OF THE ENGLISH SENTENCE BY JONATHAN RIGDON "Mend your speech a little, lest you mar your fortune" -KING LEAR HINDS, NOBLE & ELDREDGE NEW YORK PHILADELPHIA Grammar of the English Sentence. 85 cents. English Grammar for the Common School. 60 cents. English Grammar for Beginners. 40 cents. Analysis of the English Sentence, with Diagrams. 75 cents. Outlines in Grammar and Discussion of Infinitives and Participles. 25 cents. Methods in Arithmetic. 25 cents. Outlines in Psychology. 25 cents. TRANSFENNEL 10 ARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY MAY 26 1921 COPYRIGHT, 1890, 1903, BY JONATHAN RIGDON. Norwood Press J. S. Cushing & Co. - Berwick & Smith Co. PREFACE TO THE THIRTIETH THOUSAND.1 SINCE the Grammar of the English Sentence appeared, twelve years ago, the author has used it as a text in sixty different classes, aggregating nearly ten thousand students. There could have been offered no better opportunity to determine what positions are tenable, what points need further elaboration, what statements should be modified, and what matter may be omitted. The opportunity has not been allowed to pass unused. The book has been entirely rewritten. Not every sentence has been changed, but every one has been carefully examined. The fundamental ideas of the old book—that grammar is the science of the sentence, that the sentence is determined by the thought it expresses, that English grammar should be an exposition of present usage, and that a knowledge of it is indispensable to ability to speak and write correctly-remain fundamental in the new one. The historical feature has received no attention, partly because others have done it so much better than the writer could do it, but chiefly because it is regarded as unessential to the purpose of this book. It has been estimated that of every hundred pupils now studying English grammar not more than one will ever read a page of English earlier than the age of Elizabeth. This book is for the ninety and nine. The one must find elsewhere the exhaustive study of historical English accidence. Conspicuous among the new features are: (1) More attention to the thought foundations of grammar. The Introduction will afford the teacher an opportunity to work out with his class the essential relations between thought forms and their verbal expressions. This work will require care and patience, but it must be thoroughly mastered. an effort has been made not to overdo this phase of the work, for it is well to keep constantly in mind that grammar is grammar and not logic or psychology. 1 The Preface to the First Thousand may be seen on page 292. Yet |