genius. Accustomed to weigh syllables, they neglect what has been written by good authors, and minutely examine words, in order to measure them with the compass that marks the narrow circle of their art. They obstinately try to bring our best writers within their confined notions, and do not conceive that a language so rich as ours presents too extensive a field to admit of being restrained by the rules which custom and analogy apply to ordinary expressions. Purity, correctness, and elegance of style are attained by studying, as models, writers who have become classics."

“Grammarians, with their syntax and etymology, teach how to avoid solecisms; but this is not all that is necessary, in order to be able to speak a language such as ours, which presents endless varieties, which it is impossible to reduce to a complete system of precepts. The great masters pass rapidly from the most general rules to the reading of good authors. They keep the best grammars under their hands as books of reference, as faithful guides which prevent their wandering from the right road."

It may without hesitation be affirmed, that grammar is not the stepping-stone, but the finishing instrument by which we improve and perfect the practical knowledge of a language we already know. The study of it should, therefore, be postponed until some progress has been made in the practice of the four branches.

*Histoire de la Langue Française.

CHAPTER III.

COURSE OF GRAMMATICAL STUDIES.

SECT. I.-GRAMMAR TO BE LEARNED BY INDUCTION.

LET it not be inferred from the foregoing remarks that we disregard grammar; we only wish it to be considered as secondary to practice. We object to it, as being unsuited to the capacity of young children and ill calculated as an introduction to the study of a foreign language, that is, as an aid to reading and hearing. We also condemn the practice of forcing it on the memory of learners, instead of addressing it to their reason.

Although grammar does not of itself constitute the art of speaking and writing correctly, it contributes largely to this double object. It is too important a branch of literary instruction to be exposed to the risk of not being understood by our imposing it prematurely on children and on beginners. It must be studied, but studied at a proper season; then it will prove useful to learners; for if practice in the arts precedes theory, theory in its turn improves the arts.

The office of grammar is to determine the relations which the constituent parts of speech bear to each other in significant combinations. On a knowledge of the combinations rests the power of inferring the relations of the parts. Particular grammar is an inductive art, as general grammar is an inductive science; and in all such arts or sciences we arrive at general principles by inference from facts: the more numerous these are the more easily and the more certainly are the principles ascertained. The student, ambitious to master the grammar of a language, should first diligently collect facts, examine them in all their bearings, and compare them with each other; he may afterwards sum up the result of his investigations. It is only after a careful analysis of facts that we can generalise and classify them. If, for instance, a number of individual expressions be pre

See John Stoddart, Universal Grammar, ch. i.

sented, in which the same peculiarity of arrangement prevails, any young person of ordinary capacity will be struck by the resemblance, will readily imitate that peculiarity of arrangement when required to construct other sentences of the same sort, and will easily of himself infer the rule which governs them all. This analytical mode of studying grammar, similar to the intellectual process by which we arrive at a knowledge of the natural laws, is the most rational and the most favourable to mental discipline: it consists in observing facts, comparing them, remarking their resemblances and differences, and afterwards bringing into the same class all similar facts. Those which may be generalised constitute the rules, and those which are not comprised within any class form the exceptions. Thus observation, comparison, and generalisation are the essential means of arriving at the knowledge of a particular grammar. It is by this inductive process that all grammars have been made.

A practical acquaintance with the written and the spoken language, supplying the facts on which particular grammar is founded, is the most rational preparation for learning the arts of speaking and writing. It is by explaining authors that a professor can best teach the mechanism of language to his pupils: the signification, place, and inflections of words, as they are found incorporated in discourse, are the best criterions by which their nature and relations can be known. All the rules of grammar, in fact, are in the written page; it is his office to bring them out. Reading the foreign language cannot, therefore, be commenced too soon. If the student should previously learn the grammar, he would be deprived of this mental exercise in comparison and generalisation. Besides, principles relating to unknown expressions are void of interest, whereas the mind delights in the consideration of principles which account for known facts. The rules which are deduced from observation made in the course of reading on the reiterated occurrence of grammatical facts, procure to the mind the pleasure which usually attends the consciousness of a discovery, and are retained with all the permanency of pleasurable sensations.

Beneficial, however, as it may be for a learner to observe by himself, he should not be refused the instruments which may help him in his observations. It is not enough that, in reading and analysing authors, he should infer the rules of composition by induction from the phraseology; this random way of acquiring the grammatical principles of the language would never give him

a complete and systematic knowledge of them; a methodical treatise on the subject is indispensable, if he wishes to have a comprehensive view of the theory of a language. A few months of assiduous study of a good grammar, after some practice in inferring the rules from the written page, would tend to generalise, connect, and complete the scattered notions of grammar acquired by induction in reading foreign authors.

The grammatical work which is used in aid of induction, and as an auxiliary to the oral instruction of the professor, must be studied with caution; for, in the present state of the science, the definitions and theories of grammars are not always clear or sound. Modern grammarians, having found in the Latin grammar a classification and nomenclature ready made, have adopted them without always examining if the forms of their own language were perfectly similar to those of Latin; and in thus subordinating facts to their systems, instead of subordinating their systems to facts, they have confused all the principles of the grammatical science, and have destroyed the genius of languages.

SECT. II.-STUDY OF THE NATIONAL GRAMMAR.

Particular grammar treats of facts, and arises from the practice of one language; general grammar treats of principles, and arises from a comparison of several languages. Facts being antecedent to principles, the study of the former should precede that of the latter, and the particular grammar of the native tongue should be learned before that of any other.

In favour of this course it may be observed :—1. Signification, not the material form of the words, being the basis of the grammatical system, the study of it must be pursued with more satisfaction in reference to the language the learner knows than to one of which he is ignorant ;-2. The relations between words, being dependent on the relations between the ideas which they represent, must necessarily be best understood by him in the idiom which most readily recalls the thought;-3. The practical knowledge which he possesses of the vernacular tongue, furnishing him with a large supply of illustrations, permits him to study its theory with profit ;-4. Beginning with the national grammar secures useful information to those whose time of scholastic instruction is limited; whereas by the opposite course,-beginning with the grammar of the foreign tongue,—no available know

ledge would be gained by a person who had not attained proficiency in that. tongue.

A child under the age of twelve may, before entering on a regular study of the national grammar, be initiated into the first elements of grammar, by having his attention directed to the material form of words, to the places which they occupy relatively to each other, and to their various functions in discourse, as was suggested in Book iv. Chap. III. Sect. VI. But, after this age, and when he is familiarised with these elementary notions, the nature of words and the grammatical distinctions concerning them will be best explained to him by a reference to the ideas and to the operations of the mind. In the first case, he distinguishes, for example, an adjective by its admitting more, less, too, &c, before it, or er and est in its termination, by its being placed before a noun, or allowing the substantive man or thing after it. In the second case, he is made to consider it as a word which attributes property or quality to a subject, or as being a term of comparison; and he is shown that the adjective is always joined to a substantive, or used with reference to one, because the attribute which it represents is essentially united to the substance to which it belongs, and apart from which it has no existence. Definitions are deferred to the last, as being intelligible only to the proficient in language: they are formulas by the aid of which he accounts for what he knows.

From the consideration of words the learner passes to that of their combinations: at first, the grammatical concord and syntactical rules are presented to him as pure conventions; afterwards, he is shown the ideological principles on which these rules are based. But, at any time, he should be made to combine illustrations of the rules by means of native compositions, with the exercise of parsing and the analysis of national standard works thus, by the combination of practice with theory, the principles will be rendered more clear, and the understanding of the learner will be exercised.

A familiarity with the national grammar will be the best preparation for a similar study in a foreign language, as the learner will find in the grammar of that language nearly the same technical denominations, the same definitions, and the same kind of matter. When once he clearly conceives, in his native expressions, the characteristic differences between the subject and the object, the neuter and the active verb, the indicative and the subjunctive, &c., he will find no difficulty in applying his know