29. Our language is worthy to be assiduously studied by all who reside where it is spoken, and who have the means and the opportunity to become critically acquainted with it. To every such student it is vastly more important to be able to speak and write well in English, than to be distinguished for proficiency in the learned languages and yet ignorant of his own. It is certain that many from whom better things might be expected, are found miserably deficient in this respect. And their neglect of so desirable an accomplishment is the more remarkable and the more censurable on account of the facility with which those who are acquainted with the ancient languages may attain to excellence in their English style. "Whatever the advantages or defects of the English language be, as it is our own language, it deserves a high degree of our study and attention. * * * Whatever knowledge may be acquired by the study of other languages, it can never be communicated with advantage, unless by such as can write and speak their own language well."—DR. BLAIR: Rhetoric, Lect. ix, p. 91.
30. I am not of opinion that it is expedient to press this study to much extent, if at all, on those whom poverty or incapacity may have destined to situations in which they will never hear or think of it afterwards. The course of nature cannot be controlled; and fortune does not permit us to prescribe the same course of discipline for all. To speak the language which they have learned without study, and to read and write for the most common purposes of life, may be education enough for those who can be raised no higher. But it must be the desire of every benevolent and intelligent man, to see the advantages of literary, as well as of moral culture, extended as far as possible among the people. And it is manifest, that in proportion as the precepts of the divine Redeemer are obeyed by the nations that profess his name, will all distinctions arising merely from the inequality of fortune be lessened or done away, and better opportunities be offered for the children of indigence to adorn themselves with the treasures of knowledge.
31. We may not be able to effect all that is desirable; but, favoured as our country is, with great facilities for carrying forward the work of improvement, in every thing which can contribute to national glory and prosperity, I would, in conclusion of this topic, submit—that a critical knowledge of our common language is a subject worthy of the particular attention of all who have the genius and the opportunity to attain it;—that on the purity and propriety with which American authors write this language, the reputation of our national literature greatly depends;—that in the preservation of it from all changes which ignorance may admit or affectation invent, we ought to unite as having one common interest;—that a fixed and settled orthography is of great importance, as a means of preserving the etymology, history, and identity of words;—that a grammar freed from errors and defects, and embracing a complete code of definitions and illustrations, rules and exercises, is of primary importance to every student and a great aid to teachers;—that as the vices of speech as well as of manners are contagious, it becomes those who have the care of youth, to be masters of the language in its purity and elegance, and to avoid as much as possible every thing that is reprehensible either in thought or expression.
CHAPTER IX.
OF THE BEST METHOD OF TEACHING GRAMMAR.
"Quomodo differunt grammaticus et grammatista? Grammaticus est qui diligenter, acutè, scienterque possit aut dicere aut scribere, et poetas enarrare: idem literatus dicitur. Grammatista est qui barbaris literis obstrepit, cui abusus pro usu est; Græcis Latinam dat etymologiam, et totus in nugis est: Latinè dicitur literator."—DESPAUTER. Synt., fol. 1.
1. It is hardly to be supposed that any person can have a very clear conviction of the best method of doing a thing, who shall not at first have acquired a pretty correct and adequate notion of the thing to be done. Arts must be taught by artists; sciences, by learned men; and, if Grammar is the science of words, the art of writing and speaking well, the best speakers and writers will be the best teachers of it, if they choose to direct their attention to so humble an employment. For, without disparagement of the many worthy men whom choice or necessity has made schoolmasters, it may be admitted that the low estimation in which school-keeping is commonly held, does mostly exclude from it the first order of talents, and the highest acquirements of scholarship. It is one strong proof of this, that we have heretofore been content to receive our digests of English grammar, either from men who had had no practical experience in the labours of a school-room, or from miserable modifiers and abridgers, destitute alike of learning and of industry, of judgement and of skill.
2. But, to have a correct and adequate notion of English grammar, and of the best method of learning or teaching it, is no light attainment. The critical knowledge of this subject lies in no narrow circle of observation; nor are there any precise limits to possible improvement. The simple definition in which the general idea of the art is embraced, "Grammar is the art of writing and speaking correctly," however useful in order to fix the learner's conception, can scarcely give him a better knowledge of the thing itself, than he would have of the art of painting, when he had learned from Dr. Webster, that it is "the art of representing to the eye, by means of figures and colors, any object of sight, and sometimes emotions of the mind." The first would no more enable him to write a sonnet, than the second, to take his master's likeness. The force of this remark extends to all the technical divisions, definitions, rules, and arrangements of grammar; the learner may commit them all to memory, and know but very little about the art.
3. This fact, too frequently illustrated in practice, has been made the basis of the strongest argument ever raised against the study of grammar; and has been particularly urged against the ordinary technical method of teaching it, as if the whole of that laborious process were useless. It has led some men, even of the highest talents, to doubt the expediency of that method, under any circumstances, and either to discountenance the whole matter, or invent other schemes by which they hoped to be more successful. The utter futility of the old accidence has been inferred from it, and urged, even in some well-written books, with all the plausibility of a fair and legitimate deduction. The hardships of children, compelled to learn what they did not understand, have been bewailed in prefaces and reviews; incredible things boasted by literary jugglers, have been believed by men of sense; and the sympathies of nature, with accumulated prejudices, have been excited against that method of teaching grammar, which after all will be found in experience to be at once the easiest, the shortest, and the best. I mean, essentially, the ancient positive method, which aims directly at the inculcation of principles.
4. It has been already admitted, that definitions and rules committed to memory and not reduced to practice, will never enable any one to speak and write correctly. But it does not follow, that to study grammar by learning its principles, or to teach it technically by formal lessons, is of no real utility. Surely not. For the same admission must be made with respect to the definitions and rules of every practical science in the world; and the technology of grammar is even more essential to a true knowledge of the subject, than that of almost any other art. "To proceed upon principles at first," says Dr. Barrow, "is the most compendious method of attaining every branch of knowledge; and the truths impressed upon the mind in the years of childhood, are ever afterwards the most firmly remembered, and the most readily applied."—Essays, p. 84. Reading, as I have said, is a part of grammar; and it is a part which must of course precede what is commonly called in the schools the study of grammar. Any person who can read, can learn from a book such simple facts as are within his comprehension; and we have it on the authority of Dr. Adam, that, "The principles of grammar are the first abstract truths which a young mind can comprehend."—Pref. to Lat. Gram., p. 4.