the press would extend this preface much beyond the limit to which any expediency could accompany it. We therefore content ourselves with naming the principal writers who in the present century have contributed substantially to improve this department of school instruction: - In England may be distinguished the works of Hazlitt, Grant, Banks, Pinnock, Russell, Hiley, Marcet, Booth, Arnold, Turner, Latham, Smart, Allen and Cornwell, Wilson, Flower, and James; in Scotland, those of Lennie, M'Culloch, D'Orsey, Reid, and Connon; in Ireland, those of the Commissioners of National Education, and Sullivan; in America, those of Brown, Webster, Frazee, and Wells. Of the numerous attempts which have been made, in our day, to simplify the subject of English Grammar to little children, few will be found to impart any thing beyond amusement; for most of them rather disguise than explain the difficulties of the subject, and incur such inaccuracy by their attempts to simplify, that they deprive Grammar of its chief utility. An elementary treatise adapted to the capacities of children must, indeed, be imperfect; but the imperfection should consist merely in deficiency, that future improvement may require not the correction of what is erroneous, but only the extension of what is limited. Such an outline as that by Mr. Wilson of Westminster, when taught with explanation, by a lively and judicious instructor, is of more real service to the youthful mind than all the grammatical toy-books and play-things which ingenuity has devised. The difficulty of educating cannot be overcome by merely making Each weary, unwelcome, irksome task Appear in a fancy dress and a mask ;'* and a child can be induced to take sufficient interest in the operation and improvement of his intellect, without wishing that The books to teach the verbs and nouns Were in crimson silk, with gilt edges.'* Subjoined to this Text-Book is a tolerably complete list of the English Grammar books that have been published in this country; and, notwithstanding the great number of names which even a very modern portion of that list comprises, the author of the present work must, of course, be presumed to have thought that his addition to the number would not be found superfluous. He can only say that pressing solicitations from others preceded his own conviction of the propriety of this attempt; that his *Thomas Hood. possession of nearly all the treatises that have been published on English Grammar, and his experience as a teacher of that branch both to children and to adults, have enabled him to form some reasonable judgment as to what is practically useful in matter and in method; that he has endeavoured to be neither a servile copyist nor an ambitious innovator; and that he hopes this publication will be vindicated by being found answerable to the special purpose which is professed on its title-page. The work, in respect to size and price, is intermediate to those which contain the mere technical forms of Grammar and those which treat the subject with argumentative fulness; but it is so constructed that a judicious teacher may easily engraft upon it a more minute and extensive philology for advanced students, or derive from it an accurate and simple outline for younger minds. BATTERSEA, May, 1848. |