Exercise 2

Mark all of the prepositional phrases in the following poem:

THE ANGEL OF DISCONTENT

When the world was formed and the morning stars

Upon their paths were sent,

The loftiest-browed of the angels was made

The Angel of Discontent.

And he dwelt with man in the caves of the hills,

Where the crested serpents sting,

And the tiger tears and the she-wolf howls,

And he told of better things.

And he led them forth to the towered town,

And forth to the fields of corn,

And told of the ampler work ahead,

For which his race was born.

And he whispers to men of those hills he sees

In the blush of the misty west;

And they look to the heights of his lifted eye—

And they hate the name of rest.

In the light of that eye does the slave behold

A hope that is high and brave;

And the madness of war comes into his blood—

For he knows himself a slave.

The serfs of wrong by the light of that eye

March with victorious songs;

For the strength of the right comes into their hearts

When they behold their wrongs.

'Tis by the light of that lifted eye

That error's mists are rent;

A guide to the table-lands of Truth

Is the Angel of Discontent.

And still he looks with his lifted eye,

And his glance is far away,

On a light that shines on the glimmering hills

Of a diviner day.

Exercise 3

Mark all of the prepositions in the following poem. Write the entire phrases and mark the word which is the object of the preposition. For example, in the phrase in the second line; from a rich dream, dream is the object of the preposition from; and a and rich modify the noun dream.

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase)

Awoke one night from a rich dream of peace,

And saw, within the moonlight of his room,

Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,

An angel, writing in a book of gold.

Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,

And to the Presence in the room he said,

"What writest thou?" The Vision raised its head,

And, with a look made of all sweet accord,

Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord."

"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so,"

Replied the Angel. Abou spoke, more low,

But cheerily still; and said, "I pray thee, then,

Write me as one that loves his fellow-men."

The angel wrote and vanished. The next night

It came again, with a great wakening light,

And showed the names whom love of God had blessed,

And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.

SPELLING

LESSON 19

There are a few prepositions which might really be called derivative prepositions.

1. A few prepositions are formed from verbs. These are really participle prepositions, for they are the present participles of the verbs but have come to be used like prepositions. These are such as concerning, excepting, regarding, respecting, during, according, etc. Nearly all of these participle prepositions can be expressed by a preposition phrase, as for example, we can either say; I wrote regarding these facts, or I wrote you in regard to these facts. I mentioned them all excepting the last, or, I mentioned them all with the exception of the last. I have gone according to the directions, or, I have gone in accord with the directions.

2. Derivative prepositions are also formed by prefixing a to other parts of speech, as along, around, abroad, etc. Strictly speaking these might be called compound prepositions for the prefix a is really from the preposition on.

3. We have also compound prepositions formed:

By uniting two prepositions, as into, within, throughout, etc.

By uniting a preposition and some other part of speech, usually a noun or an adjective, as beside, below and beyond.

We also have a number of compound verbs which are made by prefixing a preposition to a verb. Some of these compound words have quite a different meaning from the meaning conveyed by the two words used separately; as for example, the compound verb withstand, derived from the preposition with and the verb stand, has almost the opposite meaning from stand with.

Our spelling lesson this week includes a number of these compound verbs formed by the use of the verb and a preposition. Look up the meaning in the dictionary. Use them in sentences in the compound form; then the two words separately as a verb and a preposition and note the difference in the meaning.

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

PLAIN ENGLISH

LESSON 20

Dear Comrade:

We are taking up in this lesson the study of the last important part of speech. We have spent some little time on the study of these parts of speech, but it has been time well spent. We cannot use good English and construct sentences that express our thoughts without an adequate knowledge of the words we use in sentence building. As soon as we finish the study of the parts of speech, we will spend several weeks in sentence building. This will give us a review of these lessons in which we have studied separate words.

The English language is one of the most interesting of all to study. It is the most truly international of all languages, for the English language contains words from almost every language in the world. Did you ever stop to think that we could have internationalism in language as well as in other things? We can be as narrowly patriotic concerning words as concerning anything else.

Nations have been prone to consider all those who do not speak their language as barbarians. Germany, perhaps, possesses as strong a nationalistic spirit as any country, and in Germany this spirit has found expression in a society formed for the purpose of keeping all foreign words out of the German language. They have published handbooks of native words for almost every department of modern life. They insist that the people use these words, instead of foreign importations. The German State takes great pride in the German language and considers it the most perfect of any spoken today. The rulers of Germany believe that it is a part of their duty to the world to see that all other nations speak the German language. In conquered Poland, only German is permitted to be taught in the schools or to be spoken as the language of commerce. The patriots in language seem to believe that there is some connection between purity of language and purity of race.

In English, however, we have the beginnings of an international speech. Our civilization is derived from various sources. Here in America we are truly the melting-pot of the nations, and this is mirrored forth in our language which is, in a way, a melting-pot also, in which have been thrown words from every tongue. Those for whom nationalism is an important thing will probably cling to the idea of a pure unmixed language, but to those of us to whom Internationalism is not an empty word, but a living ideal, an international language becomes also part of the ideal.

There is a wealth of wonderful literature open to us once we have gained a command of the English language. Pay especial attention to the quotations given in each lesson. These are quotations from the very best literature. If there are any of them that arouse your interest and you would like to read more from the same author, write us and we shall be glad to furnish you full information concerning further reading.

Yours for Education,

THE PEOPLE'S COLLEGE.

CONJUNCTIONS

328. You remember that in Lesson 3, where we studied the parts of speech, we found that we had another connective word besides the preposition,—the conjunction.

A preposition connects two words and shows what one of them has to do with the other. The conjunction plays a different part as a connective, for it connects not only words but also phrases and clauses. Note the following sentences:

The use of the conjunction saves a great deal of tiresome repetition, for, by its use, where two subjects have the same predicate or two predicates have the same subject, we can combine it all into one sentence.

You will readily realize how important this part of speech is to us. If we did not have conjunctions our speech would be cumbersome and we would have to use a great many short sentences and a great deal of repetition. If we wanted to make the same statement concerning a number of things, without conjunctions, we would have each time to repeat the entire statement. Try to write a description of a scene and avoid the use of conjunctions and you will see what an important part these connective words play in our power of expression.

Without the use of the conjunction, you would necessarily use a great many short expressions and repeat the same words again and again, and your description would be a jerky, tiresome, unsatisfactory piece of writing.

Exercise 1

Rewrite the following sentences, writing in separate sentences the clauses that are united by the conjunctions:

  1. The birds are singing and spring is here.
  2. We talk of peace, but war still rages.
  3. The unemployed cannot find work and they are dying of hunger.
  4. We believed in war for defense and every nation is now fighting for defense.
  5. We believe in education and we are struggling for universal education.
  6. The old order is fast passing and the new order is rapidly appearing.
  7. Profit is the keynote of the present, but service shall be the keynote of the future.
  8. All children should be in school, but thousands must earn their bread.

Note that these sentences are made up of two or more simple sentences combined; and each of these simple sentences is called a clause, and each clause must contain a subject and a predicate.