managed. Thu s the following sentence may be cut into two, a.t the semicolon._ " T o
live is pleasant, and to die may be gam , but, as there JS some
doubt of the gain, most men desire to live ; let them not, however, forget, that death cannot always be put off, and he whose
life is lengthened only to be misspent, will gain li ttle by the
extension ."
It is a common thing for makers of spelling-books to say
that a comma requi res a pause long enougl1 to count one ; a
semicolon, two; a colon, three, and a period , four. S ome,
who have felt wise, have ridiculed this rule , and said, that
some co.mmas require a longer pause than merely to count
one. As the books do not say how fast a person mu st coun t,
it is but fair to conclude that the authors meant that every
reader should count to please himself, making th e semicolon
16

182

TlIE TE AC HER S' INSTIT UT E .

twi ce as lun g as th e comma, &c., after the length of the
cornma is ngrcccl upon . Some s:1y , also, th at, at a comma
and sem icolon, the voice mus t be k ept up, and others mock at
this. Y ct, it is a safe rule for children, who have little judgment or discret ion, and I sh ould so teach th em at least one
ge neration longer.
The cxclamal.ion point sometim es seems to conflict with
th e note of interrogation ; as, " vVhat is more ami able than
vir tn c?" If no answer is expected, the exclamation may be
11 sc:1l, althon gh the sentence has the form of a qu estion.
E very qn csti on must have the interrogation mark after it ,
but it must not be pbced after words that are no part of the
q uc~tion ; ns, " Did you cal l me? si r," and no t, " Did you
call me, sir?" whic h has a very different mea ning.
As many teac hers are at a loss whe ther the voice should
ri;;e or fa ll at the end of a question, I may be exc used for
g iving the m tho almost invariabl e rul e, that, " If the question
can be answered by yes or no , the voice must be raised, and,
in all other cases, it m ust be all owed to fa ll."
T he p arenthesis, 1. ), and brackets, [ ],are less emplo yed than
fo r mer] y, and are often misused. For this reason, I never
allowed my yo unger pupils lo use the parenthesis, but required com mas instead. The correct rule is , to use the parenthes is wh en what it encloses is a so rt of comment upon the
rest of the sentence ; and to u se th e brackets when what they
enclose, thou gh usefu l information, is no part of the sentiment; as, "An eccentric cle rgyman, preaching against the
fashion s, selected the text (and a ridi culous conceit it was)
' T op no t, come clown!' [Matt. xx iv. 17.]"
T he drLslt , placcll a fte r a comma, semicolon , colon or period,
length e ns th e pau se. Sometimes it only rn arlfs a broken
sente nce. If the te ac her all ows it to be used to lengthen
pau ses, h e must not allow it to be used instead of them by
childre n.
The hyphen mu st never be u sed a t the beginning of a line
wh en a word is di vided, and no word mu st be di vided except
at th e cnrl of a syllable. No monosyllable can be divided by
a hyph en.
The a7Joslrophe marks th e Possessive Case, as Mr. Murray
ca ll ~ th e ndjP.ctive thnt is formed fr om every noun by adding
the apo,t rop he and s, or the apostroph e a lo11e. In other cases,
it 1narl;s the omission of one or more letters . I•fothin g can be
more loosc t h~ " th e prevale nt custom of using th e apostrophe.

COMPOSITION.

183

For a general rule, it must neve r be used to omit a letter in
prose, and never, eve n in poetry, if the om i ssio~ does not ~lter
the pronunciation of the word. In the Compa mon to. SpelhngBooks, I have given many rules an d exercises on tlus subject.
As th e ( • ) is used to mark th e end of a sentence, an abbreviation, a nd the place between units and de~imal fr~ctio~ s , the
teach er .vill do well in the first case to call it a period; m th e
~eco n<l, a dot; a nd in the third, a point.
Ever y word abbreviated, unless it be by an a postrophe,
must ha ve a do t placed after it. This rul e is so little regarded,
that teache rs cannot too carefully look to it. At eve ry Teachers' I nstitu te the S ecretary of the Board of Education required the young teachers to write a letter, and the result wa.s,
that not one in tw enty knew how to begin and end one, m
every respect, correctly. I shall do a favor, then, by giving a
form, wh ich th ey may follow with safety.
Boston, Oct. 14, 1846.
J ohn Smith, E sq.,
My dear Sir,
I herewith send you a copy of the
"Teachers' Institute, " which has been written in great haste,
but with great good will. Of course, all des~ript~on s must
be dull compared with an actu al lesson, but, if this volume
shall enable you to profit, h owever li ttle, by my long experience, I shall be well rewarded for my trouble in writing it.
Yours, very r espectfully,
Wm. B. Fowle.

If more epithe ts are u sed a t the end, let each occupy a differen t line, thus :
Very respectfull y,
Your humble serva nt,
Wm. B. Fowle.
Recollect that no dot of abbr~viation must ever be placed
after an entire word. The address of the person for whom
the letter is intended, should always be written on the inside
of the letter , and it is safer to begin with the name· than to
place it, as some do, at the end, on the left hand side ; for, if
left to the last, it may be forgotten; a nd if placed first, should
the letter be misdirected on the outside, the direction on the
inside will first strike the eye, and induce any honorable person to close it at once, and consider it a sacred trust, to be

'- -

184

1&5

TllE TE AC HElt S ' IN ~ TlTUTE.

kept in ch::irge for the real owner. It is safer, too, to put the
date where I have placed it, lest it should be fo rgotten. I
generally omit the pwce after the name of my correspondent,
b11t some ca refu l merchants always insert it, that, if the letter
fa lls into the wrong hands, the error may be rectified. When
I insert the place, I direct the letter at the end, for the sake of
appearan ces. May I be excused if I warn my young female
friend s of the besetting fault of their sex, the entire omission
of tbtcs, especially in what they consider unimportan t billets.
May I also caution all writers of letters to superscribe them
as fast as they are written. I have twice received letters from
gentlemen, who, in writing to me and to their wives, at the
same sittin g, sealed both letters, and then directed them to the
wrong persons. F ew persons fold a letter well, and seal it
neatly, and none can be too careful in directing it to write a fair
hand. T he name of the person should be much larger than
the common hand of the writer, and the name of the place,
larger still. If directed to a town of the state in which the
writer resides , it is not customary to place the name of the
co un ty, as well as that of the state, after the name of the
town. Some omit both county and state, and the postmasters
un derstand that a town so left is in the state where the letter
is mailed. But, where the town is in another state , the town,
county, and state, if known, should all be plainly designated.
My position, as publisher of the Common School Journal,
has led me to notice th e great in attention of teachers to these
forms, or I should not feel authorized to allude to what seems
so obviously proper.

THE MONITORIAL SYSTEM;
t1 Lecture delivered before the T eachers' Institutes at Ando·
ver and dsewhere, in Oct., 1846, by W1LLIAn1 B. FowLE.
M Y fellow-teachers, I think you will bear me out in the
assertion, that one of the most difficult parts of a teacher's duty
is th e keeping of every pupil usefully employed all the time.
The number of children in our schools is often so large , that,
if divided into few classes, the class is so large that it must
embrace many who are unfit to work together; and if the
classes are numerous, some must be neglected, becau se it
requires as much time to hear the recitation of a small class
as of a large one, the length of the lesson being the same.
I know not that I can enforce this point more clearly, and
more effectually, than by quoting the words of the first President of the E ssex County Convention of T eachers, the Hon.
David Choate, who, while chairman of the Committee of
E ducation in our L egislature, is reported to have said," I am
confid ent, from my own observation , tha t nearl y all occasion
for severe discipline in schools is owing to the fact, that most
children at school really have nothing to do for a very large
part of the time. In n school of fifty scholars, no one is entitled to more than three minutes and a half of the teacher's
time in half a day. The child must sit still, if he can, nearly
three long hours, and a teacher is held to be no teacher, and
his school, no school, if children so situated - play. Innocent creatures , the hope of parents, and the hope of the state,
are whipped fr om one end of the commonwealth to the other,
for no earthly reason than because they have nothing to do
that they know how to do. Now, sir, what is the rem e dy~
It is, clearly, to employ so many assistants as to occupy the
whole time of the pupil. It is sometimes said that a child's
time is not worth any thing, and if they are out of the way,
no matter if they do not learn. That parent makes a wretched
bargain who gains relief from the presence of his child by
sending him into a large and idle school. H e may learn
nothing there that is valuable, but it by no mea ns follows that
he learns nothing. Idleness is the hotbed of mischief, the

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