The object of the first verb is made the subject of the second verb; the second verb represents its subject as receiving the action expressed by the verb.

What is the subject of the verb in the third sentence? What is the object of the verb? How is car used in the fourth sentence?

A transitive verb that represents its subject as acting is called active. A transitive verb that represents its subject as being acted upon is called passive..

Which verbs are active in the sentences at the head of this lesson? Which are passive?

WRITTEN EXERCISES.

I.

Copy these sentences, and underline the verbs that have the passive form:

I. The Southern States export cotton.

2. Cotton is exported by the Southern States.

3. Two steamers were seen in the distance.

4. We saw a wild duck.

5. The trees were planted in the spring.

6. This bay has an inlet from the sea.

7. The light-house stands on a point of land.
8. The car was broken by the fall.

9. A carriage was sent to the train.

IO. The boat arrives at six o'clock.

II.

Change these sentences, making the verbs passive: —

I. The merchant displayed his wares.

2. We informed our friends of our arrival.

3. The girls gathered autumn leaves.
4. The child opened the picture-book.
5. The farmer reaped the grain.

6. The company explored the cave.
7. They found many curiosities.

8. William Penn founded Philadelphia.

L

LESSON XXI.

ADJECTIVES THAT COMPLETE PREDICATES.

1. The grapes are ripe.

2. Your hands look cold.

3. She is happy.

What is asserted of the grapes? Does are alone tell anything about the grapes? What word is used with are, to complete the assertion? What does ripe describe?

Read the predicate of the second sentence.

Name the verb. What

word is used with the verb, to complete the predicate? What does cold describe?

What word in the third sentence completes the predicate? What does happy modify?

Adjectives used with is, are, was, were, and some other verbs, to complete predicates, are called predicate adjectives. 7

A predicate adjective modifies a noun or a pronoun in the subject.

WRITTEN EXERCISES.

Write sentences, using the following adjectives, to complete predicates. Underline the adjectives used and the words which

1. Longfellow was a poet.

2. Bayard Taylor was a great traveller.
3. The willow is a graceful tree.

How many names do you see in the first sentence? What is the office of the first name? Of the second name? Which name is used

in the predicate? To what does poet refer?

Whom is the second sentence about? What was Bayard Taylor? What two words in the third sentence refer to the same thing? Which of these words is used in the predicate?

Which nouns above are used in the predicate and refer to the subjects of the verbs?

A noun used in the predicate and referring to the subject of the verb is called a predicate noun.

COPERNICUS AND WHAT HE THOUGHT.

About 400 years ago there was a man named Copernicus. He lived in the city of Rome and taught mathematics in one of the great universities.

He watched the motions of the sun and stars, and studied them carefully. He could not believe that the sun and moon and stars were fastened in a crystal arch that whirled around the earth once a day. This was what other people thought, but he believed that such beauty as he saw in the skies must be due to some simpler and more beautiful arrangement.

You remember the little rhyme,

"Twinkle, twinkle, little star,

How I wonder what you are,"

but I must tell you that all stars do not twinkle.

If you look

at them at night when the sky is clearest, you will see how

lively the light of most of them sparkles and flashes, as if they were laughing at you, but if you look carefully, you may find a few that do not twinkle at all; they shine with a clear and a steady light. These are called planets. The earth is one of these planets, and if you could get far enough away from it you would see it shine as brightly as any of them.

Now Copernicus saw that the sun and all these planets are in a system by themselves; the twinkling stars are far away beyond them all. He believed the earth to be a globe, turning around upon its axis once a day. He believed the sun and all the other planets to be globes too, and that they were whirling on their own axes also. He watched their motions through the heavens and found that each one has its own path in which it travels around the sun. They leave no track behind them, and yet their way is never lost. Time after time has each one travelled over and over again its noiseless journey in its smooth and unmarked pathway around the sun.

Copernicus hardly dared to tell the world his new ideas about the heavens, for it was then a dangerous thing to believe anything different from what others thought to be true. He who did, would sometimes be driven from his home, shut up in prison, or punished with painful torture. So Copernicus kept his thoughts to himself, but he wrote them out in a little book, and not until the very day on which he died was the first printed copy of it received. What he did not dare to teach while alive, everybody has, since his death, learned to be true. The sun is the centre of the system; the earth and all the other planets go around him at different distances in the heavens.

LE ROY C. COOLEY.