Correlations Needed. The language exercise should be closely correlated with history, geography, nature study, and especially literature. Much of this correlation necessarily will be incidental, particularly in oral recitations.

All Written Work the Best Possible. · - All written lessons should be in the best English that the students can command. This should be a rigid requirement. The pupils should understand that a paper sloven in style, careless or incorrect in vocabulary, will not be accepted. This requirement strictly enforced will do more to develop the habit of using good English than any number of formal compositions. These may not be neglected, however. They are very necessary, but in life out of school one's English is judged by his use of language in expressing his thoughts upon all subjects in conversation and in letters. Very few indeed ever have occasion to attempt strictly literary composition. This fact should be a guide to the teacher.

Every Lesson a Language Lesson. — All teachers are of necessity teachers of language and all lessons should be language lessons. Indeed, every lesson is a lesson in language, good or bad, for it is by expressing, not certain selected thoughts, but all thoughts, that habits of speech are formed.

Caution. A caution, however, is needed here. Language is used in expressing thought. In our eagerness to secure correct expression, we must not ignore the thought; clear thinking must precede clear, fluent expression. In their anxiety to correct error, teachers sometimes so annoy and interrupt children as to stop the thinking and thus cut off the means of instruction.

The correction, if needed, should not break into the current of thought, but should come after the statement has been completed.

Résumé. By the employment of good models of oral speech and literary composition, by stimulating thought that demands expression, by training to lucid and logical thinking as the basis of lucid and logical expression, by securing abundant and free expression, both oral and written, and by teaching inductively the necessary principles and laws of correct expression, it is possible to secure for most children a fair degree of the inestimable power, fluently, clearly, effectively, and even elegantly to express their thoughts.

CHAPTER VI

ENGLISH GRAMMAR

GRAMMAR treats of the science of language. It consists in a properly classified statement of the rules that govern correct speech and of the facts and principles underlying these rules.

The Laws of Speech. - The "laws of speech" in their origin differ wholly from the " laws of nature,” which are a statement of the mode of action of natural forces and are inherent in nature, and hence inviolable and unchangeable. They differ also from statute laws, which are enactments made by legally constituted authorities for the control of the conduct of those lawfully subject to them, and hence are arbitrary rather than natural, are not inviolable, but may be changed by the proper authorities.

The laws of grammar are arbitrary rather than natural, but they are not enacted by any legally constituted authority. They are the result of convention and are drawn from the usage of "standard writers," which has been generally accepted as correct. Hence they are not only violable, but are in many instances attended with a degree of uncertainty, giving rise to differences of opinion as to what is correct usage. Moreover, they are subject to material change from time to time. For example, Shakespeare and the Bible present many instances of the double negative, in modern grammars universally pronounced incorrect.

It is sometimes said that we have no English grammar. This, though an extreme statement, has a certain basis of fact. Along the old lines our grammar has been reduced pretty nearly to the minimum. The bulk of our modern grammar is to a considerable degree traditional and artificial. It is made up of more or less vain attempts to make it appear that the simpler present-day forms are to be treated like the complex forms they have displaced. The great modern changes in our language are in the line of simplicity and economy. Inflections have well nigh disappeared and easier means of expressing variations of relation have succeeded them.

For the six cases of the Latin and the five of the Greek, to show the relations of nouns, we have two forms only. Instead of the three inflectional voices of the Greek verb, ours has none, the relations formerly so indicated being expressed wholly by the use of additional words. Of the six modes with inflectional forms of the Greek we have two, and when the fast-disappearing subjunctive sleeps with its fathers, we shall have none.

Whether the verbal expressions made up of the stem word with prepositions or auxiliaries will permanently be classified under the old inflectional names, remains to be seen. Probably, as the present tendency is decidedly toward simplicity, they will gradually be dropped. Indeed this is to be hoped. I believe that such elimination would mean no loss whatever to the English language, or to the student, but on the contrary would set free an immense amount of energy now wasted in trying to fit obsolete or obsolescent names to new and more virile forms.

As a matter of curiosity let us see what inflectional forms remain to us. Of the regular verb there are these:

love, loves, loved, loving, -four. Of the irregular verb be: be, am, is, are, was, were, being, been, – eight, the largest number.

Of the noun: boy, boy's, boys, boys',

-four.

Of the adjectives and adverbs, comparison only. What slight material is this for the building of a grammar of the proportions of a Greek grammar, with its five cases of nouns in each of the three numbers, these multiplied by three genders for adjectives; its three voices of verbs, each with its six moods consisting of six tenses of three numbers each and three persons to each number. Of course there were many repetitions among these forms, otherwise even the Greek mind would have staggered underneath the load. Theoretically it was necessary to have nine hundred and seventy-two inflectional forms of a regular Greek verb.

Truly the power of tradition is mighty among us that we still keep above ground the ghosts of so many of these forms. Still for the present we must teach, and children must learn, the conventional forms and be thankful that they are no more numerous.

Functions of Grammar. To the trained adult mind the study of grammar has certain higher uses which may only be referred to here. Grammar bears a close relation to both history and philosophy. The grammar of a people is an index to the mode of mental activity peculiar to that people, which is, naturally, largely responsible for its ideals, its philosophy, and its achievements. For example, the German retains many inflections that have been discarded by his livelier neighbors, the French and the English speaking races. This is in harmony with his natural conservatism. He indulges in long involved sen